Asking the great God of heaven
That their sins may be forgiven;
And He hears the prayer.”
When Susan came home from her class on Sunday afternoons, Daisy was always full of eager questions about the children, and would lie with her large eyes fixed on her sister, as she told of the poor little ones whom she was trying to teach about Jesus.
Susie had gentle ways, and loved her little sister dearly, and devoted much of her spare time to her; while Daisy in return unconsciously taught her elder sister many a lesson of patient submission and quiet trust. For never can the life of anyone, however young, feeble, and apparently helpless, that is really united to Jesus Christ by living faith, be spent in vain. “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life;” and whether that fruit be manifested in active service or in patient suffering, it shall not be in vain in the Lord. After all, it is not so much our work as our will that God asks and desires of us—the offering up of ourselves as a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice; and the little child that day by day looks up to heaven, and tries from love to Jesus to be gentle, loving, and obedient, or to bear with quiet patience the weary pain which keeps it still and lonely when other children are at their merry pastimes, does not live in vain, but is bringing forth the fruit of righteousness, to the praise and glory of God.
Weeks and months went by; but no more was seen or heard of the little strangers, though night after night the Morleys’ door was left unlatched, in the hope of their return; and every day when the children gathered round the hearth the father ended his petitions with an earnest prayer that the little lost ones might one day be found, either on earth or in heaven.
Daisy’s confidence that God would hear, and that some day they would be brought back, was unshaken, though day after day passed by without bringing anything further to light about them. “Our prayer-children,” she would call them; and perhaps few little beggar children ever had so many loving thoughts bestowed on them, so many sweet prayers breathed upwards into the ears of the Lord of heaven and earth, prayers that were not spoken in vain, but which were even now preparing a harvest of blessing.
