Child salvation highlights the importance of faith and assurance in Jesus from a young age, emphasizing a trusting, childlike belief (Matthew 18:3). Illustrations often portray innocent trust, joyful hope despite trials, and the powerful testimony of children drawing others to Christ (Luke 18:16). These images underscore the urgency of nurturing salvation early in life.
A praying child influences his sinful father toward Christ despite opposition.
I remember when out in Kansas, while holding a meeting, I saw a little boy who came up to the window crying. I went to him and said: "My little boy, what is your trouble?" "Why, Mr. Moody, my mother's dead, and my father drinks, and they don't love me, and the Lord won't have anything to do with me because I am a poor drunkard's boy." "You have got a wrong idea, my boy, Jesus will love you and save you and your father too," and I told him a story of a little boy in an Eastern city. The boy said his father would never allow the canting hypocrites of Christians to come into his house, and would never allow his child to go to Sunday-school. A kind-hearted man got his little boy and brought him to Christ. When Christ gets into a man's heart he cannot help but pray. This father had been drinking one day and coming home he heard that boy praying. He went to him and said: "I don't want you to pray any more. You've been along with some of those Christians. If I catch you praying again I'll flog you." But the boy was filled with God and he couldn't help praying. The door of communication was opened between him and Christ, and his father caught him praying again. He went to him. "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? If I catch you at it once more you leave my house." He thought he would stop him. One day the old tempter came upon the boy, and he did something wrong and got flogged. When he got over his mad fit he forgot the threats of his father and went to pray. His father had been drinking more than usual, and coming in found the boy offering a prayer. He caught the boy with a push and said, "Didn't I tell you never to pray again? Leave this house. Get your things packed up and go." The little fellow hadn't many things to get together--a drunkard's boy never has, and went up to his mothers room. "Good-by, mother." "Where are you going?" "I don't know where I'll go, but father says I cannot stay here any longer; I've been praying again," he said. The mother knew it wouldn't do to try to keep the boy when her husband had ordered him away, so she drew him to her bosom and kissed him, and bid him good-by. He went to his brothers and sisters and kissed them good-by. When he came to the door his father was there and the little fellow reached out his hand--"Good-by, father; as long as I live I will pray for you," and left the house. He hadn't been gone many minutes when the father rushed after him. "My boy, if that is religion, if it can drive you away from father and mother and home; I want it." Yes, may be some little boy here to-night has got a drinking father and mother. Lift your voice to heaven, and the news will be carried up to heaven, "He prays."
A baby learns to pray simply and peacefully faces death with faith.
There were two little brothers, one of whom was a little baby that had just begun to talk. The elder came to his father one night, just as he was going to bed, to kneel down by his side, and say his prayers. The baby came up, and said, "Papa, why don't you teach baby to pray?" The father told the dear little one to kneel down, and then taught it the simple prayer, "God bless the baby." By and by a messenger was sent to take baby away to heaven. Friends were all gathered there to see the little one die. It ceased to breathe, and all supposed it had passed away to the bosom of Jesus; but once more it looked up, and sweetly said, "God bless the baby," and died.
A boy trusted Jesus would recognize him by his Testament, showing childlike faith assurance.
A little boy named Tommy was met by his pastor just before his death, and was asked if he had any request to make. He said, "When I am buried, I want to have my little Testament put in the coffin beside me. There are a great many large people, I am only a little boy, and I am afraid when Jesus comes he will forget me; but I will reach up my Testament and he will know that, and will receive me."
Children naturally seek innocence and joy, reminding adults of their own childhood.
"Ma, were you ever a boy?" said a bright-eyed, blithe-hearted little fellow, when reproved by his mother for his merry sport while at play,—"were you ever a boy?"
A child learns to be happy even when what he loves is lost or broken.
A little boy went to his mother, one morning, with a broken arrow, and begged her to mend it for him. It was a very handsome arrow, and was the pride of his heart, just then; so she did not wonder to see his lip quivering, and the tears come into his eyes. "I'll try to fix it, darling," she said; "but I'm afraid I can't do it." He watched her anxiously for a few moments, and then said cheerfully, "Never mind, mamma: if you can't fix it, I'll be just as happy without it."
