"What makes the tears come, little darling sister?"
"O Louise, I don't know quite; but I think and I think about it, and wish I could see him and hear him speak. If he would only say, 'Nellie, come here,' I would run so fast; and I can't make it seem as though he cared now for me. My teacher in the Sunday school says I must give my heart to him; but I don't know how. If I could see him and ask him about it, as they had a chance to do, I think it would be so nice; and then I can't help crying."
"Jesus said, 'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me.' But his disciples rebuked them."
"Is it possible," thought Louise, "that I have been one of those faithless disciples, rebuking, or at least ignoring, the presence of one of his little ones, while I reached out after fruit that I dared to think was of more importance!"
I cannot explain to you with what a chill her heart took in this thought, and she gathered Nellie to her, and her voice was tenderness itself.
"You poor little lonely lammie. Would no one show you the way to the Shepherd? It is just as easy, darling, as it was when he was on earth, and he calls you just as surely. You don't know how to give your heart to him? I shouldn't wonder if you had done it without knowing how. Do you think you love the dear Saviour, Nellie, and want to try to please him?"
"I'm sure I do," said Nellie, brushing back the tears and looking with earnest eyes into her questioner's face. "I do want to, but I keep forgetting and doing naughty things, and then am sorry, and I think I won't ever again, and then I do; and, oh dear! I don't know what to do."
The old sad cry of the awakened human heart: "That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not, but what I hate, that do I." And the sad little heart had not learned the triumphant chorus, "'Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
"Poor darling!" said Louise, and she held her close. "I know all about it. But see here: if you love him, then you have given him your heart—whoever you love has a piece of your heart—and if you love him very much, so that you are determined to please him just as well as you can, then you belong to him, and he has blessed you. Nellie dear, I know what you have been thinking about: you would have liked if you had been there so that he could pray for you."
"Yes, I would!" said Nellie, the emphasis of a strong desire in her voice.