The leopard is a beautiful animal, although very wild and cruel. It is as big as the largest of our dogs, but it looks more like a cat than a dog. You’ve seen kittens play hundreds of times and you know how fast, cute and graceful their every move is. The same goes for the leopard; and it can also crawl, as smoothly as a cat, and climb a tree after a monkey, as easily as a cat after a bird. Lives mainly on antelope and young deer, often standing for a long time watching one until it approaches and then springs on it. The Bible says in one place: “A leopard will watch over your cities; everyone who comes out of there will be torn to pieces”; and in another, “Therefore I will be to them as a lion; like a leopard on the road I will watch (or watch over) them.” The leopard runs very fast when trying to catch up with any animal: the Bible says: “His horses are lighter than leopards.”
Its color is a light and attractive yellow, spotted with black; the spots are found in small groups, two, three or four together, and the skin is very smooth and shiny. There is such a big difference between the color of the spots and the rest of the skin, that one might think that it is a very curious-looking animal. The 23rd verse of the 13th chapter of Jeremiah is this: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then you too can do good, those who are accustomed to doing evil.” It would not be easy to clean the black spots of the leopard; in fact, nothing but the power of God could do it. So it is not easy to do good when we have been accustomed to doing evil and have loved doing it: this is why we must pray that God “create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us”. Shouldn’t we beware of every sinful habit? Remember, dear girl, that habit in you can become fixed, almost like leopard spots; and pray to God to help you love all that is “pure, beautiful, and of good report.”
What a peaceful and happy time that will be, when Jesus our Savior reigns over all the earth, when all men love him and each other, when “the leopard (fierce and cruel as it is now) lies down with the kid” ; and the calf and the lion cub and the domestic beast together; and a child shall shepherd them.” That bright day is drawing near; and if you love Christ, even you, a child, can do something to prepare yourself for it.