“O, mamma!” said little Alfred, “I do want to be God’s dear child. I do not love wicked people who swear, and get drunk, and break the sabbath.”
“No, I dare say not, Alfred. But those who swear, and get drunk, and break the sabbath, are not the only wicked people. There are some, who would not do any of these things for the world, who yet are not good in the sight of God. He sees their hearts, and he knows that they do not love him. They do not think of him. They love many things better than God.”
Alfred. “But it is so wicked, mamma, to love anything better than God!”
Mamma. “Yet how many do this, Alfred! How few little boys there are who think constantly of God, even when they are in church, or while they are saying their prayers.”
Alfred, who sometimes boasted how good he was, although he had often been told what a wicked and deceitful heart he had by nature, and how necessary it was that it should be washed in the blood of Jesus, said,
“Mamma, I think of God when I go to church, and whenever I say my prayers.”
Mamma. “I wonder then that you should have looked so long at those new boots, in church, last Sunday, my dear. I was quite sorry and ashamed to see you hold out your feet, and look at them so many times. Then you would pull the straps, and turn your foot round and round, that you might see the boots all over: and I do not believe that you heard a word of the sermon all the time. O, my dear Alfred, you thought more of your boots than of God!”
Alfred hung his head, and said he was sorry that he had done so; and that he would pray to God to forgive him for Jesus’ sake. He asked his mamma to pray that he might love God more, and try to do his will, not only on Sundays, but every day and all day long.