TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1208, 26 April 1895, Page 10

TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS.

IN THE HEAVICNTrA' SUNTK3INE. By Mkv. vViLi.i.i.ii ttutcii, I.>. L>. It will interest you to read a portion of a long letter I have received from an apprentice who has written to me. He says ; My parents do not go to church, but they have always been very good to me. When I was a little fellow I went to Sunday school, but 1 don't i emember that it did me any good except keep me out of misehief. I smoke, but am a teetotaler. I don't think any of our men go to church, but they are kind to me, and as far as I can see they are as good as other people. Perhaps they waste too much on races, but I don't think they are mean. They say they agree with you that true religion is to act kindly to the poor and at home, and to do everything on the square. "What I want you to know is that for the first time in my life, on Saturday night, I knelt down to pray before getting into bed, like your friend Lynn. I said something like this, '"Our heavenly Father—God, help me to be pure in my thoughts, and kind to my parents, and to act on the square." Well, when I got into bed good thoughts came to me. You know, bad thoughts have always been my plague, but since then ,1 have not been so much troubled with them. I thought it would be right you should know that people think of what you say. One of our men argues that God does not know us as we know one another, else He would show up and stop sham Christians and people who do wrong to others,

This letter will do good in leading other young fellows to ask our heavenly Father to help them to be pure, and brave in doing right. In reply to the remark of one of the men in the workshop, I reply tbat God bears with all of us and with wicked persons because, though they do not yet know it, He is their Father. As the father of the prodigal son waited, so our Father waits until, of our own free well, we ask Him, in prayer, to forgive us aftd to teach us to become obedient children;

On a Sunday afternoon, I was onde present in a meeting where a lecturer tried to prote? that there was ho personal, God • and while his vulgarity pained n.e* I noticed that the' rajs of the sun; which hM btien shining through the window where I sat; went ph until they reached his face, and \i<3 paused to ask some one to pull down trie blind to keep the sunshine out of his eyes.' It reminded me of the words of Jesus, that the sun, shining on the evil and the good, was a picture of our heavenly Father's love. It is for all ©f us ; and because He loves us, He waits until like the prodigal son we come to our better self. From thinking that God is not good ; we have wrong notions about Him.

A lost dog who insisted on following me home "was put in our stable in a spare stall with a good supper. The .next morning he licked my hand and wagged his bushy tail so much that if it had not been well fastened On it might have come off. He followed me up and down the garden ; and wishing to see if he had been trained, I picked up a round stone to throw, saving, " Here, lad, fetch !" But when he saw the stone he ran away as for his life, only returning when I dropped the stone and showed him my empty hand. He had evidently been ill-treated by his master or others, and supposed 1 was like those who hurled stones at him. So people think God is like the average man. Instead of knowing Him as Christ pictures Him, we look at Him through the disoositionof our imperfect acquaintance. When the sunshine is on our face, we know that the sun is shining for us, as if it were our own So God's love is on every wicked man ', only the man doesn't yet know it ; but God waits a hundred years, yea, a million years, rather than let any man perish. Is not our heavenly Father as perfect as a good earthly parent ? Some day, every wicked man will open his eyes, and, seeing: the everlasting love of God, break down in brokenhearted but joyful penitence.' Yes j tell the man in the workshop that we are all in the heavenly sunshine, only some of us are blind.