ONLY BELIEVE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 21, 1878

ONLY BELIEVE.

One evening the children in Falk’s Reformatory, at Weimar, sat down to supper. When one of the boys had said the simple grace, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and bless what thou hast provided,” a little fellow looked up and said,—

“Do tell me why the Lord Jesus never comes. We ask him every day to sit with us, and he never comes.”

“Dear child, only believe, and you may be sure he will come; for he does not despise our invitation.”

“I shall set him a seat,” said the little fellow, and just then there was a knock at the door. A poor apprentice entered, begging for a night’s lodging. He was made welcome; the chair stood ready for him; every child wanted him to have his plate; and one was lamenting that his bed was too small for the stranger, who was quite touched by such uncommon attentions. The little one had been thinking hard all this time.

“Jesus could not come, so he sent this poor man in his place; is that it?”

“Yes dear child, that is just it. Every piece of bread and every drink of water that we give to the poor, or the sick, or the prisoners, for Jesus’ sake, we give to him. ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”

The children sang a hymn of the love of God to their guest before they parted for the night, and neither he nor they were likely to forget the simple Bible comment.—Praying and Working.