THE CHILDREN’S PAGE.

A SICK BOY’S LETTER TO HIS TEACHER.

I thank you for the beautiful papers that you sent me. I read a piece in one they call “Glad Tidings.” It was about the dissipated father and the dying child. He was a bad man, and used bad languish, and cause his whole family to be miserable; and his little son would go to him and crawl up on his knee and tell him about the good God, and the tears would gush from his eye. The little boy said to his father: “Father, you are crying; what is the matter?” “I am afraid, my son, I am going to lose you—you are going to die.” “Well, father, I know I am going to die, but I am not afraid to die, for I will go to Jesus.”

I read that piece, and my little heart did feel so warm. I am trying to be a good boy, and pray to God that I may be a good boy. I am trying to be a better boy every day.

From your dear scholar,

M.T.

Montgomery, Ala.

LIVE IN GOD’S SUNSHINE.

“Well, Aunt Polly, here you are again on the doorsteps. It seems to me you almost live on them.”

Old Polly raised her faded eyes to the face of her friend, and, laughing, said:

“Yes, dear, dat’s jus’ so! Jim says ‘We mought build a house all doo’ steps and nothin’ else, fo’ granny, ’cause she lives dar an’ nowhar else.’”

“I suppose you like to see the people, and to hear the children prattle as they go by to school,” said the lady.

“Well, yes, I likes to see folks, ’cause my Fader up dar made ’em all; but it’s most fo’ de sunshine dat I stays out here. O, God’s sunshine’s a powerful blessin’, dear. When I’s cold I comes out and sits in it, and I grows warm; when I’s hungry, and Jim’s wife’s got nothin’ to eat, I comes out here and ’pears like I’d had my dinner; when I’s in pain, and ’scruciated all over wid de rheumatiz, I comes out into the sunshine, and de pain skulks off; when Jim don’t be good and ’pears like he was goin’ to ’struction, and my heart is bustin’ like, I comes out and sits in God’s sunshine, and peace comes through His beam into my soul; when old Death comes an’ star’s in my face, and say, ‘I comin’ arter ye soon, to take ye into de dark grave,’ den I comes out into God’s sunshine, and dares him to frighten my soul! Says I to him, ‘Ye hasn’t power in ye to throw one shadow on to my pillow; for my blessed Jesus, de Sun of Righteousness, He been down dar before me, and He left it full, heaped up and runnin’ over wid God’s sunshine. I shall rest sweet in dat warm place, for de eternal sunshine dat shall magnify and glorify all as loves de shinin’ Jesus.”

“Auntie,” said her friend, who always felt that she could sit at the feet of this humble saint and learn of Jesus, “that is very lovely. But there come days when there is no sunshine—when the clouds gather, and the rains fall, and the snows come, and the winds blow. What do you do then?”

“O la, honey, by de time de storms come, I’ve got my soul so full ob sunshine dat it lasts a heap o’ time. Dem times Jim scolds, and his poor wife’s ’scouraged, and de child’n are cross, and de stove smokes and de kittle won’t bile; but I never knows it. God’s sunshine is in my soul, and I tries to spread it round, and sometimes Jim’s wife feels it, and she says—oh, she’s a good daughter-in-law—‘Long’s I keeps close to granny, ’pears like my heart’s held up.’

“Well, well, dear, you can teach me somethin’, and ye can fetch me nice things to make mo’ sunshine; but I can teach you what ye never thought on—dat God’s sunshine’s ’nough for rich and poor, and dem dat thank Him for it, and sit in it, or work in it, and let it into dar heart, will soon go whar it’s all sunshine. Try to make folks live in God’s sunshine, and get it into dar hearts, honey.”—Intelligencer.