Sunday School/Missions.
Some years ago in a manufacturing town in England, a young lady applied to the superintendent of a Sunday School for a class. At his suggestions, she gathered a class of poor boys. The superintendent told them to come to his house during the week and he would get them each a new set of clothes. They came and they were nicely dressed up.
The worst and least promising boy in the class was a lad named Bob. After two or three Sundays, when he was missing, the teacher went to hunt him up. She found that his new clothes were torn and dirty, but she invited him back to the school. He came.
The superintendent again gave him a new set of clothes; but, after attending once or twice, again Bob absented himself. Once more the teacher sought him out, only to find that the second set of clothes had gone the way of the first.
“I am utterly discouraged about Bob,” she said to the superintendent, “I give up on him.” “Please don’t do that,” he answered, “I cannot help but hope there is something good in Bob. Try him once more. I’ll get him another set of clothes if he’ll promise to attend regularly.”
Bob did promise and received the third set of clothes. He attended regularly after that and became interested in the school. He accepted Christ as Savior and followed the Lord. He was made a teacher. Later, he studied for the ministry.
The end of this account is that the discouraging boy — that ragged, forlorn, runaway Bob — became Robert Morrison, the great missionary to China, who translated the Bible into the Chinese language, and by doing so opened the kingdom of heaven to teeming millions of that vast nation.
Source: Scotland Children’s Review, via Sword of the Lord.