PRAYING AND GIVING

Pacific Press Publishing Company · MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA · Jan 9, 1907

PRAYING AND GIVING.

WE are in no mood to pray as we ought until we have fulfilled the conditions. A little while ago there was a "carnival" where I live for the benefit of a local hospital. One morning was given up to the children, and my own were much interested. When we arose that day my little five-year-old boy began to count his money that he was going to spend at the fair. I said, "Do you not think you had better put some of that in your missionary bank?"

"O no," he said, "I need it all."

"But would you not have a happier day if you shared it with the other children?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Well, let us say our prayers."

He confined his prayers that morning to our immediate family circle—father, mother, sisters, and the little children he played with.

I said, "You are not going to leave out the little children on the other side of the world?"

He replied, "Now, father, I am saying this prayer."

"But don't you think you ought to remember them?"

"I am going to the fair," was the reply.

But the lad's conscience was tender, and by and by he prayed for the other little children—"O God, bless these other children as much as Thou hast blessed me."

When he got up from his knees, he said: "Father, I think I will put some of that money in the missionary bank."

His little conscience was still sufficiently unpolluted to realize that he was in a condition to pray for heathen children only when at least he shared with them the little he had. He could not pray where he would not give.—Selected.