Saved by love : $b A story of London streets — John Shaqi
Saved by love : $b A story of London streetsLeslie, Emma
General
Saved by love : $b A story of London streets
Leslie, Emma
Christian life -- Juvenile fiction; Homeless girls -- Juvenile fiction
Elfie was generally willing to do anything to please her companion,
and she very readily consented to this. And so, after shutting the
door, the two girls knelt down in the pale moonlight beside a chair,
and Elfie repeated the words slowly and reverently as Susie uttered
them—the divine words that make all men brothers and all women sisters.
There must have been some such thought as this in Susie's mind, for as
she crept into bed after Elfie she said, "I did not think of it before,
but you are my sister, Elfie, so I shall never forget to love you;" and
she kissed her as she spoke.
Elfie threw her arms round her. "Say you'll love me always," she
whispered; "for there's nobody else in all the world if you don't."
"I do love you," said Susie. "But oh, Elfie, I wish you'd believe God
loves you too—that he is our Father."
"I don't know nothing about fathers; I never had a father," said
Elfie. "But if you'll love me, perhaps I shall believe that God does,
by-and-by—especially as the Lord Jesus was a poor man. I like to hear
about that, because, you see, it makes it seem somehow that he knows
all about poor people—even street rubbish like I am, if he had no bed
and no home."
Before they went to sleep that night, Elfie had learned to repeat the
Lord's Prayer almost perfectly (she could learn quickly if she liked);
and at last dropped to sleep murmuring the words, "Our Father—our
Father." And Susie thought over all she had heard that day of the
heavenly Father's love; and at last fell asleep, to dream that her
mother had come back to lift all the care off her shoulders, and
shelter her from every rough wind that blew.
But Monday morning brought the every-day anxiety with it; and Susie's
first thought was of the landlord, and what he would say when he came
in the afternoon and found she had only tenpence of the rent saved up
in the tin box. She tried to recall something of what she had heard the
previous day—tried to cast her care upon God; but it was very hard;
and it was not until she had knelt down and prayed, ay, and sobbed out
her trouble before him, that she could believe any of it this morning,
although she had felt so sure of it the day before.
Elfie had woke up first and gone out. She often did this if there was
only a small piece of bread in the house, because then she could leave
the bread for Susie, and pick up her breakfast at the market, or about
the streets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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