"One Neglected Child." A good many years ago, in one of the upper counties of New York, there was a little girl named Margaret. She was not brought to Christ, but was turned out on the world to do as she pleased. She grew up to be perhaps the wickedest woman in that part of the country. She had a large family of children, who became about as wicked as herself; her descendants have been a plague and a curse to that county ever since. The records of that county show that two hundred of her descendants have been criminals. In a single generation of her descendants there were twenty children. Three of these died in infancy. Of the remaining seventeen, who lived to grow up, nine were sent to the state prison for great crimes; while all the others were found, from time to time, in the jails, the penitentiaries, or the almshouses. Nearly all the descendants of this woman were idiots, or drunkards, or paupers, or bad people, of the very worst character. That one neglected child thus cost the county in which she lived hundreds of thousands of dollars, besides the untold evil that followed from the bad examples of her descendants. How different the result would have been if this poor child had been brought to Jesus and made a Christian when she was young!
"The Result of Early Choice." Here is a short story of two boys, of the choice they made when young, and the different results that followed from that choice.
A minister of the gospel was preaching on one occasion to the convicts in the state prison of Connecticut. As he rose in the desk and looked around on the congregation, he saw a man there whose face seemed familiar to him. When the service was over he went to this man's cell, to have some conversation with him.
"I remember you very well, sir," said the prisoner. "We were boys in the same neighborhood; we went to the same school; sat beside each other on the same bench, and then my prospects were as bright as yours. But, at the age of fourteen, you made choice of the service of God, and became a Christian. I refused to come to Christ, but made choice of the world and sin. And now, you are a happy and honored minister of the gospel, while I am a wretched outcast. I have served ten years in this penitentiary and am to be a prisoner here for life."
Jesus knew what blessings would follow to those who were early brought to him, and we see that there was great wisdom in the words that he spake when he said—"Suffer the little children to come unto me."
In the next place there was—GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT—in what Jesus did and said about children.
If a company of boys or girls should try to get into the presence of a monarch, some great king, or emperor, they would find it a pretty hard thing to do. At the door of the palace they would meet with soldiers or servants, the guards of the queen or king. They would say to the children—"what do you want here?" And if the children should say, "Please sir, we wish to go into the palace and see the queen," the answer would be: "Go away; go away. The queen is too busy. She has no time to attend to little folks like you." And the children would have to go away without getting to see the queen.
But, Jesus is a greater king than any who ever sat upon an earthly throne. He has more to do than all the kings and queens in the world put together. And yet he never gave orders to the angels, or to any of his servants to keep the children away from him. On his great throne in yonder heavens he says still, what he said when he was on earth—"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." And he says this on purpose to encourage the children to come to him. And the thought that Jesus loves them and feels an interest in them has encouraged multitudes of little ones to seek him and serve him. Here are some illustrations of this:
"Learning to Love Jesus." "A little girl came to me one day," said a minister of the gospel, and said, "'Please sir, may I speak to you a minute?' I saw that she was in some trouble; so I took her kindly by the hand, and said, 'Certainly, my child. What do you wish to say?'
"'Please, sir,' said she, as her lip quivered and tears filled her eyes, 'it's a dreadful thing; but I don't love Jesus.'