Children’s Story

Children’s Story – Happy, Happy Home

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It was seven o’clock and time for evening worship. Harold, Linda, and Betty Lou were in the living room with mother waiting for daddy Reed to come home. Daddy was a doctor, and sometimes he did not get home on time. The other members of the family usually waited a few minutes, hoping that he would join them.

Tonight they sang their best-loved songs. Betty Lou, who was five years old, never tired of singing “Happy, Happy Home.” Linda chose “Beautiful Zion, Built Above,” and Harold wanted “Smile and Be Cheery.”

“We’ll wait a little longer,” said mother. She got her favorite phonograph record out of the drawer, and they all listened quietly to the strains of “O Love of God.”

When the last verse of the song was finished, Harold began, “I know that God loves us, but how can we love God? I love you and daddy, and I love Linda and Betty Lou; but how can anyone love someone he has never seen?”

“Do you remember Aunt Rachel?” asked mother. “She sent packages to you every birthday with messages of love. She showed her love in many ways even before you ever saw her.”

Harold nodded his head in agreement. “In that same way,” continued mother, “God has shown that He loves us. When we try to think of all the things He has given us to make us happy, we never get through naming them.

“God covers the earth with beauty and fills the air with music. Every day He paints new pictures in the sky. He makes hundreds of delicious foods grow from the ground, each with a different flavor. Our Creator might have made the sky a dull brown instead of a rich blue. The grass might have been made gray. All the birds might have croaked like ravens instead of singing their lovely songs. The apples and peaches and pears and strawberries all might have tasted like potatoes.”

The children looked up to see daddy standing in the doorway. Soon three pairs of arms were around his neck. “I think God must love us a lot to give us such a daddy,” said Harold.

“And such a mother, too,” added Linda.

Daddy sat down and they told him what they had been talking about. This reminded him of a verse in the Bible that tells how the love of God comes into the heart, and how our heavenly Father is even more willing to give His Spirit to us than parents are to give good gifts to their children.

“You see,” said daddy, “God speaks to our hearts by His Spirit. He walks with us and talks with us, and as we listen to His voice, we know what we should do. In the Bible we read His letters, telling of the wonderful things He is preparing for those who love and obey Him. The most precious gift of all is Jesus, God’s only Son.”

Daddy closed the Bible, and the Reed family knelt in prayer.

“Let’s sing ‘Happy, Happy Home’ again,” said Linda when they arose. So they sang:

“With Jesus in the family, happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home;

With Jesus in the family, happy, happy home,

Happy, happy home.”

Ella M. Robinson, Happy Home Stories, Teach Services, Inc., Ringgold, Georgia, 2005.

Children’s Story – The Night the Count and the King Both Stayed Up

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To plot against Frederick William III was a treacherous venture. Not too many succeed in assassinating a king. One count found this out the hard way and was imprisoned in the practically inescapable fortress of Glatz.

It was a rough, stormy November night, when the mountain winds howled round the fortress, the rain fell in torrents, and the foaming Neisse River below roared down into the valley. The count tried desperately to sleep, but to no avail. The heavy hand of his own sins pressed upon him. His past seemed to constantly portray itself before him in true-to-life representation. Step by step, his life’s shortcomings and failures walked before his eyes. He had accomplished nothing worthwhile and now he was doomed to a slow death in the prison to which he had been sentenced for life.

Many scenes of his life revealed one thing, and that was that he had missed out on the greatest opportunity of all. He had given up the precious privilege of knowing and serving God. For the first time in his entire life his heart was soft, and his eyes were wet with tears of genuine repentance.

He got up from his cot, and went to the little table on which the guards had placed a few personal items, a candle, and a Bible. Also, for the first time in his life, he endeavored to read the Bible.

Lighting the candle, he opened the Bible and began reading. The first words that he had ever looked at, in that great book, were those of Psalm fifty, verse fifteen. He read, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.”

This word of God reached to the depth of his heart and mind; He fell to his knees and cried to God for mercy. Soon the sorrow and despair vanished. In the middle of a prison he became a whole man.

Berlin was a long way from the fortress of Glatz, but not too far from God. And the things that took place that same night, that the count found peace with God, were amazing.

The castle candles were all lit as King Frederick William III was gravely ill. He was tormented by severe body pains, which the court physician could find no remedy for or bring any relief to the agonizing king. In his utter exhaustion, he begged out loud for God to grant him just one single hour of refreshing sleep.

Not too long after his urgent plea, the king fell fast asleep. When he awoke the next morning, his faithful and concerned wife was by his bed. He spoke softly to Queen Louise, “My wife, God answered my prayer and not only gave me sleep, but complete recovery.”

