Old Michael could with difficulty be persuaded to eat anything, or to quit his post during the day. Little Jeanie was at length sent to him with some food, to try if he would receive it at her hands.
“Here,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. “You must take some of this, or you will become weak and ill. God, you know, gives us food to support our bodies, just as He sends His holy spirit to strengthen our souls. It is very wrong not to eat when we require food, and so it is when we refuse to receive the aid of the Holy Spirit, which we so much need every moment of our lives.”
“Who told you that, little damsel?” asked the old man, looking up in the child’s sweet face.
“Mamma, of course,” she answered. “And Mr Martin, the missionary, who came here some time ago, says she is right, and told me never to forget what she says to me. I try not to do so; but when I am playing about, and sometimes when I feel inclined to be naughty, I am apt not to remember as I ought; and then I ask God to help me and to forgive me, through Jesus Christ, and all those things come back again to my memory.”
“You naughty!” said the old man, gazing still more intently at the young fair countenance. “I don’t think you ever could be naughty.”
“Oh yes, yes, I am, though,” answered the child. “I feel sometimes vexed and put out, and so do all sorts of naughty things; besides, you know that God says, ‘there is none that doeth good, no, not one;’ and even if I did not think I was naughty, I know that I must be in His sight, for He is so pure and holy that even to Him the heavens, so bright to us, are not pure.”
The old man apparently did not understand what the child was saying to him, but the sound of her soft voice soothed his troubled heart. She little knew how dark and hard that heart had become.
“What is it you want, little damsel?” he asked, in a tone as if he had been lost in thought while she was speaking.
“I came to bring you this food,” she said. “I shall be so glad to see you eat some.”
The old man, without further remonstrance, almost mechanically, it seemed, consumed the food she offered him.