THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.
By Luella B. Priddy
Children as well as grown people have their trials, and the Lord is willing to help them bear them. Near us lives an aged woman, and two grandchildren who have been abandoned by their mother. The children have not had much care, and are therefore unruly, especially the boy. We were expecting them to visit us on a certain day. Our little adopted girl looked forward to their visit with a great deal of anxiety; for she feared the boy would destroy her playthings. Early on the morning of the day that we expected them to come, little Olive came to my room with a very sober face. “I was just thinking,” she said, “that we ought to have a little prayer for Bobby.” Then she knelt down at my knee, and in a few short sentences asked the Lord to help Bobby to be a better boy. At the conclusion of her prayer, she sprang to her feet, her face fairly radiant with joy, and in the next breath exclaimed, “Well, I don’t s’pose Bobby would have been so bad if he hadn’t just been born to it. His mother’s going off and leaving him when he was so young, it’s a wonder he isn’t worse than he is; I ’spect if you should go off and leave me, that I’d be ’bout crazy.” Then, assuming a thoughtful air, she continued, “Now, I’ll go and put my dolls away in the closet, and pick up my cards and things, so as not to temptation him too much.” And she tripped out of the room, singing merrily as she went about the house gathering up everything that she thought the boy would be likely to damage. Then she hastened to get her lessons,—“so’s to have plenty of time to play when the children come,” she said, and looked forward to their visit with actual pleasure. At last the visitors arrived, and the children played together pleasantly. I never heard a cross word or a complaint all day. This incident conveys its own lesson. This little child believed that prayer is an unfailing remedy for her troubles; and when she had done what she could to avoid difficulty, she cast her burden on the Lord, with no distrustful looking back to see if the burden was really gone. When Christ was on earth, He took a little child and set him in the midst of His disciples, and said, “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 18: 3.