A child’s humble prayer and offering are lovingly accepted by Jesus.
St. Herman was the son of very poor parents, dwelling in the city of Cologne. His mother brought him up piously, giving him the best instructions she could afford. Every day, as he repaired to school, he went into the Church of St. Mary, and, kneeling before the image of Our Lady, said his simple prayer with a right lowly and loving and trusting heart. One day he had an apple in his hand, which was all he had for his dinner, and, after he had finished his prayer, he humbly offered his apple in childish love and faith to the holy image: "which thing," says the legend, "pleased Our Blessed Lady; and she stretched forth her hand, and took the apple, and gave it to our Lord Jesus, who sat upon her knee; and both smiled upon Herman." Mrs. Jameson.
A dying child's testimony led her grandmother to seek salvation and join the church.
Rosina, an orphan child, at a Moravian missionary station, in North America, being under the care of an old relation, said, the night before her decease, "Dear grandmother, I am baptized and cleansed in our Savior's blood, and shall now soon go to him; but I beg you to seek to be likewise washed, and saved from your sins, by the blood of Christ, that you may become as happy as I am; otherwise, when you go hence, you will not be with the Lord." This exhortation from a dying child made such an impression upon the old woman's heart, that she became anxiously concerned about her salvation, prayed for the remission of her sins in the blood of Jesus, begged for baptism, and was added to the church.
A dying child's wish inspired a sermon urging children to love Jesus and prepare for heaven.
Miss Dinah Dowdney, of Portsea, who died at nine years of age, one day in her illness said to her aunt, with whom she lived, "When I am dead, I should like Mr. Griffin to preach a sermon to children to persuade them to love Jesus Christ, to obey their parents, not to tell lies, but to think of dying and going to heaven. I have been thinking," said she, "what text I should like him to preach from; 2 Kings 4: 26. You are the Shunamite, Mr. G. is the prophet, and I am the Shunamite's child. When I am dead I dare say you will be grieved, though you need not. The prophet will come to see you; and when he says, 'How is it with the child?' you may say, 'IT IS WELL.' I am sure it will then be well with me, for I shall be in heaven singing the praises of God. You ought to think it well too." Mr. G. accordingly fulfilled the wish of this pious child.
A dying girl joyfully gave her last cent to Sabbath school contributions.
BED CONTRIBUTION.—A girl nine years of age united with the school in T—, in the summer of 1834. She had not the privilege of parental religious instruction. Her residence was two or three miles from school. On one Sabbath in August, when notice was given in the school that the next Sabbath would be contribution-day, she was present. But it was her last Sabbath. She went home under the influence of that disease which, during the week, hurried her into eternity.
While on her bed of sickness, she remembered the contribution-day, and spoke of the luxury of giving. Twice she had been present on the contribution Sabbath, and had put her cent into the box. She called for the cent which she had laid aside for the Sabbath, gave it to her mother, and told her that if she died before the next Sabbath, to carry it to her teacher, that it might be put into the Sabbath school contribution trunk. On the next Sabbath, her soul was in eternity; but her cent, like the poor widow's two mites, was cast into the treasury of the Lord.
Hannah's prayer and dedication show God's blessing in children born for His glory.
Hannah a rebuke to parents who have no thought of God's glory in connection with bringing children into the world. The child who is dedicated to the Lord (v. 28) will usually be called by the Lord
Children can be true Christians with forgiven sins and hearts changed by Jesus.
For many years in our work among children, we have felt the need of something similar to this book. The cuts are made especially for this work. Pictures in this book will suggest thoughts of God and heaven and awaken desires to live pure lives which will sooner or later result in the salvation of many of our young readers. God bless all our readers. -- S. B. Shaw We are sure these stories will interest you children (and most older people, too). Especially good and true stories like these. In all that we have selected there are precious lessons of kindness and sympathy and obedience, gratitude, courage, and faithfulness: then there are two other very important lessons which I wish you to learn. The first is that children can be and should be true Christians, that is, have their sins forgiven for Jesus' sake and their hearts changed so that they love God and the right and hate everything that is wrong. The second lesson is that we must be Christians to be ready to live or ready to die. You will find in this book several accounts of happy deaths of Christian children, and you will find also much that tells of the good done by happy Christian children that lived. -- Mrs. S. B. Shaw.