The king sat up in bed.

“I am so thankful. Who in my kingdom has wronged me most? I will forgive him!”

“The count imprisoned in Glatz tried to take your life,” she replied.

“You’re right! Let him be pardoned!” the king proclaimed.

Dawn had not come to Berlin when the messenger left for Glatz with the release of the count.

Two men did not sleep that night. Neither did God.

W.A. Spicer and Helen Spicer Menkel, The Hand That Still Intervenes, Concerned Publications, Inc., Clermont, Florida, 1982, 61–63.

Children’s Story – The Sleigh Ride

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Mary Lee returned to her father’s house after a two years’ stay with her uncle Kent. The little children were quite overjoyed. For the first week or so Mary was regarded [as] something in the light of a visitor.

By and by she began to take her appropriate place in the family circle, and bear the burden of family duty. Her parents rejoiced to behold much which was truly excellent and lovely in her principles and her practice. One defect soon appeared, which threatened some unhappiness: Mary was secretly dissatisfied with her home. Small it certainly was compared with her uncle’s, and she yearned for the elegant and expensive furniture, for the costly decorations and thousand luxuries which she had been accustomed to see and to enjoy there. The small air-tight stove was too black and cheerless; the old flag-bottomed chairs were very unfashionable; her room was not carpeted, and she complained that the floor was cold.

One day, when Mary had been moaning over her unfashionable cloak, her father returned home in the forenoon, and asked her to ride with him. She gladly accepted the proposal, although she did not think her hat was fit to wear, especially as her father suggested he might make a call somewhere.

It was a beautiful January day. The fields lay covered with pure, untrodden snow. The twigs and boughs reflected a sparkling radiance from their frosty crust. The air seemed filled with a thousand brilliants, and the deep cold stillness of the country was only broken by the dropping icicle or the distant sleigh-bell. Mary was much exhilarated, both by the magnificence of the snow scene and her father’s pleasant conversation. They rode long upon the beaten path, when he attempted to force his way into an almost untrodden track. They emerged from a snow-bank here only to plunge into another there.

“O, father, where are we going?” exclaimed Mary.

“To call at a friend’s house,” answered her father, and, as they rode on, Mary discovered a roof and a chimney on a slope not very far off.

“Why, father, is it a hut you’re going to?” The strong horse found some difficulty in making his way from the main path to the house. They reached the door. The steps were unshovelled. The snow had been soiled by no human step, and no signs of active life were visible since the storm.

“I’m sure nobody lives here,” said Mary, as her father jumped out of the sleigh, and, making a path with his feet, lifted the latch of the door. He entered and disappeared for a few minutes. “Is this the call father meant to make!” thought Mary, surveying the building. The next moment he was by her side. “Come, Mary, let me take you in my arms, child, and carry you in; the snow is pretty deep.”

What a scene did Mary behold! Two children were crouched beside a few sticks of green wood, which they were in vain attempting to kindle; their blue legs and purple arms were covered with a thin calico. A few potato parings lay upon the hearth, which one seemed greedily chewing. “What a privilege to be a Christian!” and Mary, turning suddenly, beheld the skinny arm of a woman extended from a low bed. “Oh, Mr. Lee, I knew God would not forsake us.” Tears glistened in her gray, sunken eye, and even the white hairs which were scattered on the forehead, as Mary afterwards declared, seemed like a halo around that dry, withered face, golden with the emotions of a thankful heart.

“This severe cold has set in so suddenly, we feared you might be in want, and have come to help you,” said Mr. Lee, kindly taking the sick woman’s hand; “you have been ill again. This is my Mary, Mrs. Jones,” and he drew Mary towards the bed.

“God bless you, my dear; God bless you, for leaving your warm home to come and see an old one like me,” said the woman in a broken voice; “and are you going to be like your father, finding out the sick and relieving the poor? Oh, Miss Mary, it’s your father that denies himself for his Master’s cause. It is not he that spends his money gewgawing [on ornaments]; nobody that’s suffering comes to him without finding help some way; it’s I that know that, indeed;” and her voice choked, and her eyes blinded, and she covered her face as if in silent prayer. Meanwhile Mr. Lee was aiding the children’s efforts about the fire. “We’ve got in four potatoes there, sir,” said one, “and they ain’t warm yet.” As in disappointment he thrust his fingers into the cold ashes. “Oh, sir, don’t you think they will roast to-day?” turning his peaked, disquieted face as he made the anxious inquiry. “If you do not have potatoes, you shall have something, my child,” said Mr. Lee, patting the boy on the head. “Shall we? Oh!” he exclaimed earnestly. The good man then went out to the sleigh and bore in a basket filled with objects for immediate comfort. “The Lord be praised!” ejaculated the aged Christian: “that’s he, that’s deacon Lee!” “Grandmother, you prayed, and you told us to pray, for God only could help us, and you always said He would,” exclaimed the children, running from the bed to the basket, and the basket to the bed, in grateful ecstasy.

