A Diviner Gift

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · May 31, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 22.

A JAPANESE mother asked the head of one of our mission schools for girls, if only beautiful girls were admitted. “Oh, no,” the missionary answered, “we take any girls who desire to come.” “But,” protested the mother, “all your girls that I have seen are very beautiful.” The teacher answered, “We tell them of Christ, and seek to have them take Him into their hearts, and this makes their faces lovely.” The mother said, “Well, I do not want my daughter to become a Christian, but I am glad to send her to your school to get that look on her face.”

People everywhere are as short-sighted as this far-away mother of Japan. All people, pretty much, will join in the glad festivities of “Merry Christmas,” and yet the majority do not want Christ in their lives, any more than this pagan mother wanted her daughter to become a Christian. Like her, they simply do not see. They eagerly join the celebration of the birth of Christ without seeing it is Christ Himself who makes possible their gladness, and whose perfect service would bless them forever. If they could only see! Who, then, but would ask for the diviner Gift of Christ Himself?—Christian Advocate.