WHY GOD CALLS CHILDREN EARLY -- CONTINUED

A third reason why God calls upon children, to seek him for salvation in early life is, people can come to him more easily in early life than in later years. The time to do anything in this world is when it can be done most easily and with the greatest advantage to the doer. There is a time in the year to plow the garden when it can be done the most easily and with the greatest profit. Every boy and girl knows that people do not wait until the ground is hard and dry in mid-summer, or until autumn when all chance to get a crop is gone. The garden is plowed and planted in the spring of the year, because it is the most favorable time; for precisely the same reason God wishes to begin his work in the heart of a child in the springtime of life, and make it a beautiful garden of the Lord.

1. In early life the feelings respond the most easily and naturally to the touch of divine truth, just as the strings of the harp respond to the touch of the harpist. These responsive feelings help the child to do right, help him to form the holy purpose to love and obey God. By and by, under the influence of sin, the feelings become cold and dead, and help the heart no more.

2. In childhood, also, the habits are not fully formed, and have only the strength of threads; years later they have the strength of ropes and chains that can not be broken. They bind the aged sinner to a course of confirmed sinfulness. Well do I remember a brilliant young man who had kind and good parents. He was a nice, beautiful boy when he was young. But when he was a young man in college he formed some bad habits which he could not break. He would come to me and weep over his sins, and promise to break off; but the very next day he would be a poor, helpless slave to his appetites and habits. I stood by his bedside when he was dying at twenty-six years of age, a victim of his evil habits, moaning out his tale of sorrow and shame over a wasted life. He was slain by the habits which he had deliberately formed, but afterward could not break.

3. Furthermore, in childhood the unfavorable influence of evil companions is not nearly so strong as it will be in later years. It seems incredible that it should be so, but a boy ten years old is twice as independent and brave and fearless in his moral action as the boy of fifteen. Until grace changes the heart, people become more and more cowardly and afraid to take a stand for Christ and duty in the face of the opinions or customs of their companions. Probably moral cowardice is ruining more people and causing the loss of more souls than any popular vice that can be named.

4. Still further, it is easier for a person to exercise faith in God and Christ when young than it can be again until God cleanses the soul. Faith is natural to the child; its whole life is a life of faith. You children trust your parents for food and drink and clothes and shelter without the least fear or doubt. It is but a little step further to trust the heavenly Father for pardoning grace. As a matter of fact, a child accepts Jesus as a personal Savior more readily, more naturally, more easily than the man of mature years, not because it is unreasonable or unmanly to believe in Jesus; but for the simple reason that a life of sin in time destroys the very power to believe.

Well does the writer remember two dear boys, seven and nine years of age, sons of a beloved friend. They had been trained in the home and in the Sabbath-school, and had learned to love Jesus. They were taken sick with malignant diphtheria, and died and were buried in the same coffin. When they were dying, and their father and other doctors were trying to save them, they said: "O papa, don't try to save us; let us die. It is so much better to die, and go home and live with Jesus, than to live in this world of sickness and pain and sin. Don't try to save us. Let us die." Thus the dear little fellows died in the sweetest peace and faith in the Lord. A few days afterward the writer went to comfort the father, Never will it be forgotten how the stricken father walked back and forth in the loom, wringing his hands and saying: "Oh, I would give anything if I had the faith of my little boys and could believe as they did! " He might have done it once when he, too, was young. But the faith faculty, partially unused for many years, had at last become partially lost, and it made it hard for him to believe, When he needed and wanted the comfort and strength of a blessed faith in God and heaven, he felt to his sorrow that he could not believe.

"Do you know," said a poor boy in a hospital to a lady who daily visited him, "what I've been thinking of all the morning?" "Of how soon you will see Jesus? "replied the lady. " Yes," he answered; "I've been thinking that I began this Sunday a poor sick boy in the hospital, surrounded with wicked men and sinful talk, and I think I shall be at home before night. I think I have begun a Sabbath that will never end. I don't think I shall ever have another week-day." In the evening she visited him again and found him with his eyes closed, sinking rapidly, but calmly. Stooping over him, she whispered: '"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.' Willie, is Jesus With you? Have you any fear?" "No, none, and I've been wondering why they call it a dark valley. I have found the light growing brighter and brighter ever since I first believed, and now it is so bright I must shut my eves." After praying, he said: '"That is my last prayer; now it will be praise for ever and ever." And he was soon at home, Wonderful faith!

