The Change

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 20, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 32.

MARJORIE, staying with an aunt for a time, went with her to call upon an old friend of her aunt's. The girl was delighted with their hostess.

"Such a calm, well-poised, delightful old lady," she said, enthusiastically, "and so brightly interested in everything and everybody. How I would like to have known her as a girl—she would have made an ideal chum, I'm sure."

"She was one of the most disagreeable girls in the village—for a time," was her aunt's surprising reply. "She was an only child, spoiled, wilful, headstrong. Then she lost her parents and her home suddenly, and made life a burden to those who opened their home to her. Then came a severe illness, the direct result of overindulged grief and unrestrained rebellion against her lot in life. In that illness and weakness God found a way to reach her as He had never done in her pride and strength. She saw the selfishness and wickedness of her past years; she realized that she had no right to hurt and sadden her own life and the lives of others; that rather she had a place to fill, a duty to perform, or God would not allow her to live. She gave up her will to Him; she resolved to make herself a blessing, a cheer, an inspiration, to every one she touched in her daily life. You saw to-day how well she succeeded," said her aunt. "I often think what a pity it was that she did not learn the lesson sooner, and so make sweet all those years that were so bitter through her own fault."—Onward.