She tried for weeks to find something to do for Christ. One day as she was walking down the street, she saw a little boy coming out of a shoemaker’s shop. The man had a wooden last in his hand, and he was running as fast as he could after the boy. When he found he could not overtake him, he hurled the last at him and hit him in the back. When the shoemaker had picked up his last and gone back to his shop, the boy stopped running and began to cry. The scene touched the heart of this young lady. When she got up to him she stopped and spoke to him kindly.
“Do you go to the Sabbath-school?” “No.”
“Do you go to the day-school?” “No.”
“What makes you cry?” He thought she was going to make sport of him, so he said it was none of her business. “But I am your friend,” she said. He was not in the habit of having a young lady like that speak to him; at first he was afraid of her, but at last she won his confidence. Finally, she asked him to come to the Sabbath-school, and be in her class. No, he said, he didn’t like study; he would not come. She said she would not ask him to study; she would tell him beautiful stories and there would be nice singing. At last he promised that he would come. He was to meet her on Sabbath morning, at the corner of a certain street.
She was not sure that he would keep his promise, but she was there at the appointed time, and he was there too. She took him to the school and said to the Superintendent: “Can you give me a place where I can teach this boy?” He had not combed his hair, and he was barefooted. They did not have any of that kind of children in the school, so the Superintendent looked at him, and said he did not know just where to put him. Finally he put him away in a corner, as far as he could from the others. There this young lady commenced her work—work that the angels would have been glad to do.
He went home and told his mother he thought he had been among the angels. When the mother found he was going to a Protestant school she told him he must not go again. When the father got to know it, he said he would flog him every time he went to the school. However, the boy went again the next Sabbath, and the father flogged him; every time he went he gave the poor boy a flogging. At last he said to his father: “I wish you would flog me before I go, and then I won’t be thinking about it all the time I am at the school.” You laugh at it, but, dear friends, let us remember that gentleness and love will break down the opposition in the hardest heart. These little diamonds will sparkle in the Savior’s crown, if we will but search them out and polish them. We cannot make diamonds, but we can polish them if we will.
Finding that the flogging did not stop the boy from going to the school, the father said: “If you will give up the Sabbath-school, I will give you every Saturday afternoon to play, or you can have all you make by peddling.” The boy went to his teacher and said: “I have been thinking that if you could meet me on the Saturday afternoon we would have longer time together than on the Sabbath.” I wonder if there is a wealthy young lady reading this book who would give up her Saturday afternoons to teach a poor little boy the way into the kingdom of God. She said she would gladly do it; if any callers came she was always engaged on Saturdays. It was not long before the light broke into the darkened mind of the boy, and a change came into his life. She got him some good clothes and took an interest in him; she was a guardian angel to him. One day he was down at the railway station peddling. He was standing on the platform of the carriage, when the engine gave a sudden start; the little fellow was leaning on the edge, and his foot slipped so that he fell down and the train passed over his legs. When the doctor came, the first thing he said was: “Doctor, will I live to get home?” “No, my boy, you are dying.” “Will you tell my father and mother that I died a Christian?” Did not the teacher get well paid for her work? She will be no stranger when she goes to the better land. That little boy will be waiting to give her a welcome.
It is a great thing to lead one soul from the darkness of sin into the glorious light of the Gospel. I believe if an angel were to wing his way from earth up to heaven, and were to say that there was one poor, ragged boy, without father or mother, with no one to care for him and teach him the way of life; and if God were to ask who among them was willing to come down to this earth and live here for fifty years and lead that one to Jesus Christ, every angel in heaven would volunteer to go. Even Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, would say: “Let me leave my high and lofty position, and let me have the luxury of leading one soul to Jesus Christ.” There is no greater honor than to be the instrument in God’s hand of leading one person out of the kingdom of Satan into the glorious light of heaven.
I have this motto in my Bible, and I commend it to you: “Do all the good you can; to all the people you can; in all the ways you can; and as long as ever you can.” If each of us will at once set about some work for God, and will keep at it 365 days in the year, then a good deal will be accomplished. Let us so live that it may be truthfully said of us: We have done what we could.