AN UNMANAGEABLE BOY by E. J. Driver

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 26, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 39.

AN UNMANAGEABLE BOY.

By E. J. Driver

WHEREVER character is forming there God is waiting to lend a helping hand.

For many years a certain woman had been a member of the church; but somehow her experience seemed blank and uninviting. The cares of an unhappy home took all her time, and life was an endless grind.

This day had been more trying than usual. Everything had gone wrong. She was tired; husband had gone to his night work cross and gloomy; and her boy—it was for him she was anxious—he had acted worse than ever before. He was nine years old now, and nine years of mismanagement had shaped him a very unhappy character. The mother realized how little she herself could do to change it, but something must be done. Her life had been almost a prayerless one, but to-night tearfully she knelt in prayer. O, would God help her, not for herself alone, but for her darling boy!

The next day was wash day. There was much to be done, and the boy was pressed into service to help carry wood and water. All went well till an ice wagon came rumbling down the street. "Ah," thought the boy, "fine chance for fun!" And in a moment he was on the seat with the ice man.

Presently the mother needed wood, but the boy was gone. She was not much surprised, but, then, her prayer! Would God help her, after all?

In a few minutes some one climbed over the back-yard fence, and with downcast eyes came quickly into the house. "I thought of you, mama, and couldn't run away," was all he said; but tears told the story of a struggle.

And that day, as she worked, the woman sang for the first time in years:—

"If our hearts were pure and simple, We should take Him at His word, And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of our Lord." E. J. DRIVER.