II.
(Continued from p. 187.)
HE had a remarkable sense of God’s being present everywhere with us, hearing all our prayers and marking all we do. One day his neighbour’s servant had been speaking to him about the uselessness of praying to God, and telling him it was nonsense. When he came home he said: “Oh, mother, do you know what has been saying? She says it’s all nonsense to pray to God, and He everywhere present, and hears all that we say.” One morning, being much distressed at his father’s conduct the night before, he told him: “God sees everything you do, and marks down all your thoughts. I would not take the whole world and make Him angry with me: but unless we have a clean heart, we cannot serve Him; for God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. I must write something behind the outer-door, and you must read it when you go out and when you come in, and if you read it it will keep you from much sin.” Accordingly, he took his pencil and wrote the following verse:
“The Lord who made the ear of man,
Must needs hear all of right,
He made the eye, all things must then
Be plain in His clear sight.”
The person who writes this account of Johnny has been at his house and seen this verse which he wrote with his own little hand upon the wall of his father’s house; and when he saw it he wondered at the grace of God that had put such things into the heart of a child not eight years old! I have also seen several of Johnny’s little books, which are all written over with some pious sentences, or good words, or verses of hymns. I have one of these little books beside me just now while I am writing to you, and on its boards I find the following words written: “Bible is true and no lie—Kirk the best place you go to—holy book—the Bible, the best book—the Lord my pasture shall prepare, and feed me with a shepherd’s care.”
I have seen many of your books, many hundred books, which children have been reading; and I have seen many marks upon them; but I have never seen any like this of little Johnny’s. What then makes the difference between him and you? What made him love these things so well when you are so careless about them? It was the Lord the Spirit that had given him a new heart, and made him love these things. And to show you still more how he loved these things, I shall tell you another story about him. One time, after speaking to his father about his conduct, he took a piece of paper and wrote upon it the ten commandments, and then hung it up where his father used to shave himself, and told him to read what God had commanded, every day, when he rose from his bed. And standing, looking earnestly at the paper which he had hung up, he said: “Oh, how love I Thy law! It is my study all the day.” At another time, when sitting at the fireside reading his Bible, he came to that passage which says: “If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Upon reading this he turned round and said to his father, who was sitting near him: “Father, you’re no free, you’re the slave of sin; but then,” said he, “I’m free, I’m God’s free-boy.” On reading one day about Daniel in the lions’ den, he said: “God shut the lions’ mouths—yes; and their eyes too—they never saw him; they never knew he was there.”
He was so remarkably simple and free from guile, so much so that he seemed quite indifferent in regard to the things of the world. He could not bear anything that had the appearance of a lie, and whenever he found any of his companions telling a falsehood, he would leave their company altogether. There was one boy with whom he was very intimate, and who used often to meet him after he came from school. This boy began one day to boast of something he had done, which boast Johnny at once saw to be a lie. Upon this he told him that he must never again come to his house, and that he would have nothing more to do with him till he was a better boy. His mother asked him how he would know he was a better boy. He said that he would soon see some marks which would show him that he was better. “And what marks will you know it by?” “I think,” said he, “the biggest mark will be that he loves God.” There is another very striking fact which shows not only that he hated lying, but how anxious he was to prevent others from lying. As his appetite for food was very small, and as he ate but little at meals, his mother used often to put a piece of dyed loaf into his pocket, that he might eat it while in the school. Some wicked boys, finding this out, one day came to him and told him that if he did not give them his dyed loaf, they would tell his master some stories about him. Upon his mother asking him what he did, he told her that he gave them his dyed loaf, “for,” said he, “mother, it was far better for me to give it to them, than to have them telling lies and sinning against God.”