TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1199, 22 February 1895, Page 11

TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

By Rev. William Birch, D.D. HOOKEY SAM. One Saturday while walking over the Kinder Scout and Mam Tor mountains, in Derbyshire, I was overtaken by a mist and a storm of rain- and hail. Boing very weary, I was glad to find a dog, and gently holding on by his tail, he led me to a lonely house which I recognised as the place where Hookey Sam lived by himself. People who I come from that part of Derbyshire will no ' doubt have heard of him. Through gambling and drink, he had gone through, it was said, a quarter of a million of sovereigns, and had become so wicked in his old age that his wife and children bad been compelled to leave him. He had lost one of his hands, and having had an iron hook made to fasten to the stump of his arm, was called Hookey Sam, and lived two miles from any other house. The dog led me to his door and I knocked. Receiving no answer, I knocked louder and sevei'al times. At length I heard a voice, " Come in !" and opening the door and entering, 1 found Hookey Sam lying on the wcoden settle or bunk-in a pitiable condition. He had been alone five days very ill and thought he was going to die. All the refreshment he had been able to obtain was a drink of cold water from the kettle, the fire having gone out three days previously. The only food in the room was a hard crust in the cupboard ; and there lay the wicked old man in dirt and misery. He said, "When I heard someone knocking at the door I thought it was the Devil come for my | soul." I I lighted the fire, and, while the water boiled, made him a little more comfortable. Soaking the hard crust, I fed him as if he had been a child, giving just a morsel to the dog. Then I told him the tale of the Prodigal Son and that God was his father. Poor Hookey Sam, how he wept! When I knelt down to pray he tried to lift himself up to kneel in his bunk but fell on me ; and afterwards, while I prayed, he put his hands in mine, he said, " to show God I am sorry for my bad life."

I Calling the dog, I went down through the storm to Castleton, and arranged at the little inn whefe I used to lodge, that Hookey Sam should be cared for in my absence, forgetting I was weary and hungry in the joy that another prodigal had come home to God. .And I gave the dog "a grand blow out" as the ostler, called it. Once a fortnight I went over the hills to see Hookey Sam, and was rejoiced to find him truly penitent and tremblingly grateful to our heavenly Father for His pardon and love. He said, "just think, I have lived above seventy years and never knew that God was my Father till now ; I thought I belonged to the Devil." He died in peace saying, " What mercy to save an old villain like me !" As a thank-offering he left me his haystack, the lease of his bouse and land, and his dog ; but t I only took the dog. Dear children, do you know that God is your Father 1 Are you living as if you ,vere alone and no God to love and care for you ? As I was sent by Him to the door of Hookey Sam, so He perhaps sends this Talk to say that you are His child whom He loves with all His heart. He says, " Behold, I stand at the door of you and knock to bring in purity, gentleness and truth, and make them part of you as the sunshine is part of the sun." Little one, pray to your heavenly Father to teach you to be His obedient and loving little child, and in your ways you will then grow like unto Him.