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grown up, but it may show itself just as really, for all that; and wherever there is the spirit of trust in God, the willingness to learn out of His Word, and the determination to obey Him in everything, there true piety is. No matter, therefore, how young we are, we can still, like Samuel, “minister before the Lord.”
And then the case of Samuel proves that there is no necessary connection between early piety and early death. It has somehow come to be believed that these two things are inseparable. The very good children are said to be too good for this world, and children themselves dislike the idea of early piety because of their love of life. We have all heard of the little boy who, on recovery from a dangerous illness, said, “If I had been one of them pious, I’d have been a goner, sure!” But Samuel lived to be an old man and full of years. Nor was he an exception in this particular. The same thing is seen in the histories of Joseph and Moses and Daniel, and, in modern