A boy's steadfast faith led to the salvation of many adults in a village.
There is a striking story of a certain missionary who was sent for on one occasion to go to a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of India to baptize and receive into church fellowship sixty or seventy adult converts from Hinduism.
At the commencement of the proceedings he had noticed a boy about fifteen years of age sitting in a back corner, looking very anxiously and listening very wistfully. He now came forward. “What, my boy? Do you want to join the Church?” “Yes, sir.” “But you are very young, and if I were to receive you into fellowship with the Church to-day, and then you were to slip aside, it would bring discredit upon this church and do great injury to the cause of Christ. I shall be coming this way again in about six months. Now you be very loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ during that time, and if when I come again at the end of the half year I find you still stedfast and true, I will baptize and receive you gladly.”
No sooner was this said than all the people rose to their feet, and, some speaking for the rest, said: “Why, sir, it is he who has taught us all that we know about Jesus Christ.”
And so it turned out to be. This was the little minister of the little church the honored instrument in the hand of God for saving all the rest for Jesus Christ.
Showing a baby disarmed hostile natives, opening doors for missionary friendship.
Dr. George Grenfell, who did much to open up to civilization and to Christianity the hinterland of the Kongo, was traveling in the little steamer called the _Peace_ up a great tributary of the Kongo which had never before been navigated by a white man. Suddenly the craft was stopt and surrounded by a crowd of canoes filled with natives. These were armed with spears and their attitude was hostile and malignant. Dr. Grenfell momentarily expected that some of the murderous weapons would be hurled at him. But by a happy inspiration he called to his wife who was in the cabin, “Show them the baby!” She rushed forward and held out the infant she was nursing. The savages, amazed at the sight of the first light-colored baby they had ever seen, and charmed with its smiles and its entire lack of fear, dropt their spears, smiled in their turn with delight, and at once became the sincere friends of the missionaries. Thus once again was verified the prediction, “A little child shall lead them.”
A child's potential is immense, possibly shaping the world for Christ or culture.
The value and possibilities of a new-born child are thus set forth by James Oppenheim:
You may be Christ or Shakespeare, little child,
A savior or a sun to the lost world.
There is no babe born but may carry furled
Strength to make bloom the world’s disastrous wild.
Oh, what then must our labors be to mold you,
To open the heart, to build with dream the brain,
To strengthen the young soul in toil and pain,
Till our age-aching hands no longer hold you!
Vision far-dreamed! But soft! If your last goal
Be low, if you are only common clay,
What then? Toil lost? Were our toil trebled, nay!
You are a soul, you are a human soul,
A greater than the skies ten-trillion starred--
Shakespeare no greater, O you slip of God!
(Text.)--_Cosmopolitan._
Childlike trust combined with mature faith opens vast spiritual opportunities.
See FAITH, A CHILD’S.
CHILDLIKE TRUST AND MATURITY
A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little, rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum. He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as older bruises.
But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish, and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the heritage of years that are ripe.
— CHARLES H. PARKHURST
Rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents focuses on training and loyalty, not just law enforcement.
Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey speaks as follows of his work in dealing with juvenile delinquents:
I have often been asked how it is if I can trust a youthful burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to go alone to work?
The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious. He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade of a carpenter or a stone-cutter--then he has some incentive in life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants to show how well he can do it--the past is behind him forever.
This new children’s crusade started in 1900. We are now going on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem. Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths. The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to think that the court is a brute or dead easy.
A child imagines writing to God to bring her grandmother back from death.
A child whose grandmother had just died asked her mother if God had a street and a number. When asked why she wanted to know, she replied:
“Nothing, only I wanted to write a letter to Him to send grandma back again.”
A child recognizes his role cooperating with God in making flowers grow.
A three-year-old boy was with a woman whose home was a second home to him. They were in the flower-garden. Seeing a crocus in bloom, and remembering that the previous fall he had put the bulb into the ground (as one of his age so often does things, by the help of others), he asked, “Did I make that flower grow?” When told that God sent the rain and the sunshine which made it grow, he insisted that he had had a part in the process, and finally dropt the subject by saying:
“God and I make the flowers grow.”--A. B. BUNN VAN ORMER, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”
The soul's innocence and purity can be reflected in a childlike heart and faith.
