The Eyes of the Lord

“I THINK Bella loves Jesus now," said little Annie to a lady who was formerly Bella's teacher, “for she is quite different from what she used to be. She has a class of little children in our Sunday school, and she speaks so kindly, and has such patience with them.”
“I am very glad to hear such good news, “said the lady;" I hope soon to see Bella, and then I will ask her about this great change in her conduct.”
Bella was a girl who had given her teacher a great deal of trouble, by ridiculing the Bible, showing much opposition to any who sought to speak to her of its solemn truths; so the news that she had become a Sunday school teacher greatly surprised her friend, who longed to speak with her and be assured as to the reality of the cause of the alteration in her.
An opportunity soon offered, and Bella was invited to meet a company of her old classmates.
The meeting was a very happy one, and among the bright faces of those dear young people not one face was brighter than Bella's. Her former teacher wondered at her all through their cheerful tea-time, but did not hear the good news of God's grace to her until, as they rose from the table, Bella drew her aside and said—
“I want to tell you something about myself that will make you very glad. I am quite a different girl from what I used to be. I am saved from hell, and on the road to heaven. The Lord Jesus is now my friend. I can truly say I am on the Lord's side.”
“Dear Bella," replied her friend, "do tell me about your conversion. I have heard of your teaching in a Sunday school, and I feared lest you were making efforts with a view to your acceptance with God.”
“No, indeed," said the young girl, earnestly, "The Lord's own precious blood has cleansed me from all sin, and I love to do something for Him who has done so much for me. But I do not wonder at your being surprised at the change in me, for I was a very troublesome girl when with you. I often think of the patience you had with me, and how the Lord has heard your prayers on my behalf, and it encourages me to go on patiently with my restless little ones. Ever since I trusted my soul to the Saviour's keeping," she continued, “I have longed to tell you the news, and have been asking the Lord to make the way plain for me to see you and I am sure He has answered me to-day. “You will remember that text over the
mantel-piece. Ah, there it is," said Bella, as her eye fell upon it, and she read— “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” (Prov. 15:3).
"When I was very naughty, you would often point to that text and say, Bella, you forget, the eyes of the Lord are upon you.' I used to feel angry, and wish the text wasn't there, and yet I couldn't keep from looking at it. At last the words followed me wherever I went. I began to feel very wretched. Do what I would, I could not get away from the eyes of the Lord. My heart said, Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? ‘The more I thought of God's omniscience, the more miserable I became. I tried to become good, but my sins stared me in the face. Unfit for His presence, my fitness for hell presented itself. What could I do, or where go to find relief? One night, when almost beside myself with despair, I shut myself up in my room, and there by my bedside I told Jesus everything. I told Him I could not get away from His eyes, that I felt they were searching me through and through, and nothing but badness did they see. Was He able to deliver me from the terror of His presence? Would He save me? He heard me, and answered me, and gave me such sweet peace, such assurance of His love toward me, as I cannot express. He told me that He died for me, that His blood was sufficient to cleanse my guilty soul, making it meet for His eyes. I believed His words, and became truly happy. I do not dread His eyes now a bit; I know they are gazing upon me with infinite love. Only one thing I dread, lest I should grieve Him by naughty ways. But He has hitherto helped me, and I trust myself to His good keeping.
“Now I have told you," said Bella, “all I can think of about my conversion; and very glad I am to tell you what the Lord has done for my soul."
Bella is still working for the Lord, and it is her old friend's earnest prayer that she may be kept pleasing Him until He calls her away to the home that awaits her. E. E. S.
Papers for Very Little Children
GRANDMOTHER said, "To-day I have a new book, which you shall all read, one page at a time."
Winnie said, "I can only read a very little." Mary and Helen said, “We can't read one bit."
Grandmother said, “You can all read my new book; even little children who don't know A B C, can read my book just as well as if they had learnt reading."
Then grandmother opened her little book at page one. Winnie and Mary and Helen would all be glad if it was a picture book without any reading at all—perhaps it was.
No! it was quite true it had no reading at all, but then it had no pictures either. It had only two black pages—quite black all over.
“Is it black all through, grandmother? If you turned over the page would there be nothing but black? Oh what an ugly book!“
Grandmother said, “To-day I shall not turn over the page; we shall only read these two black pages. What do they tell you? You don't know. They tell you what your three little hearts are like, unless God has made you all new. You know you did not like to hear the other day that our hearts are all bad. I am sorry to have to tell it you, and to show you such a very ugly picture of your three hems. But I want you to understand how I know that it is true. I cannot see your hearts, so. I could not have told they are all bad. It is God who sees them, and He has said so. Now let me hear you all say these words, which God made a man say long ago: ‘I know that in me dwelleth no good thing.' Say them six times."
Mary and Winnie and Helen said these sad words six times.
“Now," said grandmother,” there are some more sad words God has said about men, women, and children: ‘They are altogether become filthy!' Say those words six times, too."
Mary and Winnie and Helen said these words six times also. They thought this was not a very nice lesson.
Grandmother had one more little verse for them to say: "There is none that doeth good, no not one." They said these words six times. It would be a good plan for all little children to learn these words, for it is much better to know and believe what God has said about us, than to have our own thong his about ourselves. What mistakes we make! But God makes no mistakes.
Mary and Winnie and Helen could not understand why God said this. "Sometimes I am good," Winnie said. And they all thought that they had sometimes done very good things. Sometimes they had been obedient, and sometimes kind, and often for whole days they had never screamed, nor stamped, nor fought, nor said "I won't!”
“Why does God say we are all bad?”
Grandmother said, " God does not mean that there are no nice pleasant things in you; there are nice pleasant things even in dogs and birds; they get very fond of people who feed them and pat them, and dogs are often very obedient and useful.
“But they do not know about God, and cannot love him. Children can be taught about God, and when they hear of His love, and of all that the Lord Jesus has done for them, God looks into their little hearts to see whether they love Him, and whether they are kind and obedient to please Him.
“If they loved God, and were doing everything to please Him, that would be quite a different thing from being only nice and pleasant.
“Then they would give up their own way, because they loved the Lord Jesus more than themselves; they would obey at once when they are told to do things they don't like; they would love people who are unkind to them. Children can love people who are kind to them, when their hearts are all bad; I mean when their hearts are quite, guile empty of love to God. They can love even their birds and kittens, and rabbits, and dolls. But no one loves God till God has made them quite new. No one loves God in the very least till then. And I want you to understand that a heart that has no love to God in it, is a bad, black heart. Look again at the little book, and ask God to make you believe you are like that black, black page.”
Helen said, “I know I don't love Jesus. I would like better to hear stories about animals. But sometimes I like stories about Jesus just for a little bit., Still I would like to please myself much more than' to please Him. Do you know how the little children sit in the infant school? They have seats going up, up, like the staircase, 'and the big little children sit on the top seat. Now if I had seats like that for all the people I love, and I put the people I love most at the top, who do you think would sit on the top seat?”
Grandmother said, "Would I sit there?”
But Helen said, "No, I'm afraid only one person would sit there all alone, and that would be I, myself.”
Then grandmother said, "I think Helen has told the truth about us all, till God has made us all new. And when we think of myself' sitting all alone at the top, I am sure we may believe that God has told the truth about our bad, black hearts.”