There was a little boy, about seven years old, whose name was Willie. His sister was making up a box to send to a Missionary in India. She asked Willie one day, if he wouldn’t like to put some things in her box. He had just begun to save up enough money to buy himself a new top. He only had one penny, and he told his sister he could not spare that. But after thinking over it for awhile he said to himself— “Well, I guess the heathen need the gospel more than I need a top. I’ll let my penny go into sister’s box.” Then he offered her the penny. But she said she was not going to send money in the box, and that he had better buy something with his penny and then it could be put in the box. “What shall I buy? “he asked. “Why, suppose you buy a tract,” said his sister.
Before going out to do this, Willie went up to his own room. Then he laid the penny on the bed, and kneeling down he offered a short prayer over it. He told the Lord that this was all the money he had ; and that he was going to buy a tract with it and send it out to India, in his sister’s missionary box. He asked God to bless that tract, and make it the means of doing good to some soul in India. Then he went and bought the tract, and gave it to his sister to put in her box, and told her how he had prayed to God for His blessing to rest upon it. There was a blank leaf on the back of the tract. On that leaf his sister wrote this little history of the tract, and then put it in her box.
When that box arrived in India, the missionary, to whom it was sent, was engaged in learning the language of a distant tribe, among whose people he was anxious to have the gospel introduced. One of the chiefs of that tribe was helping him to learn their language. When that chief was about to leave him and return home, the missionary gave him some of the things which had been sent him in that box. Among the rest he gave him little Willie’s tract. That chief could read English very well. On his way home he read that tract. The little incident, written on the back of it, touched him much. It led him to read the New Testament, which the missionary had given him. This brought him to Jesus, and he became a Christian. Then he never rested till he got a missionary to come and live among his people, and preach the gospel to them. Before long a chapel was built in that village, and numbers of the natives attended its services, and became Christians. They were very earnest followers of Jesus, and used to go into the neighboring villages, and tell the people there what they had learned about the gospel. God’s blessing rested on those efforts, and the result was, that within four or five years, from the time that Willie’s tract was given to that chief, several hundred heathens were brought to Jesus, through the influence which it exerted.
Dale Sperling
Interesting story but is it true? I heard it told that a boy gave his only penny to a missionary who purchased a gospel tract because that is all a penny would buy. During his missionary journey he stopped at a heathen village he had visited many times before to ask permission to preach and . as before, was denied. He left the Chief that gospel tract and continued his journey. On his return trip the Chief and some of his villagers were on the bank beckoning for him to come to them. When he did the Chief said the tract convinced him of Jesus and he and many of the villagers had accepted Christ.
Same point, totally different story. Is either, neither, or both true and what is the source of either.