King Manasseh; or, a Word to Grandfathers

MAY I say, this little paper is not only for grandfathers, but for any man who has been converted in old age? And, oh! young man, remember youth is the most likely and the best time to be converted. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,” said king Solomon in his old age, when he summed up life with the divine seal “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Eccl. 12:13-14). Comparatively, very seldom are men and women turned from darkness to light in old age. But some are, thank God, as perhaps some of you read in the July number of this magazine, where I told of that wonderful case of conversion, owing to a seed sown in a boy’s heart by God the Holy Spirit through Flavel’s last sermon, and how, when that boy was past eighty, he worked to bring souls to God.
Well, my aged friend, if now God has opened your eyes to see you are a sinner, and He has given you light by leading you to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, fear not; begin at once to speak and act for Him, just like, I think, that wicked king Manasseh did. Doubtless as a child he had been brought up by his righteous father, Hezekiah, to know and fear God, and yet he turned out to be the very worst king Judah ever had. Read for yourselves his history in 2 Chronicles 33 and 2 Kings 21. Observe, if the Chronicles had not been written, we should never have known that Manasseh, repented and found the Lord when he was old. He was only twelve years old when he became king, and from that day he cast off the fear of the Lord, served graven images, and built altars for all the host of heaven, and did wickedly, “above all that the Amorites did.” For years this went on, until the Lord had mercy upon him and sent him, bound in great affliction, to Babylon, where he sought the Lord God of his fathers, and prayed unto Him, and found Him; and then it says, “Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.” After this poor old Manasseh tried to remedy the evil he had wrought.
Doubtless he spoke to, and wrestled in prayer for, his son Amon, who would not listen or turn to God; but I cannot help thinking that the little child Josiah learned to know and love God by old Manasseh’s teaching. Josiah was only six years old when his grandfather died, and how sweet it is to think how the wee child, the little boy, was laid on his grandfather’s heart to train for God. We read Amon only reigned two years, and then little eight-year-old Josiah came to the throne and did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.
And so dear old friends, copy Manasseh and seek to win the little grandchildren for Jesus, even if you cannot influence their parents it is never too late to mend, and when once you know the Lord, tell others, just as the poor healed demoniac went his way and published before the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him (Luke 8:26-40). If you only get one little child to love Jesus it may be the means of leading a great multitude to serve the Lord, as in the case of the child Josiah, for it says in 2 Chronicles 35:18, “There was no Passover like to that kept since the days of Samuel.”
Emily P. Leakey.