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D L M t W t I j L
by Margaret «Jacobsen
oday is the last day of the year,” announced Marcia gleefully to Peter, just as though he didn’t know. “We’ll take down the Christ mas tree. Isn’t it funny,” she laughed, “ that it’s such fun to put the tree up before Christmas, and yet it’s nice to take it down later. I think it is be cause the tree looks—-well— sad, by the end of the week.” “Yes,” Peter agreed, taking off the topmost star on the tree. “ Wilted , I’d call it.” “ I can try out my new saw, too,” Peter went on. “ Daddy will be pleased to have the tree sawed into logs for the fireplace.” “ Good,” Mother exclaimed behind them. “ I was just going to ask you to take the trimmings from the tree, and here you are—doing it just right. When you have finished, I’ll sweep, and the house will be all nice and clean for the new year.” “ Is that why we always take down the tree on the last day of Decem ber?” Marcia asked. “ Yes,” Mother answered gaily. “ Then even our house can begin the new year right— clean and bright.” “ That’s a good idea!” Peter ex claimed. Marcia looked up as she carefully wrapped the shiny blue, silver, red and green balls and she nodded. Just then the doorbell rang, and Peter jumped up so quickly that he scattered some of the tinsel on the floor. “ Oh, hello, Joan,” Marcia heard him say. “ Come on in. We’re taking down our Christmas tree this morn ing. Then the house will be all clean and shining for the new year.” “ Hello, Joan,” Marcia greeted her as the two appeared in the living room doorway. “ Come in and help us get ready for the new year.” “ I’m getting ready for the new year, too,” Joan answered. “ I’m mak ing New Year’s resolutions.” “ You are!” Marcia and Peter ex claimed together. “ I thought only grown-ups made those.”
Joan looked at Marcia, surprise in her brown eyes. “How can the Lord Jesus make your heart clean for New Year’s Day?” , she asked. “Why, the Bible says so,” Peter put in, not to be outdone by his sister. He hurried to the table and picked , up the Bible. “ It says so in lots of places,” he went on, surprised that every one didn’t know that. “ Read this.” Joan took the Bible and read quiet ly, “ ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’ ” “ There is another verse about it, too, one that we learned at Sunday school last Sunday,” Peter went on. “ ‘Create in me a clean heart, 0 God,’ ” he quoted. “And there are ever so many more verses like that.” “ But what do you have to do?” , Joan asked. “Just ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ ” Marcia said, eager to show her friend the way. “ That’s in the Bible, too,” Peter hastened to explain. “That isn’t just Marcia’s idea.” Joan looked puzzled. “ I’d like to see it in the Bible,” she said. “ Acts 16:31,” Mother whispered to Peter, and he quickly turned to the right portion. Joan took the Bible, and read care fully: “ ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ I’d like to believe,” she said, closing the Bible and turning to Mrs. Grant. “ I’d like the Lord Jesus to give me a clean heart to start the New Year with. But how do I do it?” Mrs. Grant smiled gently at Joan, and beginning quite simply she told her of her need to be saved, of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ whose birth they had remembered at Christ mastime, of His death on the cross that all men, women and children might be saved, and of His work in the heart when one received Him. “ Do you believe that?” , she asked. “ Oh, yes,” Joan exclaimed, starry- eyed.
“ Oh, but children can make them, too. Miss Martin told us all about it,” Joan said importantly. She was in the fourth grade and felt much older than Marcia and Peter who were only in the third. “ I’m going to make up my bed every morning be fore I go to school. I’m going to help Mother set the table without grum bling. I am going to try to be kind and cheerful to every one,” she re cited, counting the resolutions on her fingers. “You’re going to do all of those things for a whole year?” Peter fi nally breathed. Joan laughed d e lig h te d ly . “ Of course not, silly,” she said. “ Nobody keeps New Year’s ■resolutions very long. But it is fun to make them.” Peter looked startled and then a little disgusted. Girls were funny. “Well, I think it’s dumb to make resolutions if you don’t intend to keep them. Why go to all the trouble, anyway?” Joan looked disappointed, and Mar cia hastened to comfort her. “ I think it is a lovely idea,” she said. “ And who knows, it might help you keep them.” But Peter did not look convinced. Mrs. Grant had been watching the children from where she was sitting, busy at her knitting for the soldiers. Now she spoke quietly.« “ People make New Year’s, resolutions because they want to start the new year with a clean heart,” she explained. “ They mean to keep them. But Peter is right. If they are going to break the reso lutions right away, it isn’t a very good way to have a clean heart, is it? I know of a much better way, the only way, in fact.” Joan stopped wrapping up tinsel and looked interested. “You do?” she asked. Suddenly, before her mother could reply, a glad smile spread over Mar cia’s face. “ Oh, I know, now,” Marcia said. “ The Lord Jesus Christ is the only One who can make our hearts clean, isn’t He, Mother?”
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T H E K IN G 'S BU SINESS
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