"I have every thing I want," she says, as she sits beside me, "for God is my Father, and his children, you know, Missus, inherits the earth."
"How happens it, then, that you are so poor?" I ask.
"My Father gives me every thing he sees best for me," is her beautiful reply. "It wouldn't be good for me to have a great many things. When I need any thing, I ask him, and he always gives it to me. I AM PERFECTLY SATISFIED."
Dear children, upon this little story-tree two golden apples of instruction hang, which I want you to pluck and enjoy. One is, that if God so loved a humble slave-child, and took such pains to bring her to himself, it is our privilege to feel the same sympathy and love for this poor despised race. And this love will draw us two ways: first, towards God, admiring and praising his infinite goodness and compassion; and, secondly, towards these prostrate, down-trodden people, to do all we can, in God's name, and for his dear sake, for their elevation and instruction. Remember, "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple,"—that is, through this feeling of love, of Christian kindness, "he shall in no wise lose his reward."
The other,—if God so loved this humble slave-child, he has the same love towards every one of you. Will you not yield yourselves to his control, and let his various loving-kindnesses draw you too to himself?
OLD DINAH JOHNSON.
ONE day little Henry Wallace came to his mother's side, as she was sitting at her work, and, after standing thoughtfully a few moments, he looked up in her face and said:
"Ma, how many heavens are there?"
"Only one, my child," replied his mother, looking up from her work with surprise at such a question. "What made you ask me that?"
"Isn't there but one?" inquired Henry, with a little sort of trouble in his voice. "Then, will Dinah Johnson go to the same heaven we do?"