Mary looked on in tearful silence. It was a scene she was not soon to forget. To her full heart her father seemed like an angel, ministering indeed to the heirs of salvation. “What a privilege it was to bless that suffering family,” said Mary, with deep emotion, as they rode over the ice-bound bridge at the foot of the hill.

“By denying myself the luxuries of life, Mary, I have been enabled to do this. Our home has all the necessaries of life. Now, Mary, you have grown up, and have a voice in the family arrangements. Do you choose that we shall buy costly furniture, splendid decorations for our house, or shall we use our earnings as God has prospered us, in relieving the distressed, seeking out the suffering, and aiding the great plans of doing good which are everywhere to advance our Redeemer’s cause?”

“Let me be like you, father!” exclaimed Mary, stricken to the heart, when she remembered how much pain she must have caused him.

“Deny yourself, and thus imitate the example of your Redeemer, my Mary,” said the father, with deep solemnity.

From that day Mary rejoiced in her home, and was often found in many humbler homes, bearing the blessed fruits of Christian charity and love.

The Youth’s Instructor, October, 1855.

Children’s Story – Honesty Pays Off

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Over the front door of a certain house in Warsaw you will see an iron tablet with a very unique engraving in it. The house was built in the late 1700s by King Stanislaus for a peasant named Dobry. The engraving, along with a few sentences below it, tells this story.

Dobry’s grandfather had trained a raven which he later set free. The raven flew into the front door just as Dobry had opened it to see if the landlord’s hired men were coming to throw him, his wife and family, and their meager possessions out into the cold.

Dobry had been out of work for some time. Their money had been spent and they were now in arrears with the rent. He had gone to his landlord three times to appeal for mercy, but in vain. This was the last day they could remain in the home despite the fact it was the middle of a very severe winter.

Having heard very little about God, it seemed very strange when Dobry suggested that they ask this God to help them. He knelt on the cold, hard floor and poured out his broken heart to the “God who answers prayer.”

After he had finished his pleadings, his wife told him that she had a tablet on which she had copied some parts of a hymn her mother had sung a few times before her death. Together, shivering as they sang, the words filled the tiny home, “Dein werk lann neimand hindern,” which means “Nothing thy work suspending.” The rest of this Lutheran pastor’s old hymn went like this, “No foe can make Thee pause When Thou, Thine own defending, Dost undertake their cause.”

After singing the few verses, they sat down and said nothing to each other. Then Dobry spied the raven once again.

“He’s got something in his beak!”

He took the object from the bird’s grasp and held it up for closer examination. It was a beautiful and very expensive ring.

“God has answered our prayers,” his wife said excitedly. “He sent us this valuable ring.”

“But, the ring isn’t ours,” Dobry said. “We don’t know where that raven got it. Maybe we should see if we can find the owner.”

“Dobry!” his wife almost shouted. “You just prayed for God to help us. Here is the answer! Let’s sell the ring and get the money God sent us.”

As Dobry looked at the emaciated faces of his little babies, and his crying wife, he tried to decide what was best to do.

“If we go and try to find out who lost this ring, we’ll come back to find our things piled up in the snow. God sent us this ring. Let’s sell it and live!”

Dobry was torn apart with mixed emotions. “If God did indeed send the ring, He could have just as easily have sent the raven with a bag of gold,” he told himself. “Was this the answer to my prayer?”

His mind was whirling. “I just cannot believe God would want me to have something that belonged to someone else.”

He decided that it was better to be poor than to be a thief. So, he trudged the long snow-filled road to the heart of Warsaw. He went to see the Christian minister.

When he had told the minister of his condition, his prayer, and of the raven, he showed him the ring. The minister stunned Dobry as he said, “I believe I know who this ring belongs to. It looks exactly like one I saw King Stanislaus wear. As you know, there aren’t many men around who can afford such an expensive ring.”

Dobry thanked the minister and left. Once again his mind was flooded with all kinds of thoughts as well as fears. “If I tried to sell it, I would have been arrested for stealing it.”

