p. 359 | Molly’s Pennies

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 23.

Molly’s Pennies.

The young assistant editor of one of the most important magazines in New York is also the teacher of a class of little ragamuffins in a mission Sunday-school. These children are allowed to bring a penny each on Sunday, for the help of other children still worse off than themselves. Mind, they are allowed, as a privilege—not required, or even expected. It is set before them as an honor to help in the good work; and many of them bring their penny regularly—others when it is convenient—others seldom; but there is scarcely one so poor as not sometime to produce it.

Among the class is one little mite, perhaps six years old, who always comes well-patched and clean, yet whose whole aspect shows her to be one of the very poorest of the poor. She is not a pretty child. Life has been hard on her, and pinched her little face, and made sharp angles where there ought to be soft outlines and dimples; but she has bright, eager eyes, and she never loses a word the teacher says to her, and he feels that she is one of his most hopeful scholars.

One Sunday of winter, when the times were very hard, he heard a small voice at his elbow:

“Teacher!”

“Well, Molly?”

“Please, sir, here's four pennies, for this Sunday, and three more Sundays.”

“Why do you bring them all at once, Molly?” the teacher asked, with curious interest.

“Because, please, father is out of work, and he said there might not be any pennies if I did not take them now,” and the thin little brown hand slipped into his a brown paper parcel in which the four pennies were carefully wrapped.

So the good work was not to suffer, however hungry the child's mouth might be before the month was over. The teacher wondered how many of the rich men, playing with fortunes as a child plays with toys, would remember, before making some desperate throw, to provide for the charities they were wont to help, lest there should not be any money in the weeks to come.—Youth’s Companion.