^ 9-19-30 ) BV 4315 .H95 Hutchison, Stuart Nye, 187 1958. The soul of a child SEP 1 9 193' The Soul of a Child Five-Minute Sermons to Children By STUART NYE HUTCHISON, D.D. Pastor First Presbyterian Churchy Norfolk, Va, New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh • CVt'. Contents I. Giving 9 11. How TO BE Wise . . . . 13 III. The Strongest Thing in the World 17 IV. Prayers that God Does Not Answer 21 V. Love • 25 VI. Sand ..... 28 VII. Owning Up .... 31 VIII. Why God DoesnV Kill Satan . 34 IX. Kindness to Dumb Animals • 39 X. Forgetting Ourselves • 43 XI. Rocks and Shoals • 47 XII. The Building of a Lighthouse . • 51 XIII. The Wings of the Sun • 55 XIV. The Hook and the Bait . . 59 XV. Saying " No " . . 63 XVI. The Lion and the Bear . (^1 XVII. Behavior in Church . 71 xvm. Seeing and Knowing God . • 74 XIX. What Jesus Did When He Was a Chili ) 78 XX. I Didn't Mean To . . 82 XXI. Small Beginnings . 86 XXII. Lamps ..... . 90 XXIII. Love Your Enemies . . 94 XXIV. God's Jewels .... 7 . 98 8 Contents XXV. Self-Sacrifice . • • » XXVI. Sympathy . . . . . XXVII. The Shepherd Boy Who Became King XXVIII. Keeping the Thoughts Pure XXIX. COVETOUSNESS . . . . XXX. Growing XXXI. Let Your Light Shine . XXXII. What I Want to Do and What I Ought to Do . . . . XXXIII. Paul's Message to the Children . XXXIV. The Whole Armor XXXV. The Girdle of Truth . XXXVI. The Breastplate of Righteousness XXXVII. The Shoes of Peace XXXVIII. The Shield of Faith XXXIX. The Helmet of Salvation . XL. The Sword of the Spirit XLI. Obedience XLII. How TO BE A Home Missionary XLIII. The Child Samuel XLIV. The Obedience of Samuel XLV. Honesty, or Telling the Truth With Our Actions . XLVI. Christmas . . . . . XLVII. The Best Life for the New Year XLVIII. The Resurrection Giving " The Lord loveth a cheerful giver." — 2 Cor. ix. 7. The Indians of this country have a very pretty legend about the leaves and the birds. They say that long, long ago when the Great Spirit was busy making the earth beautiful, that everywhere he stepped there the trees and the plants and the flowers began to grow at once. The leaves of the trees were very happy and sang songs all the day. But one morning the wind came along and told the leaves that very soon they would fall from the trees to the ground and would wither and die and be forgotten. This made the leaves very sad and they forgot for a little to sing. But by and by, when they thought how happy it made the old tree to hear them, they began to sing again and forgot all about what the wind had said. But sure enough one day in the Fall it became very cold. The wind blew and the leaves began to loosen their hold on the tree, and to fall to the ground. The tree had to 9 lO The Soul of a Child give them up one by one till there was not a single leaf left on the sad old tree. As they lay there the Great Spirit came walking along that way. He saw the beau- tiful, many-colored leaves on the ground, and thought to himself, " What a pity to let those lovely things go to waste 1 " So he de- termined to make them live again. He gave to each leaf a pair of wings and taught them to fly, and they became the birds. The red oak leaves became the robin-redbreasts, and the yellow willow leaves became the yellow birds, and the brown leaves became the spar- rows and the swallows. What a flock of them there were ! And they flew ofi up into the trees again. The trees had had to give them up, but they got them all back, and they were so much more beautiful than they were before. Now let me tell you what this legend teaches. It means that no one ever gives up anything for God that He does not give him back something ever so much better and more beautiful. Once while Jesus was here, there was a great host of very hungry people out in the wilderness who had had nothing to eat all day. There were no stores where they could buy, and they were too far away to go home. Giving 1 1 Jesus called the disciples and asked them to feed the people, but the disciples had nothing to give them. Then the Lord commanded them to go and see what they could find in the crowd. After a little they came back and told Him that there was a little boy there who had five biscuits and two small fish. The little boy's mother had given him some lunch that morning when he came away from home, and he had not eaten it yet. And that was all that they could find in that crowd of thousands of people. Jesus called the lad to Him and asked if he would give Him his lunch. The little boy didn't want to at first. He was hungry himself, but the children all loved Jesus and so he gave it to Him. And then what do you think that Jesus did ? He took that little boy's basket of lunch and He made it more and more till there was enough to feed all those thousands of hungry people. When they had all had enough, He called the little boy to Him and gave him back what was left. There were twelve big baskets full. There was so much that he couldn't carry it all. He had to ask some of his friends to come and help him. He had given the Lord a little, and the Lord had given him more than he could carry. 11 The Soul of a Child When he went home that night and showed his mother all that Jesus had given him, I am sure that he was very glad that he had been willing to give up some- thing for Jesus. Just think what that boy would have missed and what those thousands of people would have missed if he had been selfish and unwilling to let Jesus use what he had. A good man once said, ** I have lived many years and have had many experiences. There has been much joy in my life and there has been a little sadness with it too. But I have never made a single sacrifice for God which He has not repaid many times." Jesus never forgets a sacrifice that has been made for Him. He remembers and gives back to the boy or girl who has made it something far better than that which has been given up. II How to be Wise ** Search the Scriptures." — John v. 39. You have all seen the building with the name *' Library " across the front. Per- haps the first time you saw that name you asked some one what a library is. You were told that a