After a long interrogation by several guards, Dobry was allowed to wait in a chamber while someone went to discuss it with the king. Dobry was terrified with the thought that the king wouldn’t believe that a pet raven had brought the beautiful ring to him in his beak.

To Dobry’s surprise, the king agreed to see him. Dobry was even more surprised to see the minister there, too.

“I have heard all about you, Dobry, and I’m proud that there is a man in my kingdom who would allow his family to be thrown out into the snow before he would keep my ring.”

Dobry’s heart was pounding faster than it ever had in all his life.

The king gave Dobry a large sum of money with which to pay his rent, buy food and clothing, and live on until the summer came. Then came a surprise that almost took Dobry’s life through disbelief.

The king had ordered a new home built in Warsaw for Dobry and his family where he lived comfortably the rest of his life.

The iron tablet with the unique engraving, of course, stands over Dobry’s front door. The engraving? A picture of a raven with a ring in its beak.

W.A. Spicer and Helen Spicer Menkel, The Hand That Still Intervenes, Concerned Publications, Inc., Clermont, Florida, 1982.

The Polish peasant knew how the prophet felt. “God will provide; He who fed Elijah by the brook, making a raven His messenger, will not suffer His faithful ones to want for food.” The Review and Herald, September 21, 1876.

Children’s Story – The Little Outcast

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“May’nt I stay ma’am? I’ll do anything you give me—cut wood, go after water, and do all your errands.”

The troubled eyes of the speaker were filled with tears. It was a lad that stood at the outer door, pleading with a kindly-looking woman, who still seemed to doubt the reality of his good intentions.

The cottage sat by itself on a bleak moor, or what in Scotland would have been called such. The time was near the latter end of September, and a fierce wind rattled the boughs of the only two naked trees near the house, and fled with a shivering sound into the narrow doorway, as if seeking for warmth at the blazing fire within.

Now and then a snowflake touched with its soft chill the cheek of the listener, or whitened the angry redness of the poor boy’s benumbed hands.

The woman was evidently loth to grant the boy’s request, and the peculiar look stamped upon his features would have suggested to any mind an idea of depravity far beyond his years.

But her woman’s heart could not resist the sorrow in those large, but by no means handsome grey eyes.

“Come in at any rate till the good man comes home. There, sit down by the fire; you look perishing with cold;” and she drew a rude chair up to the warmest corner; then, suspiciously glancing at the child from the corners of her eyes, she continued setting the table for supper.

Presently was heard the tramp of heavy shoes; the door was swung open with a quick jerk, and the “good man” presented himself wearied with labor.

A look of intelligence passed between his wife and himself; he too scanned the boy’s face with an expression not evincing satisfaction, but, nevertheless, made him come to the table, and then enjoyed the zest with which he dispatched his supper.

Day after day passed, and yet the boy begged to be kept “only till to-morrow;” so the good couple, after due consideration, concluded that as long as he was so docile, and worked so heartily, they would retain him.

One day in the middle of the winter, a peddler, long accustomed to trade at the cottage, made his appearance, and disposed of his goods readily, as if he had been waited for.

“You have a boy out there splitting wood, I see,” he said, pointing to the yard.

“Yes, do you know him?”

“I have seen him,” replied the peddler evasively.

“And, where? Who is he? What is he?”

“A jail-bird;” and the peddler swung his pack over his shoulder. “That boy, young as he looks, I saw in court myself, and heard his sentence—‘ten months.’ He’s a hard one. You’d do well to look carefully after him.”

Oh! there was something so horrible in the word jail—the poor woman trembled as she laid away her purchases; nor could she be easy till she called the boy in, and assured him that she knew that dark part of his history.

Ashamed, distressed, the boy hung down his head; his cheeks seemed bursting with the hot blood; his lips quivered, and anguish was painted as vividly upon his forehead as if the word was branded into the flesh.

“Well,” he muttered, his whole frame relaxing, as if a burden of guilt or joy had suddenly rolled off. “I may as well go to ruin at once—there’s no use in my trying to do better—everybody hates and despises me—nobody cares about me—I may as well go to ruin at once.”

“Tell me,” said the woman, who stood off far enough for flight, if that should be necessary, “how came you to go so young to that dreadful place? Where was your mother—where?”

“Oh!” exclaimed the boy, with a burst of grief that was terrible to behold. “Oh! I hain’t no mother! Oh! I hain’t had no mother ever since I was a baby. If I’d only had a mother,” he continued, his anguish growing vehement, and the tears gushing out from his strange-looking grey eyes, “I wouldn’t ha’ been bound out, and kicked, an’ cuffed, an’ laid on to with whips. I wouldn’t ha’ been saucy, and got knocked down, and run away, and then stole because I was hungry. Oh! I hain’t got no mother. I ain’t got no mother—I haven’t had no mother since I was a baby.”