A pastor writes this beautiful little story about a little girl, which I will give to you: "A girl in my Sunday-school gave her heart to Jesus, and was saved by him. One day by an accident she was dreadfully burned, and was taken to the hospital for better care. Amidst all her pains she was very happy and had no fear of death. One night, as she lay in the ward of the hospital in her bed, the rest all quiet, she was heard singing:

"'Jesus the name to sinners dear,
The name to sinners given,
it scatters all their guilty fears,
And turns their hell to heaven.

And then, after a pause and nothing was heard but the ticking of the great clock in the hail, she again sang:

"'Happy if with my latest breath
I may but speak His name,
Preach Him to all, and cry in death,

Behold, behold the Lamb!'"

The singing ceased. The nurse returned, and, stepping to the bedside of the little sufferer, looked at the child, but she was gone. On the wings of song her pure soul had gone to her Savior."

A young minister who had recently labored in a mission in New York City, told me last week of a little eight-year-old Catholic girl who came to his mission and was converted. She then began to pray that her mother might be led to give up her sins and give her heart to Jesus. The mother was soon converted. Then the two went to the mission and the mother arose and asked prayers for her wicked husband, but added: "I know it will do no good to pray for him." "Yes, it will," said the little girl. "My papa will learn to love Jesus and be a good man," That very night he came into the meeting and was moved by the Holy Spirit to forsake his sins and become a true child of God, The little girl had far more faith in prayer and God than her mother had.

The writer heard a gentleman tell of a little boy in Chicago who was very, very sick. The doctor came and told the mother that her little boy could not live the day out. The poor mother felt so broken-hearted that she could not tell her boy that he must die, She told her husband when he came home what the doctor had said, and told him that he must tell his little son, And so the stricken father with great anguish broke the news to the little boy that he must die that day. The child looked up without the slightest feat and said: "Dear papa, you need not feel so bad; you know I will go to heaven; and, papa, I will go straight to Jesus and tell him that ever since I was old enough to know anything you have taught me to love him." Such perfect faith in prayer and in Jesus and heaven is very common and very natural in children. But after years have been spent in neglect of prayer and God, the very power to believe dies out of the soul, and in time may be wholly lost.

The writer will never forget how he sat day after day in a sick-room by a dying old man, a dear friend, who sat propped up in his chair and held the Bible in his lap. He was trying to make his peace with God and get a hope of heaven. But the great beads of sweat, caused by the anguish of his soul, stood out on his brow, as he exclaimed again and again: "Oh, if I could only believe!" He prayed with great earnestness, but the time had passed when it was easy to find God.

The ease with which one can believe for salvation does not depend upon many years and much knowledge and learning. A child can love its mother just as truly as a man fifty years old, even though it can not explain what love is, So every child may have faith in its father, even though it can not explain what faith is.

A little child once got lost in the woods, and night came on, and it grew dark and they could not find him for a long time. At last he lay down under a log, cold and afraid, and cried as loud as he dared. At' length he heard some one calling. He was afraid at first that it was a wild beast. Then he plainly heard his own name. He stopped crying, and jumped tip and went toward the voice. He could not see anything, but he heard his father's voice and ran to him. Thus he could have faith, though he could not tell what faith was. The child Samuel could say in faith, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," though he could not know the voice of the Lord from the voice of Eli. So the little child can believe in Christ and know Christ, though he can not know and explain all the deep things in religion.

There is no time in life when it is so easy to forsake sin and give up wicked habits and wicked companions, and believe in Jesus and love him, as in early life. That is the reason why God calls upon all boys and girls to seek him in early life. The all-important task is so much more easily performed than it can be afterward that youth 'is the time to seek the salvation of the soul. The child may well sing:

"Lead me to Jesus, lead me to Jesus,
Help me to love him, help me to pray;
He is my Savior, I would believe him,
I would be like him to show me the way.

"Lead me to Jesus, he will protect me,
He is so loving, gentle and mild;
Calling the children, bidding them welcome;
Surely he calls me -- I am his child.

"Tell me of Jesus, tell of his mercy;
Is there a fountain, flowing so free?
All who are willing drink of its waters;
Say, is that fountain flowing for me?

"Lord, I am coming! Jesus, my Savior,
Pity my weakness, make me thy child;
I would receive thee, trust and believe thee,
I would be like thee, holy and mild."

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. What is the third reason for seeking God in early
2. Do the feelings respond more easily to truth in childhood?
3. Are evil habits so strong in childhood?
4. What about evil companions in childhood?
5. When is it. the easiest to exercise faith?
6. Give sonic of the instances of faith in childhood?
7. Is it difficult for the old to believe?

Song: What a Friend We Have in Jesus."