library is a collection of books. The Bible is a library. There are sixty-six books in it, and they are books of many different kinds. Some are history and some are biography ; there are books of poetry and the letters of great men. You can find them all in this wonderful collection, which we call the Bible. Some boy or girl says, " I have tried to read the Bible, and I cannot understand it, and I do not care to read anything that I cannot understand." But that is just because you have not looked in the right place in the Bible. If you were to go to the City Library to get a book to read, you would not go to the room where the grown-up people get their books. You would go into the children's 13 14 The Soul of a Child room where they have children's books, and you would ask for something that you can understand. The Bible is like that library. There are books there for men and women, and there are books for children. When you go into a library you do not take up the first book you come to and try to read that. If you do, of course you get one that you cannot understand. You ask some one who knows to tell you what to read. That is what you ought to do when you read your Bible. Ask your father or mother or teacher to show you where to find a book in the Bible that will interest you. Ask for the story of Joseph, or Samuel, or David, or Esther, or the child Jesus. If you will do this you will find that there is no other li- brary in the whole world that has so many splendid stories in it for children as the Bible. There are parts of the Bible that every boy and girl ought to know by heart. We all ought to be able to repeat by heart the Twenty-third Psalm, and the One Hundred and Third, the first part of the fifth chapter of Matthew, and Paul's chapter on love, the thirteenth of First Corinthians. There are two things we should remember about the Bible. It was given to us to show us where to go. David once said, " Thy How to be Wise l^ word is a lamp unto my feet and a guide unto my path." Did you ever go walking in the country, where there are no bright street- lights? You tried to walk in the path but you could not see where you were going. First you bumped into a tree, and next stumbled into the gutter, till you said to yourself, " I must have a light." So you went back and lighted a lantern and started out again. Now you have no trouble, for the lantern makes the path light for you. That is what David meant when he spoke of the Bible as a light for our feet. It shows us plainly where to go, and the reason boys and girls run into difficulties, and stumble and fall so often is because they have not taken the Light for their feet. But there is still something else about this Bible. Paul said to Timothy, " From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." That means that the Bible will change our lives and make them like the life of Jesus. Dr. Moffat, the great missionary to Africa, told the story of a shepherd boy who had be- come a Christian. He had been a very bad boy, but he learned to read the New Testa- ment, and it made him gentle and kind and thoughtful of others. i6 The Soul of a Child One day he came to Dr. Moffat in great trouble, telling him that his big dog had found a piece of the New Testament and had eaten it. Dr. Moffat told him that it did not make any difference, that he would give him another Testament. But that did not seem to make the boy feel any better. ** It is the dog that I care about," he said. ** Oh," said the missionary, " if your dog can crunch a big bone in his teeth, it will not hurt him to eat a little piece of paper." ** That isn't it," said the boy. ** I was once a bad boy. If I had an enemy I hated him, and everything in me wanted to kill him. Then you gave me the Bible, and I read about Jesus, and I began to love my enemies, and now my big dog has got the Bible in him, and he will be loving the lions and let- ting them help themselves to the sheep." That boy thought that because the Bible had changed him it would change his dog too. It will not change dogs, but it will make boys and girls every day more like Jesus. Ill The Strongest Thing in the World •* Ask, and it shall be given unto you." — Matthew vii. 7. One of the first lessons that we learn after we begin to talk is to pray. Mr. Gladstone, one of the greatest men of all time, lived to be almost ninety years old, and he said that he had never gone to bed at night without kneeling down and praying that little prayer that his mother had taught him when he was a baby : " Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep ; If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." When we pray we talk to God. Where is God ? Some one says, " God is in heaven." Yes, but He is here too. God is everywhere. He is in this room, and He is in your home, and along the street, and just everywhere. But some boy or girl says to me, '* How do I know that He is here ? I cannot see Him." No, of course you cannot see Him. There are plenty of things that 17 i8 The Soul of a Child you are not able to see. You cannot see the wind that rattles the shutters and pulls up your kite. You cannot see the electricity that makes the cars go along the streets. God is a Spirit, and a spirit cannot be seen. When you pray, you need not be afraid that He will not hear, for He is always here by us when we speak. He is so close to us that He can hear the softest whispered-prayer that we ever utter. • If I were to ask every boy in this house to tell me what is the strongest thing in the whole world, probably each boy would tell me something different. One boy would say that an elephant is the strongest. Another would tell me that it is one of the big en- gines that haul those long trains of loaded cars across the Virginia mountains, and an- other boy might say that the mightiest thing in the whole world is one of those great battle-ships out there in Hampton Roads. But there is something that is mightier than any of these. It is prayer. If the big front door of this church were locked and you were to try to come in you could not open it. You might push and pull and