SAMUEL'S CALL.



JUST as you are going to sleep at night, if a voice from Heaven should call you by name, it would startle you so that you would not be able to go to sleep again. Do you remember the story of Samuel the prophet, how he was called of God when he was a little boy? His mother had brought him to the temple, and left him there to live with the good priest, Eli. Samuel's mother used to come and see him once a year, and always brought him a new coat when she came.

One night, as the little boy was going to bed, he heard some one calling to him, 

Samuel! Samuel! 

He thought it was Eli the priest who spoke, and running into the next room, where the good man was sleeping, he said, "Here am I." Eli told him that he had not called him, and bade him lie down again. He went back to his little room, and lay down. How sweet and childlike this was! 

He was not afraid, for Eli had told him to go; and though he could not tell who had called him, he lay down again to sleep.

And again the same voice called to him,

Samuel! Samuel!

Now he thought, surely that must be Eli, the good old priest, who has called me; and getting up, he went into Eli's room again, but he had not called him. Eli sent him back, and once more he lay down on his pillow. The third time the same voice was heard:

Samuel! Samuel!

Was it Eli? It must have been, for no one else was there. So he went to Eli again and asked him if he had called him. Samuel did not suppose the Lord would speak to a child; but Eli thought it must be he, and told Samuel to go and lie down, and if he heard the voice again, to say, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."

The little boy did as he was told. Once more he went to his bed, and the Lord called again, Samuel! Samuel.' 

You would think that a child would be afraid to speak to the great God. But he was not afraid. 

He said, as Eli had told him, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."  Then the Lord told him what he would have him do; and afterward trained him up to be a prophet, a preacher, and a very good and useful man.

The God of Heaven has never called you as he did Samuel, and asked you to become his child, and grow up in his fear and love, and serve him. But he has called you in many other ways, and very often. Did you ever hear his voice?  He speaks to you in his holy word. When you read the Bible, it is God speaking to you. Every word is his voice. And you should heed what it says, just as you would if you heard him calling to you by name, and saying, "My son, my daughter, give me thy heart." God speaks to you when your conscience reproves you. When you have done wrong and feel it, the Lord God is calling you to repent and do so no more.

How many of these calls have you had? 

God is speaking to you now. He sent these lines to you, in this Sabbath-school paper, that you might read them on his holy day, and while you are reading heed his voice. 





S. S. Visitor.