little sparrows look, as they pick up their food! Children's hearts
are generally tender, and always so unless they have been hardened by
the practice of cruelty, and Mrs. Dudley's were full of sympathy for
the little sufferers. "Oh! mother!" said Eddie, the youngest, "if the
birds knew how we loved them, they would come into the house;" but the
birds did not know, and they stayed out in the snow, and many of them
perished.

The children were sadly grieved, when, after the storm, they found
many of their feathered friends dead. How much they regretted they
could not have saved their lives! If the birds had only known, as
Eddie said, how much the children loved them, they would have flown
into the house, and been warmed and fed.

There are many dear children who do not know how much Jesus loves
them; how much he wishes them to enter the "ark of safety," and escape
the dangers there are in the world. There are many who have not even
heard of him; and many of those who have, do not know he is their best
friend.

Do _you_ know how much he loves you, and have you sought his
protection amid all the dangers that surround you? If you have not
found refuge in that "high tower," of which David speaks in the
Psalms, you are no safer than were the birds flying through the cold
snow, and you surely will be lost if you do not fly to that kind
Saviour, who has prepared a way of escape for you.

[Illustration]