get all your friends to help you, but you would not be able to move it. Just then a little girl comes down the street and say^. The Strongest Thing in the World 19 * I can open that door." You say to her, ** What, you open that door ? You haven't half as much strength as I have, and we all of us together cannot open it." But the little girl takes a small piece of steel about as large as one of her fingers and puts it in the lock and gives it a little turn, and the door is open. That tiny key in the little girl's hand has done more than all of you together. Prayer is the little key that unlocks the treasure house, where God keeps the good things that He has for those who love Him. Those who have that key and use it re- ceive wonderful things from God. Long ago in the land of Israel there was a great drought. There had been no rain for sev- eral years, and there was no water to drink. The Prophet Elijah went up to the top of a hill and prayed to God to send some rain. Then he sent his servant to see if there were any clouds in the sky. The servant came back and said that there was not one. But Elijah kept on praying, and after he had prayed seven times the servant came and told him that there was a cloud coming up, and very soon the rain began to fall. That prayer of Elijah's had done more than all the power of the king could do. It had brought the rain. This is a key that 20 The Soul of a Child every boy and girl can have and use if they will. I know a man who came home late one night, and when he tried to open the door he found that he had lost the key. He tried to get into the house, but everything was fastened tight and he had to go back to the hotel for the night. There are many people who cannot get into the treasure house of God's heart. They have lost the key. They have for- gotten to pray. Whatever you do be sure not to lose the key. IV Prayers That God Does Not Answer <* Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss." — James iv. 3. God does not always give us what we ask in our prayers. If He did, it would not be well for us. There was a young man in prison in New York a year or two ago for committing a great crime. I met an old man who had known that young man all his life. He said, "The trouble with that boy was that his father spoiled him. He gave him every- thing that he wanted. If the father had been a little wiser, the boy would not have been ruined." Your fathers and mothers do not give you everything that you ask for. If they did, it would be a bad thing for you. And God deals in the same way with us. If He were to grant us everything that we ask, it would harm instead of help us. Very often we ask Him to do something for us that we ought to do for ourselves. 21 22 The Soul of a Child When I was in school once in a while one of the boys would come to a problem that was very hard. After looking at it for a moment he would take it to his teacher and ask him to work it for him. The teacher would say to him, ** Now, my boy, it is not going to do you any good if 1 work this problem. You go back and see if you can solve it yourself." That boy had been sent to school that his mind might grow strong by working hard problems and doing hard things. So his teacher did not do what he asked, but made him work it for himself. He wanted his teacher to do something for him that he ought to have done for himself. If you ever pray to God asking Him to do something for you and He does not do it, ask yourself if it is not a problem that He wants you to work for yourself. We ought never to trouble God with things that we can do for ourselves. Then sometimes boys and girls pray for clear weather. They are going on an excur- sion, perhaps, the next day, and they are afraid that it will rain, so they ask God to give them a clear, bright day. The next morning when they wake up the first sound that they hear is the rain coming down on the roof. They are disappointed, and they Prayers that God Does Not Answer 23 think that God has not heard their prayer. But God has a very large family to take care of, and He has to think about all His people. Out in the country there are thousands of farmers who have planted their fields and they are praying for rain to come and make the crops grow. If God were to answer your prayer and send sunshine every day there would be no rain and the farmers would have no fruit or grain, and there would be noth- ing to eat. God has to think of all His chil- dren, and if He sends you rain when you ask for sunshine, just think of all the blessings that the rain brings to the earth, the grain, and the fruit and the flowers. ' I read once of a fairy who was asked by the people to pray to God for rain. Before she prayed, she thought she would find out what day would be the most convenient for the people to have it rain. Well, the women did not want it to rain on Monday, for that was wash-day, and Tuesday the market peo- ple wanted clear weather. Wednesday the farmers were going to cut their hay and Thursday they were planning to gather it in ; Friday and Saturday it was something else, and of course the ministers did not> want it to rain Sunday. There was no day that suited every one. So the fairy went and asked the 24 The Soul of a Child Lord to send the rain whenever He thought best, and that is the way He sends it. Sometimes we are very selfish in our prayers. There was a boy who wanted a quarter very much to buy something that he needed, and he had no way of getting it, so he prayed that he might find a quarter. That seems like a harmless prayer, but it isn't so harmless as we think. If he were to find a quarter some one else would have first to lose it. He was asking God to take the money out of the pocket of some one else, and put it into his. We must be sure that our prayers, if they were granted, do not make some one else suffer. If they do, God may not answer them. We will all pray many times when God does not answer, and the reason is not that He does not hear us, but that we are asking for something that is not right, or is not best. Love " We love Him because He first loved us." — I John iv. 19. If