as too awful to speak of to anybody. Baby that I was,
I shut my lips in a sort of reckless despair, and thought that if I
could not be good, I might as well be naughty, and enjoy it. But
somehow I could not enjoy it. I felt sorry and ashamed and degraded
whenever I knew that I had been cross or selfish.

I heard them talk about Jesus as if He were a dead man, one who died a
great while ago, whose death made a great difference to us, I could not
understand how. It seemed like a lovely story, the loveliest in the
world, but it sounded as if it were only a story, even to those who
repeated it to me; something that had happened far away in the past.

But one day a strange minister came into the Sabbath-school in our
little chapel, and spoke to us children about Him, oh! so differently!

"Children," he said, "Jesus is not dead. He is alive: He loves you, and
wants you to love Him! He is your best Friend, and He will show you how
to be good."

My heart beat fast. I could hardly keep back the tears. The New
Testament, then, did really mean what it said! Jesus said He would come
back again, and would always be with those who loved Him.

"He is alive! He loves me! He will tell me how to be good!" I said it
over to myself, but not to anybody else. I was sure that I loved Him.
It was like a beautiful secret between us two. I felt Him so alive and
so near! He wanted me to be good, and I could be, I would be, for his
sake.

That stranger never knew how his loving word had touched a child's
heart. The doors of the Father's house were opened wide again, by the
only hand that holds the key. The world was all bright and fresh once
more. It was as if the May sun had suddenly wakened the flowers in an
overshadowed wayside nook.

I tried long afterward, thinking that it was my duty, to build up a
wall of difficult doctrines over my spring blossoms, as if they needed
protection. But the sweet light was never wholly stifled out, though I
did not always keep my face turned towards it: and I know now, that
just to let his lifegiving smile shine into the soul is better than any
of the theories we can invent about Him; and that only so can young or
old receive the kingdom of God as a little child.

I believe that one great reason for a child's love of hymns, such as
mine was, is that they are either addressed to a Person, to the Divine
Person,--or they bring Him before the mind in some distinct way,
instead of being written upon a subje