Here is the picture of two little twin-boys, four years old. Some time ago, one of them said to his sister: “God does not sleep at night.” His father, who had heard the words, asked, “Lien-a, how do you know that God does not sleep at night?”
“The hymn says, ‘God night and day is waking, He never sleeps,’” answered the little fellow.
“But can’t you think of something yourself which shows that God is awake at night?” asked his father.
“I hear the wind at night,” said the child, after a little pause, “and see the moon and stars.” He meant God must be awake to keep the wind blowing and the moon and stars shining.
One day a friend gave each of the twins a bright new five-cent piece. Their mother took care of the coins, saying, “I will keep them for you, until we can get enough to use as buttons for your next new jackets,” and the little fellows were ever so happy. Not long after, people were gathering money to build a new church, and the little boys’ father said to them: “Children, have you got anything which you can give to help to build the new church?” The little boys thought and thought, then one of them said, “Yes, we have our silver buttons.” So they gave their treasured little shining pennies most gladly. But I think that God was gladder still.
CHAPTER III
THE CHILDREN’S HOME
Homes differ as much in China as in other lands. Some are palaces, some poor huts, some are caves cut into the face of cliffs, some are boats upon rivers, where thousands of boys and girls learn to handle the oar from their earliest childhood. Some are in dusty villages by the roadside, others are set between stairs of green rice fields upon mountain slopes, or built upon flat plains among giant millet and other crops.
A large number of children are brought up in cities. You cannot easily get at their homes because of the streams of blue-clad people who throng the streets. Come for a walk among the busy shops, so that you may know something of the place where Chinese boys and girls spend so much of their time. Sedan-chairs, carried by strong men, push through the crowd, shaving butchers’ stalls and narrowly missing the heads of running children. Burden bearers, with bags of rice on their backs, or loaded with vegetables, pigs in open baskets, bales of cotton or tobacco, follow one another over the slippery pavement.