LITTLE Winnie Lewis gave her heart to Jesus when she was only six years old. Three years after, when she was nine years old, she asked to be admitted to the church; but when they objected that she was too young, she walked over to21her pastor’s side, and said, “Last Sabbath, sir, you said that the lambs should not be kept out of the fold.”
“Yes,” he replied, “it is not for us to keep them out. I will see your friends, and take you into the church.”
With a bright and happy countenance, she said, “Thank you,” and passed out of the room. She was examined and received into the church the next week.
A few years completed her life on earth, but she found opportunities for doing many loving services for Christ, of which her pastor, Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, has told in the following words:—
“It was one hot day in June that I was called to attend her funeral. A crowd was around the house, and my eye fell on a crippled lad, crying bitterly as he sat on a low doorstep.
“Did you know Winnie Lewis, my lad?” I asked.
“Know her, is it, sir? Never a week passed but she came to our room with a picture or book, mayhap an apple for me; an’ it’s owin’ to her that I’ll follow her blessed footsteps to heaven. She’d read me from her own Bible whenever she came; an’ now she’s gone, there’ll be none at all to help me.”
“I passed on, after promising him a visit very soon, and made my way through the crowd of tear-stained, sorrowful faces. I came to a stop in the narrow passageway of the house. A woman stood beside me, trying to dry her fast-falling tears, while a wee child wept at her side.
“Was Winnie a relative of yours?” I asked.
“No, sir; but the blessed child was often at our house, and when Bob here was sick, she helped to tend him, and her hymn quieted him when nothing else seemed to. It was just the same with all the neighbors. She took tracts to them all, and has prayed with them ever since she was converted. What she’s been to us all no one but the Lord will ever know, and now she lies there.”
“I was led to the room where the child lay, looking almost younger than I had seen her in my study a year before. An old, bent woman was crying aloud by the coffin.
“I never thought she’d go afore I did. She used regular to read and sing to me every evening, an’ it was her talk that made a Christian of me. You could almost go to heaven on one of her prayers.”
“‘Mother, come away,’ said a young man, putting his arm around her to lead her back. ‘You’ll see her again.’
“‘Yes, but I miss her sore now.’
“‘It’s the old lady Mrs. Lewis lived with, sir,’ said a young lad standing next to me, as one and another still pressed up toward the little casket for a last look at the beloved face. ‘She could not hold out against Winnie’s prayers and pleadings to love Jesus, and she’s been trusting him now for quite a while.’
“‘You are right, my lad,’ I replied. ‘Do you trust him, too?’
“‘Winnie taught me, sir,’ the lad made answer, and the sudden tears filled his eyes.
“A silence fell on those assembled, and, marveling at such testimony, I proceeded with the services, feeling as if there was little more I could say of one whose deeds thus spoke of her. Loving hands had laid flowers all around the child who had led them. One tiny lassie had placed a dandelion in the small waxen fingers. The service over, again and again was the coffin lid lifted by some one longing for another look. It seemed as if they could not let her go.
“The next day a good-looking man came to my house, and said: ‘I am Winnie’s uncle, sir. She never rested till she made me promise to come to Jesus, and I’ve come. You see, sir, it was this way: Winnie was always very fond of me, and so was I of her. Though I was not a Christian, yet I knew her religion was true. Half an hour before she died, she had the whole family with her, telling them she was going; and she took my hand between her little ones, and said, ‘Uncle John, you will love Jesus, and meet me in heaven, won’t you?’ What could I do? It broke me all up, and I have come to ask you, sir, what to do so I can keep my promise to Winnie.”
“Within a month Winnie’s uncle was received into the church, a sincere disciple of Christ.”
The story of Winnie’s influence may well be an incentive to many an older Christian. God grant that it may be.