How well I recollect this disappointment to myself, again and again, when
a mere child! In those early seeking days I never could understand why,
sometimes, a good man whom I heard preach or speak as if he loved Christ
very much, talked about all sorts of other things when he came back from
church or missionary meeting. I did so wish he would have talked about
the Saviour, whom I wanted, but had not found. It would have been so much
more interesting even to the apparently thoughtless and merry little
girl. How could he help it, I wondered, if he cared for that Pearl of
Great Price as I was sure I should care for it if I could only find it!
And oh, why didn't they ever talk to me about it, instead of about my
lessons or their little girls at home? They did not know how their
conversation was observed and compared with their sermon or speech, and
how a hungry little soul went empty away from the supper table.
The lips of younger Christians may cause, in their turn, no less
disappointment. One sorrowful lesson I can never forget; and I will tell
the story in hope that it may save others from causes of similar regret.
During a summer visit just after I had left school, a class of girls
about my own age came to me a few times for an hour's singing. It was
very pleasant indeed, and the girls were delighted with the hymns. They
listened to all I had to say about time and expression, and not with less
attention to the more shyly-ventured remarks about the words. Sometimes I
accompanied them afterwards down the avenue; and whenever I met any of
them I had smiles and plenty of kindly words for each, which they seemed
to appreciate immensely. A few years afterwards I sat by the bedside of
one of these girls--the most gifted of them all with both heart and head.
She had been led by a wonderful way, and through long and deep suffering,
into far clearer light than I enjoyed, and had witnessed for Christ in
more ways than one, and far more brightly than I had ever done. She told
me how sorrowfully and eagerly she was seeking Jesus at the time of those
singing classes. And I never knew it, because I never asked, and she was
too shy to speak first! But she told me more, and every word was a pang
to me,--how she used to linger in the avenue on those summer evenings,
longing that I would speak to her about the Saviour; how she hoped, week
after week, that I would just stretch out a hand to help her, just say
one little word that might be God's message of peace to her, instead of
the pleasant, general remarks about the nice hymns and tunes. And I never
did! And she went on for months, I think for years, after, without the
light and gladness which it might have been my privilege to bring to her
life. God chose other means, for the souls that He has given to Christ
cannot be lost because of the unfaithfulness of a human instrument. But
she said, and the words often ring in my ears when I am tempted to let an
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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