She did not know it, but the teacher who suggested her mission followed to see what she would do. When she turned a street corner, he turned it soon after her. At last she entered a little house, such as many of the colored people live in. It was made of boards, one story high, and had only one room. The day was warm. The door was open. He went to it and looked in. I will try to tell you what he saw.
Sallie sat in a chair with her Bible in her lap, reading. One colored woman was, seemingly, busy at a table, ironing clothes. But her iron went back and forth nearly in the same place, while she looked away, eyes and mouth open, to little Sallie, to whom she listened attentively. Another had ceased from her work, and, leaning against the wall, looked down upon our little missionary in a most loving, motherly way. A third was sitting at her feet and gazing with her great, dark face into the face of Sallie, who, in a low, sweet voice, was reading: “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Was it not beautiful? You know this is a prophesy of Christ, written many hundred years, before the sufferings it describes, which Jesus bore for us. Find the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah and read it for yourselves, my young friends, and think that Sallie read it to those poor colored women; and as you go over these verses, may the same love and joy fill your hearts as filled hers.
Remember, also, that you, too, may be workers for Christ in some way. It may not be in Sallie’s way. She used to sing “There’ll be something in Heaven for children to do.” There is something for them to do on earth, too. Seek God’s guidance and He will show you what. Christ says that if we give even a cup of water to any one, for His sake, we shall not lose our reward. Sallie did not work for pay, but she had her reward in the consciousness that she was pleasing Jesus and doing good to those women.
Many years have passed since the time of this narrative. Little Sallie is now a young woman. Through the aid of kind friends she completed the course of studies in the Normal department of Fisk University, and is now teaching colored children in the far-off State of Texas. The freed people of the South need such teachers; they need also ministers of their own race; and many missionaries are needed for Africa.
One way, my dear young friends, in which you can serve the Lord, is this: Help us to educate these young people. When you put a little piece of money into the box for this cause and for Jesus’ sake, He sees it and will say to you in the last day: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”