WHY GOD CALLS CHILDREN EARLY -- CONTINUED

The second reason we will give why God calls children to remember him in early life is this: God knows that if children should grow up and live some years in sin, even though they should be converted and forgiven later in life, they still will suffer an irreparable loss. Though they be forgiven and saved, still, in some respects, they will never get over the evil effects of those early sins. This seems very hard to say, hut it is none the less true. There are things that we can never get over; things that all the cleansing blood of Christ can not undo. God says to the sinner: "Be sure your sin will find you out." -- that there is a natural retribution which will surely come upon the sinner, which even the grace of God can not prevent, even though the sins are forgiven and the sinner is saved.

I wonder if, by many illustrations, I can make this solemn truth plain even to a child. You have all noticed that when people set out shade trees in the street, in front of their homes, they put a little wire or board fence around them. The reason is that they wish to keep the trees from being gnawed by horses, or bruised by passing wagons. We all know that if the tree is seriously bruised, though the bark may grow over the wound and try to repair the damage, yet the tree has suffered an injury which it will never get over. I said this to a Sabbath-school class, last May, in Alpena, Mich. That afternoon a shade tree broke off in a wind storm within a few rods of the church, proving the truth of my words. There was a bruise on the tree where a horse had injured it; the bark had grown over it as best it could; the tree had leaved out and was green and beautiful. But the weak spot from the injury was there, and in a wind storm the tree went down.

When a student at Yale I heard John B. Gough say in an address that he would give his right arm to be able to forget some of the scenes and experiences of his early life. At the time he made that remark, he was one of the most earnest temperance workers and most honored Christian men in the world. But once it was otherwise. When he was a generous-hearted, noble youth he lost his loved mother, and then was left in a strange land among strangers. Saloons opened their doors to him when kind homes ought to have done it, but didn't, and he took to drink and became a drunkard, he married; but the poor sot was ill prepared to be a husband and father. He lost his wife and child, but drank still. He lost his position where he earned his living because of his drinking, and on a cold Sabbath evening the young, despised drunkard, who had thrown away his manhood and ruined his home and was bound by the chains of the evil habit, walked through a city street in Massachusetts, hungry and homeless and penniless and friendless, thinking he would end his wretched life, It was then that Jesus sent a friend to him to save him. But he never could forget the horrible years of revelry and debauchery. The thought of the home he had ruined, and the wife whose heart he had broken. and the child who had died for the lack of a father's loving care, haunted his memory and troubled his soul. He could not forget. Like the tree, his whole being had received a bruise he could not get over.

I walked through a mill in Michigan last summer with a minister, and he introduced me to the men. I noticed that many of them had mangled hands. Sometimes a thumb and sometimes one or two fingers had been taken off. Their hands had got caught in the machinery, and had been so torn and mangled that they would never again have such hands as God meant they should have. It is just so with the soul, If it gets injured by sin, it will never again be just what God intended it should be. Sin inflicts a natural penalty -- a moral loss from which the heart does not wholly recover. Dr. Talmage says he once heard one of the godliest men he ever knew, an old man of over seventy years, say before a great company of people: I know I am a child of God, and my sins have been forgiven; but I committed a sin when I was twenty years old for which I can not forgive myself, and sometimes the very thought of it almost blots out my hope of heaven." You see, children, there was the awful memory, like a great scar or injury, from which he could never recover. His enjoyment of heaven will be less for ever and ever because of the memory of that sin,

Two young men left the city of London to better their condition in Canada. While crossing the ocean one of them became anxious about his soul's salvation. He unbosomed himself to his brother; but instead of receiving the sympathy and encouragement he expected, he was laughed at for his fears. This was too much for him; he could not stand his brother's jeers, and soon the convictions were stifled and the impressions effaced. Not long after their arrival in Canada the other brother was led to accept Christ. Filled with a new-found joy he told his brother of the mighty change that had taken place, and pleaded with him to become a Christian. "Arthur," was the reply, "you laughed at me when I was anxious about my soul, and now I have no desire to be saved."