A very little girl, having received some dim impression regarding the soul, was asking her mother what it was. “Can you feel the soul, mother; can you hear it?” she asked, and then, “can you see it?” The mother answered that the soul could not be felt or heard, but that sometimes it seemed as if we could see it in the eyes. “Let me see yours,” said the little one, and gazing into the mother’s dear eyes she saw there the tiny image of herself, and exclaimed, “O mother, your soul is a little child!”
It would be profitable to all of us if we would ask ourselves this question, “Is my soul a little child?” (Text.)
A little girl prays to Jesus over the telephone for her sick baby sibling's healing.
A mother living not very far from the post-office in this city, tired with watching over a sick baby, came down stairs for a moment the other day for a few second's rest. She heard the voice of her little, four-year-old girl in the hall by herself, and, curious to know to whom she was talking, stopped for a moment at the half-opened door. She saw that the little thing had pulled a chair in front of the telephone, and stood upon it, with the piece against the side of her head. The earnestness of the child showed that she was in no playing mood, and this was the conversation the mother heard, while the tears stood thick in her eyes; the little one carrying on both sides, as if she were repeating the answers: [Illustration] "Hello." "Well, who's there?" "Is God there?" "Yes." "Is Jesus there?" "Yes." "Tell Jesus I want to speak to him." "Well?" "Is that you, Jesus?" "Yes. What is it?""Our baby is sick, and we want you to let it get well. Won't you, now?" No answer, and statement and question again repeated, and finally answered by a "Yes."The little one put the ear-piece back on its hook, clambered down from the chair, and with a radiant face, went for her mother, who caught her in her arms.The baby whose life had been despaired of, began to mend that day and got well. -- Elmira Free Press
A child's simple prayer shows trust in God to care for a departed loved one.
Please, God, grandpa has gone to you. Take good care of him. Please always mind and shut the door, because he can’t stand drafts.
A boy remains faithful to Christ despite family opposition and dies young.
A little Korean boy named Twee-Sungie was brought by his Christian mother to church Sunday by Sunday and learned about Christ and accepted Him as his Savior. His father was a heathen and worked seven days a week, and forced little Twee-Sungie to do the same. The boy was broken-hearted at being deprived of attending the church services, but he also felt that he was sinning deeply in desecrating God’s day. Calamities came upon the family. A younger brother died, another, Twee-Sungie, was taken ill. As his strength failed he seemed to lose all desire to live. “If I live on in this world, father makes me break God’s commandments, and I will only add sin to sin, so it is better for me to die and go to Jesus.” He tried to turn his father’s thoughts Godward, but the man’s heart was full of evil and bitterness. When the boy died, the relatives proposed that they bury with him the Testament and hymn-book which he loved, for, said they, these books were the cause of his change, and if they are put away, his mother will return to the worship of spirits. So there lies in the grave of the little boy believer, outside the walls of Seoul, the printed page whose message the little lad wished so much to obey.
A child's wonder at creation naturally leads to a reverent faith in God’s presence.
I have in mind a four-year-old girl, favored in many things, but especially happy in that she spends her summers on an island in a beautiful lake, mountain-rimmed. She has always been privileged to walk with her father and mother in the fields and woods; to “go a-trudging,” as she called it, has been her chief delight. “Where did the trees get their red and yellow leaves?” she asked. “Who made them red and yellow?” Her question answered, she ran to her mother with her chubby hands filled with her new treasures, saying, “See, mama! I have brought you some of God’s beautiful leaves!”
“How came the island here?” she asked. “Who brought the rocks and the trees?” She was told how the island was lifted into its place; how the soil was formed, the trees planted, and the island made ready for the birds, for the trees, for the rabbits, for the squirrels, and for her--just as her father had built the house for her, in which she lived. As the time for her return to her home approached, she sat one evening watching the sunset and the early evening stars, and said, “Don’t you hope that God will be at home when we get there, just as He has been here this summer?” So linked with her love of the beautiful in the world was her reverent thought of Him who had made it beautiful--SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1905.