I were to ask one of you why it is that you love your father and mother, you wouldn't be able to tell me at first. There are so very many reasons why you love them that it is hard to talk about it. The greatest reason why you love them is be- cause they first loved you. When you were very small and couldn't care for yourself, they loved you and did everything for you. They watched around you by day and by night, and gave you the good things that you needed, and taught you to do right. So you love them because they first loved you. That is the reason we love Jesus Christ. Because He first loved us. He gave us not only every good thing that we have but also He gave Himself for us. In the city of Lynchburg there is an Or- phans' Home, and there was a boy there a few years ago about whom I am going to 25 26 The So il of a Child tell you. This boy has only one leg, and he is one of the finest little heroes I ever knew. Some years ago they had a fire in the Orphanage and its buildings were all burned. This one-legged boy was then about four- teen years old. In the second story of one of the buildings there were some little girls when the fire started. In the confusion of trying to save the other children these little ones were forgotten. It was not long before the entire building was in flames. Then this little lame boy remembered them. He made up his mind that he would save them if he could. He found an old ladder and, after a hard struggle, set it up against the building, and dragged himself up on the roof of the porch. He broke a window and went in and carried out, one by one, five little girls. He put them out on the roof and told them to stand there till he could get down the ladder. ^One of them went back into the building and they never saw her again. The boy slid down the ladder and stood on a litde pile of rocks at the bottom, and told them to jump, one at a time, and he would catch them. Then he braced himself the best he could. You know it is easy to plant your feet and brace yourself when you have two legs to stand on. But this little fellow Love 27 had but one, and when those children jumped, he broke their fall ; but each time a child dropped down into his arms he was knocked down flat on the rocks, and when the last one had jumped, the back of his head was bat- tered and bleeding, where he had fallen on the sharp stones. When they found him he was unconscious, but he had saved the little girls. Don't you think that those children, as they grow older, must love the memory of that one-legged boy? They love him be- cause he first loved them and was willing to risk his life for them. That is what Jesus did. He loved us and gave Himself for us. Satan came to destroy us, as the wolf comes to destroy the sheep. Jesus was the good shepherd and came to fight against Satan, and save us. But He lost His life. That is why we love Him, He loved us and gave Himself for us. VI Sand ** As the sand which is on the seashore.** — Genesis xxii. 17. In " The Pilgrim's Progress " we are told about the Hill Difficulty. It was a high, hard hill which every one had to climb, if he would make the most of his life. Of course there are some people who do not care whether they ever do any better or are any better. They are satisfied to stay at the bottom all their lives, but for the boy or girl who is seeking the best things, life is like the climb- ing of a hill that is steep and rough. There are two things that we all need if we are ever to reach the top. One is sand. When you hear some one say that a certain boy has plenty of "sand," you know what he means, but perhaps you do not know just where that expression came from. One of the greatest powers of which we know is that of the waves along the sea- shore. Half-way between Cape Henry and Virginia Beach there lies the wreck of a 28 Sand 29 great ship, one hundred and fifty feet long. It was lifted by the waves and thrown high up on the beach. There is almost nothing that can stand before the power of the waves. If they make a bulkhead of piles or stone or concrete, it will last a few years and will then be undermined and washed away. Men have never found anything that can long hold the waves back. But God has made a bulkhead that the sea cannot pass. It is the sand. The sand can stand against the waveSc and it is the only thing we know that can. Sand in a boy or girl is the courage and power to stand up before things that are hard. It is the ability to say '*no" when temptation comes along, and to mean it. It is the power to take some hard work and stick to it and hold on till it is finished. You see some day a street-car starting up a long grade. Before the car begins to climb, the conductor takes a look at the sand box. He will not start up the hill unless there is plenty of sand in that box. Without sand the car will slip back before it reaches the top. Some boys never can play football. They have the weight, and the strength, and the speed, but they haven't the sand. And there are some people who never get anywhere in 30 The Soul of a Child life. They have good bodies and plenty of brains and opportunity. But they lack sand. Now you are all starting out to climb the hill of life before you. Never forget that you must have sand. And there is something else that we need. Oftentimes we need help. We cannot do our work alone. There was a little boy who was trying to lift a heavy stone. He could not budge it. Just then his father came along and watched him. At last he said to the boy, " Are you using all your strength ? " " Yes/' answered the boy, ** I am using all of it." " No," said his father, "you are not using all of it." So the little fellow tried again, this time harder than ever, and he moved the stone a little, but still he could not lift it. His father said again to him, '' You are not using all of your strength." The boy said, "Yes, I am. Fa- ther." " No," said the father, " you haven't asked me to help yet." The boy had forgot- ten that his father's strength was his strength too, and that he could ask for it, and have it if he needed it. In the same way let us re- member that God's