Part 30 (2/2)

And so we see how certain it is that G.o.d does provide relief in trouble for those who love and serve Him.

G.o.d KNOWS THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL.

”Mother, I think G.o.d always hears when we sc.r.a.pe the bottom of the barrel,” said a little boy to his mother one day. His mother was poor.

They often used up their last stick of wood and their last bit of bread before they could tell where the next supply was to come from. But they had so often been provided for in unexpected ways, just when they were most in need, that the little boy thought _G.o.d always heard when they sc.r.a.ped the bottom of the barrel_. This was only that little fellow's way of saying what Abraham said when he called the name of the place where G.o.d had delivered him, ”Jehovah-Jireh.”

G.o.d'S CARE FOR LITTLE CHILDREN IN LITTLE WANTS.

”I was early taught that G.o.d cares for His children, even to regard their _little_ daily wants. An ill.u.s.tration of my implicit confidence, which I do not remember ever to have been betrayed, occurred when I was about ten years of age. I was accustomed to give five cents each Sabbath at the Sunday School collection for foreign missions. This money was not given me directly by my parents; but I was allowed to go on an errand, or to do some little piece of work for a neighbor and thus earn it, outside of the performance of the duties that naturally fell to my lot at home. At one time, when I was attending school about a mile from home, my time out of school was taken up by my walk to and from it and the ch.o.r.es which necessarily fall to a farmer's boy, so that for some months I had no opportunity of earning anything. One Sabbath morning, I dropped my last silver piece into the collection, with a prayer--which I always offered at such a time--that G.o.d would bless it to the heathen, that some one might be led to Him by it.

”I went home that day with a child's anxiety, feeling that I could not bear the thought of giving nothing for the heathen on next Sabbath, and yet not seeing how I could possibly obtain it. That night I asked my Heavenly Father to provide the money for me. The anxiety was all gone; for I felt that G.o.d would answer. Next morning, when almost at the school-house, I found a handkerchief in the road, in the corner of which was securely tied a silver quarter and a silver dime. Instantly my thoughts flew to the next Sabbath, and to the prayer I had offered. O, yes! I thought, G.o.d has more than answered my prayer; instead of giving me just enough for next Sabbath, He has given me enough, for seven Sabbaths.

Then the thought came, somebody lost it; yes, it was my duty to find the owner, which I did not expect would be difficult, although it was in town. So I cheerfully gave it up, thinking that 'the Lord will provide'

in some other way. I took it directly to my teacher, and asked her to find the owner. She made faithful inquiry, but no one was found to claim it. Who can question this being an answer to prayer, when we think of the numerous _chances_ against its occurring just as it did.”

A CHILD'S PRAYER FOR PAPA.

A drunkard, who had run through his property, returned one night to his unfurnished house. He entered his empty hall. Anguish was gnawing at his heart-strings, and language was inadequate to express his agony as he entered his wife's apartment, and there beheld the victims of his appet.i.te, his loving wife and a darling child. Morose and sullen, he seated himself without saying a word; he could not speak; he could not look up then. The mother said to the little angel at her side, ”Come, my child, it is time to go to bed;” and that little baby, as she was wont, knelt by her mother's lap and gazing wistfully into the face of her suffering parent, like a piece of chiseled statuary, slowly repeated her nightly orison. When she had finished, the child (but four years of age) said to her mother, ”Dear Mother, may I not offer up one more prayer?”

”Yes, yes, my sweet pet, pray;” and she lifted up her tiny hands, closed her eyes, and prayed: ”O G.o.d! spare, oh! spare my dear papa!” That prayer was lifted with electric rapidity to the throne of G.o.d. It was heard on high--it was heard on earth. The responsive ”Amen!” burst from the father's lips, and his heart of stone became a heart of flesh. Wife and child were both clasped to his bosom, and in penitence he said: ”My child, you have saved your father from the grave of a drunkard. I'll sign the pledge!”

A LITTLE QUAKER BOY'S PRAYER RIGHT OUT IN MEETING.

A little Quaker boy, about six years old, after sitting, like the rest of the congregation, in silence, all being afraid to speak first, as he thought, got up on the seat, and, folding his arms over his breast, murmured in a clear, sweet voice, just loud enough to be distinctly heard on the front seat, ”I do wish the Lord would make us all gooder, and gooder, and gooder, till there is no bad left.”

WHAT THE LITTLE CHILDREN MAY DO.

At family prayer, little Mary, one evening when all was silent, looked anxiously in the face of her back-sliding father, who had ceased to pray in his family, and said to him with quivering lips, ”Pa, is G.o.d dead?”

”No, my child--why do you ask that?”

”Why, Pa, you never talk to him now as you used to do,” she replied.

These words haunted the father until he was mercifully reclaimed.

THE UNBELIEVING FATHER LED TO GO TO CHURCH.

An unbelieving father came home one evening and asked where his little girl was. ”She has gone to bed,” said his wife. ”I'll just go and give her one kiss,” said the father, for he loved his little daughter dearly.

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