How the words cut Arthur to the heart! He could not deny it; it was too true that he had been used by Satan to persuade his brother to reject Christ. Sometime after the unconverted lad returned to England, and, while working on a new building, a heavy stone fell upon his head and crushed him to death. When the sad news reached poor Arthur's ears, he was greatly distressed. He would have given anything to have been able to recall those sneering words, But they could never be recalled. He had found Jesus himself, and his sins were forgiven, but he had driven his brother from Christ and caused him to miss heaven, and the sad thought of it would cast a dark shadow upon his heart for evermore. It was one of the things he could not get over.

We spoke in the last chapter about David's sin. David repented sincerely, and cried: "I have sinned against the Lord." And God heard his prayer and s and to him by the mouth of the prophet: " The Lord also hath put away thy sin: thou shalt not die, howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thy house, because thou hast despised me." David was forgiven and saved, but the sword of punishment, as the consequence of his sin, fell upon h is family, blow after blow, and darkened with sorrow all his later life, and no doubt will diminish the blessedness of heaven, as he forever remembers the ruin of his sons.

The Apostle Paul when he was a young man did not love Jesus, and did not love his followers, and did not love his cause. On the other hand, he hated the Savior, and persecuted and put to death those that loved him. He was afterward converted and became the grandest man of the Christian ages. But he never could forgive himself for his early sin. The agony of the saints of God whom he dragged to prison and to death would come to his memory. The cries of the little children whose parents he had caused to be killed rang in his ears. The heaven-lit face and dying prayer of Deacon Stephen, whom he had helped stone to death, he could never forget. These were things he never got over. Though God had forgiven him, he could not forgive himself,

In one of my meetings not long ago an old man stood up to accept Christ. He was seventy-eight years old, so deaf that he had to sit within two or three feet of me that I might preach right into his ear; so lame that he could not kneel down. They told me that he had been a very wicked man. Let us suppose that Jesus gave him a new heart and forgave all his sins. Even then notice how many sad things there were that he could never get over. He ought to have come to Christ at least seventy years before, There were the threescore years and ten that might have been spent in the service of Jesus, all worse than wasted in sin and gone forever. He had brought up a large family of children, and by his example had taught them all to be Godless. They were all grown up and gone from home to lead Christless lives, and their children after them following their example. He could never undo the wrong he had done them all. The influence of his life in the community had also been bad. How many, many boys and men he had taught to swear and lie and break the Sabbath and forget God! He never could undo the harm he had done them, How many evil propensities he had indulged, and how many bad habits he had cultivated that now he must spend his time and strength in fighting during his remaining days: On the other hand, how many loving words he might have spoken in the name of Jesus to the sorrowing, and how many loving deeds he might have performed for the needy that now must be forever unspoken and undone! A life had been spent in sin that might have been spent in blessing men and glorifying God. Could he ever forgive himself? Will the time ever come in eternity when he will cease to regret that he did not give his heart to God in early life?

Now, God knows all these things better than we possibly can, he knows the pain and loss and bitter regrets and undying memories that will be occasioned by Sin committed during the early years, from all of which he would lovingly save us by having us Conic to him in early life, before we have walked in the paths of wickedness and sown broadcast the seeds of evil, whose awful harvest we must reap with aching hearts in after years.

God loves us all with an infinite tenderness, and wishes to spare us all possible pain that would come to us in hater years as the result of early sin. He also wishes us to become all that it is possible for us to be. So he tells us to remember Jesus our Savior in early life, and have our hearts cleansed from all sin, that we may rise to goodness and usefulness, like a bird soaring in the sky with an unbroken wing. 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. What is the second reason why God wishes children to conic to Christ in early life?
2. Why do we put a fence around a young tree?
3. What did John B. Gough wish to forget?
4. What happened to men's hands in a mill?
5. What was it that the 01(1 marl could not forgive?
6. What did Arthur do that gave him a lifelong sorrow?
7. What can you say about David's punishment?
8. What about Paul's?
9. What can you tell about the old man seventy-eight years old?
10. What does God desire concerning us?

Other songs: "My Faith Looks Up to Thee."