strength is our strength, and that we can have that strength to help us if we need it„ VII Owning Up *' Confess your faults one to another." — ^James v. 1 6. ' One of the most beautiful stories that was ever told is the parable of the Prodigal Son. You all know the story. There was a young man who went away from home and did wrong. After a while he was sorry and came back and said to his father, ** Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son." That little speech that he made to his father was about the hardest thing he was called upon to do. Nobody likes to own up when he has done wrong. Professor Blackie, of Edinburgh, once called on a boy in the freshman class to stand up and read in the schoolroom. The boy stood up, holding his book in his left hand. He told him to put the book in his right hand. The boy still held it in his left hand and Pro- fessor Blackie became angry and commanded him harshly to lay the book down and take it in the other hand. Just then the boy 31 32 The Soul of a Child turned around and he saw that there was nothing but an empty sleeve on the right side. Dr. Blackie came down from the desk and going over to the boy he put his arm around him and said, " I am very sorry, my boy. I didn't know.*' And then he went back to his place and apologized to the class for his mistake. That was one thing about this great man that made the boys all love him. He was always ready to own up when he had made a blunder. Our text tells us to confess our faults one to another. If you have done wrong to some one else, to your father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or one of your friends, be manly or womanly enough to go and own up. That is the best and quickest way to make it right. I know a boy who lost his mother. After her death he was very sad. He said, " I did many things that I ought not to have done, and I always thought that some day I would go and tell mother that I was sorry, and now she is gone and I cannot." Most of the quarrels and troubles that sepa- rate people are brought about because there is some one who will not own up, when he knows that he is in the wrong. There was a man who accused his neigh- bor of taking something that belonged to Owning Up 33 him. They had a bitter quarrel and a law- suit and plenty of trouble all around. One day while looking over some papers in his desk he found the one he had thought was stolen. His neighbor had not robbed him. It was all a mistake. He ought to have gone at once and confessed, but he was too proud to own up like a man and the quarrel went on for years. * The bravest boys and girls are those who are not afraid to own up even when they know that they will have to suffer for it. Some one told me of a boy who had cheated in an examination. He handed in an almost perfect paper, and on commencement day was called up to receive the prize. He stepped up and said, ** Sir, I didn't earn it. I cheated. The prize belongs to some one else." That boy did wrong to cheat, but he was a brave boy to own up and take the punishment. That confession was worth more to him than the prize that he lost. Boys and girls, do not be afraid or ashamed to own up when you have done a wrong or dishonorable act. That is the first thing to make it right and to make your- selves right. "Confess your faults one to another." VIII Why God Doesn't Kill Satan "Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord." — Job i. 1 2. While the children of Israel were on the way from Egypt to the land of Canaan they came one day to a valley, where there were a great many poisonous snakes. Many of the people were bitten and died. If one of the boys was out playing, all at once he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. Then it began to swell and before long he was dead. If one of the girls went to the spring to get some water for her mother, when she stooped over to dip up the water she felt a prick in her wrist, and saw a snake wriggling away in the grass, and knew then that she did not have very long to live. If one of the men went out to get some wood for the fire, the first thing he knew he would be bitten. These things were happening all the time, and there was no cure for the bite of these serpents. So the people went to Moses and asked him to do something, and Moses prayed to the Lord. 34 Why God Doesn't Kill Satan 35 God told Moses to make a serpent of brass and fasten it to the top of a long pole and set the pole up in the middle of the camp where every one could see it. If any one was bitten by a snake he was to look at that serpent on the pole, and he would not die. That seems like a strange thing for God to do, now doesn't it? Why didn't God just kill the snakes and be done with them ? It seems as though that would have been the very best way to save the people. But no, God left those serpents there to teach the people several things. First He wanted them to be watchful. If you have ever been out in the woods where you are afraid of snakes, you know how very carefully you walk. You never put your foot down unless you know where you are putting it. Those snakes made you watchful. And He wanted to teach them to look up. That is why He put that serpent on the pole, that the people might not forget to look up to Him when they were in need or trouble. But now you say to me, " What has all this to do with Satan ? " It has a great deal to do with him. Satan is said to be a ser- pent, and when we are thinking of him we are thinking of a serpent. Sometimes we ask this same question 36 The Soul of a Child about him, ** Why does God let Satan live ? " A boy said to me once, " Why doesn^t God just kill old Satan and be done with him ? What good is he anyway ? '* Well, God lets Satan live for the same reason that He let those serpents live, that were biting and troubling the children of Israel in the wilderness. He wants to teach us to be watchful, to be careful of every step that we take and every word we speak, and every thought that we think. When people believe that Satan isn't around anywhere they become careless. God lets him live to make us better and