The strength was all gone from the poor boy, and he sank on his knees, sobbing great choking sobs, and rubbing the hot tears away with his poor knuckles.

And did that woman stand there unmoved? Did she coldly bid him pack up and be off—the jail-bird? No, no; she had been a mother, and though all her children slept under the cold sod in the church-yard, she was a mother still.

She went up to that poor boy, not to hasten him away, but to lay her fingers kindly, softly on his head, to tell him to look up, and from henceforth find in her a mother. Yes; she even put her arm about the neck of that forsaken, deserted child; she poured from her mother’s heart sweet, womanly words, words of counsel and tenderness.

Oh! how sweet was her sleep that night; how soft her pillow! She had linked a poor, suffering heart to hers, by the most silken, the strongest bands of love; she had plucked some thorns from the path of a little, sinning, but striving mortal. None but the angels could witness her holy joy, and not envy. Did the boy leave her? Never! He is with her still; a vigorous, manly, promising youth. The once poor outcast is her only dependence, and nobly does he repay the trust.

The Youth’s Instructor, vol. 1, No. 6, March 1853.

Children’s Story – Dangerous Doors

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“Oh, Cousin Will, do tell us a story! There’s just time before the school-bell rings.” And Harry, Kate, Bob, and little Peace crowded around about their older cousin until he declared himself ready to do anything they wished.

“Very will,” said Cousin Will. “I will tell you about some dangerous doors I have seen.”

“Oh, that’s good!” exclaimed Bob. “Were they all iron and heavy bars? And if one passed in, did they shut and keep them there forever?”

“No; the doors I mean are pink and scarlet, and when they open you can see a row of little servants standing all in white, and behind them is a little lady dressed in crimson.”

“What? That’s splendid!” cried Kate. “I should like to go in myself.”

“Ah! It is what comes out of these doors that makes them so dangerous. They need a strong guard on each side, or else there is great trouble.”

“Why, what comes out?” said little Peace, with wondering eyes.

“When the guards are away,” said Cousin Will, “I have known some things to come out sharper than arrows, and they make terrible wounds. Quite lately I saw two pretty little doors, and one opened and the little lady began to talk like this: ‘What a stuck-up thing Lucy Waters is! And did you see that horrid dress made out of sister’s old one?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the other little crimson lady from the other door, ‘and what a turned-up nose she has!’ Then poor Lucy, who was around the corner, ran home and cried all evening.”

“I know what you mean,” cried Kate, coloring (blushing).

“Were you listening?”

“Oh, you mean our mouths are doors!” exclaimed Harry, “and the crimson lady is Miss Tongue; but who are the guards, and where do they come from?”

“You must ask the Great King. This is what you must say: ‘Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: keep the door of my lips.’ Then He will send Patience to stand on one side and Love on the other, and no unkind word will dare come out.”

The End

Children’s Story – A Boy who Lived Again

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Elisha went about through all the land, teaching the people, but especially teaching the students in the schools of the prophets. There were many now who turned to the Lord, and Elisha was greatly encouraged. He journeyed here and he journeyed there, and everywhere he came to be known as a great prophet.

Elijah had fought against the evil worship of Baal, brought in by Jezebel, when it threatened to overwhelm all the worship of Jehovah; and the road that Elijah trod was a hard road. But now the worship of Baal was lessening, though many followed after the gods that Jeroboam had set up. So the way of Elisha was easier, but not easy. He was highly honored in Israel, both by the king and by the people.

One of the places that he used to stop as he went on his journeys was in the city of Shunem at the house of a good and great woman. After several visits, the woman said to her husband, “I see this is a holy man who stops and eats with us sometimes. Let us build a room for him on the side of the house, and put in it a bed and a table and a stool and a lamp, and let it be for the man of God only, when he comes.”

Her husband said, “All right; let’s do.” So they built the room and furnished it. When Elisha came, she took him up and showed him the room, with all its good furniture and he was glad. So he asked her what she wanted, but she said, “Nothing!” However, when she was gone, he asked his servant, Gehazi, what he might do for the good woman. And Gehazi said, “I’ll tell you, master. She has no child of her own, and she does so much wish for a son.”

Then Elisha called her back and said, “Listen! Next year about this time you shall have a baby boy born to you.”

