The Newsboy’s Sermon

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 15, 1900

The Newsboy’s Sermon

IN New York City a bright-eyed, barefooted, shabby little fellow was working his way through a crowded car, offering his papers in every direction, in a way that showed him well used to the business, and of a temperament not easily daunted. The train started while he was making change, and the conductor, passing him, laughed. “Caught this time, Joe!” he said. “You’ll have to run to Fourteenth Street.”

“Don’t care,” laughed Joe, in return. I can sell all the way back again.”

A white-haired old gentleman seemed interested in the boy, and questioned him concerning his way of living and his earnings. There was a younger brother to be supported, it appeared. “Jimmy” was lame, and “could n’t earn much hisself.”

“Ah, I see. That makes it hard; you could do better alone.”

The shabby little figure was erect in a moment, and the denial was prompt and somewhat indignant. “No, I could n’t! Jim’s somebody to go home to; he’s lots of help. What would be the good of havin’ luck, if nobody was glad? or of gettin’ things, if there was nobody to divide with?”

“Fourteenth Street!” called the conductor, and as the newsboy plunged out into the gathering dusk, the old gentleman remarked, to nobody in particular, “I’ve heard many a poorer sermon than that!”