stronger boys and girls and men and women. And He lets him live that we may look up to Him when we are in trouble. You know when people have no troubles they are very likely to forget about God. But when they are tempted and troubled then they think about Him and pray to Him. And God wants us to come to Him. God is going to attend to Satan some time, but I am glad that He didn't do it before. He makes us plenty of trouble, but if we re- sist him he makes us stronger and better Christians. There is a story of a Frenchman who was shut up in the great prison of the Bastile Why God Doesn't Kill Satan 37 many years ago. They put him into a lonely dungeon into which the light came just a little while each day through a tiny window high up in the wall. He never saw any one, or heard a voice, and became very sad and depressed, with nothing to think about or to do. One day he saw a little plant beginning to sprout up between the stones of the cell. He watched that plant. There was nothing else for him to think about. As it grew day after day he learned to love it very much. He did not know what kind of a plant it was, whether it was a weed or a flower. He said to himself, ** I am going to watch that plant, and if it turns out to be an ugly weed then I will know that I am never going to get out of this prison alive. But if it is a lovely flower I will know that I am going to be re- leased." One night he lay down to sleep and when he awoke in the morning there was a delicate fragrance in the cell. He jumped up from the straw on which he was lying, and went and looked, and there was a lovely little flower on the plant. When he saw it he called it '* mignonette," which means " lit- tle darling." Sure enough, a little while after they came and released him and he went away to his home again. And people 38 The Soul of a Child who did not know about him used to wonder why he had the mignonette so much on the table in his home. Now God is watching every one of us to see just how we are enduring the temptations of Satan, whether we are going to turn out just weeds, or beautiful flowers that will bless and help the world. IX Kindness to Dumb Animals " And God saw everything that He had made, and, be- hold, it was very good." — Genesis i. 31. About a hundred years ago there was an English poet who wrote a little poem that we all ought to know : '' He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast; He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all." God made the animals and the birds, and He loves them because He has made them and He wants us to love them, too. We ought to love them for what they do for us. They serve us in more ways than I have time to tell you about. Think of the cow and the horse. The cow gives us milk and butter and cheese and meat, and leather for our shoes, and many other useful and neces- sary things. The horse does much of our hard work for us. We cannot pay them in 39 40 The Soul of a Child money, but we can repay them in kindness. If you see a man who is not kind to his faithful horse, you may be sure he is a man whom you could not trust very far. In India the elephants do a great many things that horses do for us, and they do some things that horses can't do. The Indian mothers sometimes leave their babies in charge of an elephant, and the big fellow takes almost as good care of them as if they were his own. One of the missionaries was telling of seeing a big elephant set to brush the flies off a sleeping child, with a little branch of a tree that he held in his trunk. All the time the big flies and insects were biting and stinging the elephant, but he for- got all about them taking care of the baby. ' Then we ought to love the animals because they love us. When I was in Holland I went to the city where the great Prince of Orange, William the Silent, is buried. There is a fine marble statue there of the prince, and at his feet there is a little dog with his head between his paws, carved out of marble. Later on we went to The Hague, the capital of Holland. There is another statue of the prince, and the dog is there too. I asked some one about the dog and he told me that hundreds of years ago when the prince lived Kindness to Dumb Animals 41 there was a little dog that loved him very much. He went everywhere the prince went, and when William was murdered the little dog refused to eat and starved himself to death with grief. So whenever the people of Holland build a monument to their great hero they remember the little dog, too. If the animals do not love us it is because we are not kind to them. They always love us if we love them. And the birds, too, how tame they become if we are good to them ! Jesus once said that not a sparrow ever falls to the ground with- out the Father. That is, God knows and cares for every one of the birds. When we see boys and men killing the little birds just for the pleasure of seeing them fall out of the trees, it would be a good thing, wouldn't it, if they could know that God sees every one of those birds fall, and knows who made it fall, too? The Jews have a lovely little legend. They say that when Moses was keeping the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, a lamb ran away and was lost. He ran after it, and at last he caught up with it. It was panting and foot- sore, and weary, and torn, and unable to go a step further. Moses said to the lamb, *' Did you think that I wanted to hurt you that you 42 The Soul of a Child ran away from me? No, it was love that made me come after you, and in love I am going to lay you on my shoulder and take you back home." When God saw how kind Moses was to the litde lamb He said, '* There is the very man I need to lead My people." So God made Moses the leader of Israel. If you wish to please God and form a gentle character be kind to the birds and the animals. Forgetting Ourselves ** Christ pleased not Himself." — Romans xv. 3. When we start in life one of the most important things to learn is to remember. We must try very hard not to forget the in- struction of our parents, and the teachings of the Bible and the lessons we learn at school. All these things we must remember, if we are to grow up wise and good. But there are also many things that we must learn to forget. We must try to forget the wicked stories that we hear, and the evil pictures that we see, and all the mean and unkind things that we find out about other people. And there is something else that we must try to forget and that is — ourselves. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, suffer- ing such awful agony, He did not think of Himself at all. It was only of the poor men who had fastened Him to the cross, and He prayed, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." There is a very good woman not very far 43 44 The Soul of a Child from us. I heard some one say about her one day, *' She is the very best woman who ever lived." And then he went on to tell me why he thought so : " She never thinks about herself. It is always about others." What a fine thing to be said of any one I If you want to be happy, and if you want to be loved by others, forget yourself, and you will be both. This week I read the story of an old man in Japan. There was a little village at the foot of a high hill along the seashore, and up on that hill, high above the shore, the old man lived with his little grandson, who was ten years old. He had worked hard all his life and owned the little house where they lived. One evening in June, 1896, he was standing in the doorway of his house with his grandson beside him. The day's work was done and they were looking out to sea, when all at once there came a great earthquake, such as they very often have in Japan. The house swayed and shook, but it didn't fall down, for they make their houses in Japan so they will stand up when earthquakes come. But the old man saw that the sea was running out, miles away from the shore. Long before when he was a young man he had seen the Forgetting Ourselves 45 sea do that after an earthquake, and he knew just what was going to happen. The people in the village had seen the strange sight and ran down to the beach to look at it. The old man knew what they didn't know, that in a little while that sea would come rolling in, as a great tidal wave and destroy the whole vil- lage. So he called his grandson and told him to bring him a lighted torch. He took the torch and set fire to the thatch on the roof of his house. The little boy began to cry. He thought the earthquake had made his grand- father crazy. Down in the village the people saw the blaze and they came running up the hill. The fire bell began to ring and the people who were on the seashore ran back, too. Some young men were the first to reach the fire and they tried to put it out, but the old man would not let them. ** Let it burn," he said. ** I want the whole village here." The men thought it was very strange and asked the grandson about it. He said, " Grandfather is growing mad. I saw him set the house on fire on purpose." ** Yes," said the grandfather, " I did set it on fire. Are the people of the village all here ? " They looked and told him that they were all there. " Now," said he, " look at the sea." They looked, and they saw the water^ like a great 46 The Soul of a Child cliff, rolling in toward the land. On and on it came and swept over the village, and almost came up to where they were, and when the water went back there was not a sign of the village left. It was all gone. Then they knew why the old man had set fire to his house and burned up everything that he had. It was to save them. He never thought of himself and his hard work all his life to earn enough to own that house. He only thought of them. That is what Jesus wants us to do, forget ourselves and think of others. XI Rocks and Shoals " The wicked have laid a snare for me : yet I erred not from thy precepts." — Psalm cxix. i lo. Every ship that sails on the ocean has in the captain's room a chart. You have all seen maps of this state, and you know by looking at the map where every city and river and mountain is. A chart is a map of the ocean. There are dangers down under- neath the smooth waters which the captain's eye cannot see. They are all marked care- fully on the chart, and if he sails the ship by the chart he will escape them. Sometimes just a little below the water are great sharp rocks, and if the captain were to forget to look at that map of the sea he would run into one of those hidden rocks and the ship would sink. There are shoals also for which he must be on the lookout. A shoal is a very shallow place in the sea. If the ship runs on a shoal it sticks fast, and has a hard time to get ofif, and sometimes is broken to pieces by the waves before they can save it. 47 48 The Soul of a Child On the captain's chart every lighthouse and light-ship and buoy, and every rock and shoal is carefully marked, for the safety of the people who travel on the ships. Life is very much like a ship, sailing out to sea. We need a chart to point out the safe places and to show us how to avoid the dangers. God has given us a book to be our chart. It is the Bible. Let me tell you some of the people whom you know who ran on the rocks because they did not watch the chart carefully enough. The first boy in the Bible was named Cain. His was the very first ship that ever put out to sea from a home in this world. But do you know he let his ship run into a rock called " bad temper," and before he knew it he had killed his brother. A great many good ships have been wrecked on that rock. We must look out for it by watching the Bible carefully. Another was Absalom. He was King David's favorite son. The Bible says, " Honor thy father and thy mother." But Absalom was one of those boys who knew more than anybody else. He wasn't going to bother about that old chart. He knew where to go himself. And one day, crash I He ran into the rock of " disobedience " and Rocks and Shoals 49 • that was the end of him. It would never have happened if he had watched the chart. Over in the New Testament is Ananias. He was a business man. He was so busy making money that he thought that he didn't have time to look at the chart to see where