She was so thrilled she could hardly believe it. And she said, “O my lord, don’t tell me any lies.”

“No, indeed!” said Elisha. “Truly, you shall have a son.”

And so it came to pass. For the next year there was born to her a baby boy. How she loved him! He grew to be quite a lad. When he was perhaps five years old, one day he followed his father out to the wheat field. The sun was hot, and it beat down on the little boy’s head and made it ache. He went to his father and said, “My head! My head!”

His father said to a big boy, “Take the little chap up and carry him to his mother.” So the big boy carried the little boy to his mother. She took him in her arms and sat down with him and rocked him. But he grew sicker and sicker, until at noon he died.

She took him up in her arms and laid him on the prophet’s bed and shut the door. Then she called to her husband and said, “Have the ass saddled for me. I want to go to the prophet.”

“Why do you want to go to the prophet?” he asked. “This isn’t new moon or Sabbath.”

She didn’t tell him the little boy was dead. She just said, “It’s for the best.” So he had the ass saddled.

And she said to her servant, “Go behind and drive fast and faster.” And she rode to Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elisha was. He saw her coming, and he said to his servant, “Here comes this Shunammite woman. What can be the matter?”

When she came up to him, she fell down at his feet, and she cried, “Did I ask for a son? Did I not say, ‘Tell me no lies’?”

Then he knew her little boy was dead. And he said to Gehazi, “Take my staff, and go ahead and lay it on the face of the child.” So his servant took his master’s staff and went ahead. But the mother said to Elisha, “I’ll not go unless you go with me.” He arose then and went with her. On the way they met Gehazi, and he said, “I laid the staff on the face of the lad, but he is not awaked.” So they went on till they came to the house.

Elisha went up to the room alone, and opened the door. There lay the little dead boy. Elisha looked at him; then he walked up and down in the room and prayed to God. Then he went and laid himself on the little boy. He put his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and the little boy’s flesh grew warm. Again Elisha walked up and down and prayed to God. And again he went and laid himself on the little boy, eyes to his eyes, mouth to his mouth, hands to his hands. And the child sneezed seven times, and he opened his eyes, and he was alive!

Elisha summoned his servant, and said, “Call this Shunammite.” And when she came, he said to her, “Take up your son.”

She looked over to the bed where she had laid her little dead son. But now his eyes were open! He smiled at her and stretched out his hands to her. She fell at the prophet’s feet and thanked him. Then she took up her little boy and carried him out, more thankful for him now than when first as a little babe he had been laid in her arms. (You can read this story in the Bible in II Kings 4:8–37.)

Arthur Whitefield Spalding, Golden Treasury of Bible Stories, Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tennessee, 1954.

Honesty – The Vision of the Missing Hairnet

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It all happened many, many years ago in Northern California. Mrs. Ellen G. White, the Lord’s messenger, was living at Healdsburg only a few blocks from our new college. Since her husband, Elder James White, was now dead, Sister White invited several young ladies to live in her home as they attended school. Among these was one young lady of considerable ability who did some teaching at the school.

How this young lady enjoyed living in Sister White’s home! It was a large, white, two-story, frame house, surrounded with garden and orchard. Sister White was a big-hearted, understanding mother to the girls who lived with her. All went well for a few months. Then it happened. As this girl went through Sister White’s bedroom on some errand, she saw something on the dresser she wanted very much. She stopped and looked at it. The longer she lingered, the more she felt she just had to have it. She looked this way and that, and seeing no one around she reached out her hand and took it.

And what was it? A watch, or something valuable, you think? No. It was just a hairnet. The women at that time often wore a net over their hair. True, it was a well-made, silk hairnet. Sister White would not miss it, she thought, and it was just what she so much wanted.

Leaving Sister White’s bedroom, with the hairnet in her closed hand, the young lady went to her bedroom and opening her trunk, put the net in the corner of the tray. She closed the trunk and went about her duties. But there was no song in her heart now. You know why.

A few hours later in the day, Sister White was preparing to go out, and entering her bedroom to get ready, she brushed her hair, and thought to put on the net, as was the custom of that day. But she could not find the net anywhere. It was not on the top of the dresser. She looked back of it, she looked under it, but could not find the missing article anywhere. Giving up, she did without it.

That evening at worship time the girls gathered with Sister White around the open fireplace. Often Sister White, in connection with the worship, told a story of the early days. How they did enjoy these stories! But this evening, Sister White had a question to ask the girls.

