—Chicago Woman's World
JESSIE FINDING JESUS
A little girl in a wretched tenement in New York stood by her mother's death-bed, and heard her last words: "Jessie, find Jesus."
When her mother was buried, her father took to drink, and Jessie was left to such care as a poor neighbor could give her. One day she wandered off unnoticed, with a little basket in her hand, and tugged through one street after another, not knowing where she went. She had started out to find Jesus. At last she stopped from utter weariness, in front of a saloon. A young man staggered out of the door, and almost stumbled over her. He uttered passionately the name of Him whom she was seeking. "Where is He?" she inquired eagerly. He looked at her in amazement.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"Will you please tell me where Jesus Christ is? for I must find
Him"—this time with great earnestness.
The young man looked at her curiously for a minute without speaking, and then his face sobered; and he said in a broken, husky voice, hopelessly: "I don't know, child; I don't know where he is."
[Illustration]
At length the little girl's wanderings brought her to the park. A woman evidently a Jewess, was leaning against the railing, looking disconsolately at the green grass and the trees.
Jessie went up to her timidly. "Perhaps she can tell me where He is," was the child's thought. In a low, hesitating voice, she asked the woman: "Do you know Jesus Christ?"