“Have any of you seen my hairnet?” she asked. Continuing, she said, “It was right there on my dresser in the bedroom. When I went to get it, it was gone. It must be found. It could not go away by itself.” But no one seemed to know about the hairnet, for no one responded. There was one girl there, however, who wished Mrs. White would not say anything about a hairnet. The matter was dropped.

A day or two later, as Sister White was passing through this girl’s room, a voice spoke to her as she passed the trunk, “Lift the lid of that trunk!”

But it was not Sister White’s trunk and she would not think of looking into someone else’s trunk.

Again the voice spoke to her, “Lift the lid of that trunk.”

Now she recognized the voice to be that of an angel, and she obeyed and opened the trunk. In the tray was the missing hairnet. She left it there, closed the trunk, and went about her tasks.

That evening, as the family came together again for worship, the hairnet question came up. “Does anyone know where the hairnet is?” Sister White asked. “I am sure it can be found. It could not go away by itself.” But there was no response, and [as] no one seemed to know anything about the hairnet, Sister White did not press the matter further. One girl was worried and in her heart she determined to destroy the hairnet, lest Sister White should discover that she had taken it. How ungrateful this would seem!

A few days after this, Sister White was seated in the living room in front of the fire in the fireplace, busy with her writing. It may have been a personal testimony she was writing to someone, or she may have been working on some of the last chapters of The Great Controversy. For several hours she had been busy with her pen and her hand was tired, her mind was tired, and her eyes were tired. She laid her pen down and looked into the fireplace, and then just for a moment she was in vision. This was one of the shortest visions ever given to Sister White.

In this vision she saw the hand and arm of a girl. In the hand was a hairnet. She also saw on the table a kerosene lamp which was burning. She saw the hairnet held over the lamp and then lowered until the net touched the flame. In a flash of light, the silk net burned, and it was gone. The vision was over, and Sister White found herself in the living room by the open fire. Now she knew what had happened to the missing hairnet.

That evening when the family was together around the fireplace, Sister White again asked about the hairnet. Did not someone know what had happened to it? Someone must know about it. But nothing was said; no one seemed to know. Sister White dropped the matter.

A little later Sister White called aside the girl in whose trunk she had seen the hairnet. She told her about the voice that spoke to her. She told her what she saw when she opened the trunk. Then she told her about the short vision and of how she saw the hairnet burn up over the lamp.

The girl broke down in tears. “Yes, Sister White, I took it,” she confessed. “I wanted it so much, and I did not think you would miss it, but when you began to press the matter I feared you would find out that I had taken it, so I held the net over a lamp and burned it up, just as you saw in the vision, and I said to myself, ‘Now no one will ever know about the hairnet.’ ”

But someone was watching from up in heaven. The angels made a record of what took place, and God sent His angel down to this world with a vision for Sister White just about the hairnet. It was such a small thing for the Lord to bother about. God who created the earth and guides the planets, sent His angel down to this world with a vision for Sister White just about a hairnet a girl had taken. But it was a matter much more important than the value of the hairnet. Here was the soul of a young lady at stake.

She was a member of the church. She went to Sabbath School and to church. She was a Seventh-day Adventist, and she felt that she was all right. She did not realize that there were little sins in her life—sins which led her to steal and to deceive. But when she saw that God loved her so much that He sent His angel down to this world with a vision for Sister White just about the hairnet, then she began to see some things differently. Some of the seemingly little things now seemed much more important. How much the Lord must love her; how important the little things were!

Not only did this girl confess her sin of stealing and make the matter right with Sister White and with the Lord, but this experience became the turning point in her life.

This young lady gave her heart anew to God, and she lived a sweet, consistent Christian life. And that was why the vision was given to Sister White. It was to help men and women, and boys and girls to live sweet, consistent Christian lives that so many visions were given to Sister White. And the counsels were written out in the Spirit of Prophecy books to help everyone live good lives, and to get ready to meet Jesus.

Campfire Junior Stories from the days of Seventh-day Adventist Pioneers, 9. Ellen G. White Estate, Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Children’s Story – What Love Can Do

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It was a sunny day outside, but clouds seemed to hang over Harold. In fact, the afternoon atmosphere in the kitchen seemed to change when Harold brought in the wood and kindling.

Mother turned off her iron and followed him to the kitchen door. She laid a hand gently on his shoulder and turned him around so that their eyes met. “Harold, my boy, what is the trouble?” she asked. “What has happened to make you so miserable? Tell me about it; perhaps I can help.”

“It’s all over now, and I don’t see as there’s anything more to be done.”

“Tell me about it. Can’t you trust me not to speak of it to anyone?”

“Oh, it’s no secret. Everybody in the school knows about it. Teacher gave me a scolding; and I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it. This is what happened: After lunch Jack and I were playing catch with my new ball, when Tom came to bother us. When Jack missed the ball, Tom got it and ran. I took after him, and when I finally caught him he refused to give it to me, so we had a fight. Of course, I don’t think Tom had any right to take my ball; but I know I shouldn’t have got angry, either.”

Mother’s face was happy as she greeted her husband that evening. “I’m so glad you came home early tonight,” she said, as she kissed him.

At worship time father read the story of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross. When the chapter was finished, mother asked, “What was it that touched the heart of the thief and made him want to be with Jesus in heaven?”

Harold was the first to answer, “It was the prayer of Jesus, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ ”

Handing Harold the open Bible, mother said, “Will you read the words that Peter wrote to some of his Christian friends who were mistreated because they loved Jesus?”

Harold read: “ ‘For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.’ I Peter 2:21–23.”

“That means that when someone did something mean to Jesus, our Saviour did not do anything mean back. He was kind and loving always.”

Harold thought how unlike Jesus he had been at school. Father remembered the harsh letter he had written that day, and he decided he would not send it.

After prayer, the family gathered around the piano and sang “More Like the Master I Would Ever Be.”

Harold whispered in mother’s ear, “I’m going to let Tom play with my ball. I feel sorry for him; his parents are not Christians. And mother, would it be all right to invite him to our home sometime?”

Ella M. Robinson, Happy Home Stories, TEACH Services Inc., Ringgold, Georgia, March 2005, 11–14.

Children’s Story – Amazing Rescue

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If the one who experienced this almost unbelievable battlefield bewilderment was not known for his extreme truthfulness and reliability, this would be too much to believe.

The Somme River rises above St. Quentin, near the Belgian border in northern France, and flows into the English Channel. In what was once a rich farming area near the river, the astounding scene took place.

Before the war, this man was an irreligious man. He had attended some evangelistic meetings once but did not become a Christian. After entering the war he was shipped to France. As he was crossing an open field, shrapnel struck him down. His fellow soldiers left him as they deemed him dead.

“I could hear the battle,” he related, “and the humming of bullets was all about me. I saw that I was bleeding and hoped that a corpsman would find me. But night came without one person coming near by the bit of a hollow where I fell.

“The next morning I was very weak from the loss of blood and from hunger. I had a little food in my knapsack but was unable to turn over or to unbuckle my straps to get it. I realized that I was lying in my own blood. I was helpless and giving myself up to die.

“Five days later, the medical corpsmen were out in the field searching for any one who could possibly still have life in him. I saw them come closer and closer. I tried to call to them, but they were too far away to hear my weak voice.

“Closer and closer they came. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, one of them stopped, cupped his hand to his ear, and heard my plea for help. After administering some first aid, he called to a companion to get a stretcher. When the two of them started to take me off, I asked them to look around and see if they could see what had saved my life. Puzzled and thinking I was delirious, they started on with their task.

“Wait,” I cried, “at least look at the evidence of what has happened.” After seeing those ten definite objects of proof that I had miraculously been preserved from starvation, we made our way to the mobile army surgical hospital.

“In the portable hospital tent, I had time to reflect back on the astounding way in which that God I had rejected in those evangelistic meetings had not rejected me. I gave my heart to Him and vowed to go back home, look up the people who held those meetings, and allow them to help me become a real bonafide Christian.

“My testimony of God’s stunning battlefield protection was confirmed by the two medics so that no one would miss out on the power of it all through doubt or disbelief.

“You see, when I could not turn over or unbuckle my strap with my one free arm so that I could eat the meager provisions of my K-rations, the Lord interceded.

“Lying there the morning after my being wounded, I first thought I was having an hallucination, because standing near the very tip of the five fingers of my one free hand was a real, live hen!

“What’s more, the hen laid an egg right then and there!

“I broke the egg, cupping most of its contents in one half of the shell, and swallowed it. It was not much, but it was enough to keep me alive until the next day.

“What’s even more wonderful is the fact that this same hen that I saw walk slowly away after laying that first egg came back to almost the very same spot the next day to lay another egg.

“The hen came from a nearly shelled farm house, an orderly told me later. But it came five days in a row. And the corpsmen saw the ten halves of the five eggs broken by my body.

“From this day forward I will never be able to eat chicken. The chicken means life to me, and I can’t ever take one’s life again.”

W.A. Spicer and Helen Spicer Menkel, The Hand That Still Intervenes, Concerned Publications, Inc., Clermont, Florida, 1982, 33–35.