he was going, and all at once he ran into that rock called " Ue," and he went down and was never seen again. But rocks are not the only dangers we have to look out for. There are the shoals. One of the very worst shoals is laziness. I knew a man who had plenty of ability and a fine education. He might have been a great man. He started out well, but he never went far. One day he just stopped working and there he stayed the rest of his life. Do you know what was the trouble ? He ran on the shoal of laziness, and there he stuck fast. If he had read the book of Proverbs, he would have known enough to have steered away from that dangerous shallow place. There is one more dangerous shoal that I must tell you about. Once there was a man named Demas. He thought it would be a great thing to be a missionary like Paul and love and help other people. He started out like a fine ship going on a long, happy voy- age. Then he began to think how much it so The Soul of a Child was going to cost him ; all the good things he would have to give up, and the pleasure he would miss if he went with Paul. So he stopped and did not go. He stuck fast on the shoal of selfishness. We must be careful and not be caught on this shoal. Often a ship is in danger. There is fog on the ocean, or it is near rocks or shoals. At such a time the captain never leaves the pilot-house for a second. He keeps his eye on the chart and the compass every moment. There are many dangerous rocks and shoals which we must avoid. If we will keep near to the Bible and follow its directions, we will not fear what may be before us. XII The Building of a Lighthouse "A beacon upon the top of a mountain." — Isaiah xxx. 17. Isaiah is talking here about a lighthouse. They had lighthouses, or something very like them, in the time of the prophet twenty-five hundred years ago. One of the most famous lighthouses of history was built three hun- dred years before Jesus came to earth at the mouth of the River Nile, along the Mediter- ranean Sea. The historians ought to know, and they tell us that this lighthouse was one of the seven wonders of the world, and that it cost over two millions of dollars to build. in these days we have a great many light- houses along the coast. They are put there to guide the ships at night. We have two at the entrance to the Virginia capes. You have many of you seen the one at Cape Henry. There are really two there. One was erected over a hundred years ago, dur- ing the presidency of General Washington. After it had been used for over a century it was worn out and the government built a 51 52 The Soul of a Child new one, which every night sends its great beam of light far out over the waves. There are many things about lighthouses that remind us of boys and girls. First, the foundation must be very strong. It never would do to build the lighthouse on the sand. The first storm that came along would wash the sand out from beneath it and then where would the lighthouse be ? It must be built on the rock or on strong piles that will not move. The Eddystone light, on the coast of Eng- land, is one of the most famous in the world. They built three lighthouses and they were all washed away by the storms. And then the engineers came and they went down below the sand and anchored the building to the solid rock, and it has never been shaken. When we are building our characters it is very important that they should be fastened to the rock. We must be careful about the foundation. Paul said, " Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, even Jesus Christ" He is the best foundation that any young man or woman can have for character. If the life is built on Him and anchored to Him there will not be much danger of the character failing when the times of storm and trial come. The Building of a Lighthouse 53 Next they are very careful about the kind of material they put into the lighthouses. The big tower at Cape Henry is made of steel, and every piece is riveted carefully to the piece next to it. The whole structure must be of the very best material. If there were one poor piece of steel in it the whole building might fall some night when the wind was blowing a gale along the coast. Every day we are busy building our char- acters, and sometimes we are tempted to put in bad habits and easy, lazy ways. If we do, the character we are erecting will never stand the tests of life that are coming. But there is something else that is even more important. What is the lighthouse for ? It is there to give light. There are ships out there on the sea every night in danger of running on the rocks or the shoals. The light is there to show them how to avoid the dangers. In the same way our characters are being built, not for our own glory or our own pleas- ure, but to give light to the people that are about us. We are to live so that they will want to do better and be better. If we are selfish, and do not let the light of life shine, they may become bewildered and lost, like the ship along a coast where there is no lighthouse. 54 The Soul of a Child There was a man once who was being taken over a lighthouse by the man who kept it. While they were looking at the light the man said to the keeper, " Suppose some night you should forget to light it ? " He answered, "Sir, that is impossible. I could not forget it. If there were no light to- night, in a few days I would hear from the North and the South and everywhere, that there were ships that went astray to-night. I dare not forget it." So we must not forget our lights. Jesus said, " Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." XIII The Wings of the Sun " Unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Right- eousness arise with healing in His wings." — Malachi iv. 2. Have you ever heard about the wings of the sun ? You know about the wings of a bird, and the wings of a house, and the wings of an army, but perhaps you do not know about the wings of the sun. If you will look up at the sun you will see bright beams of light extending out from the side of the sun, just as the wings of a house extend from the side of the house. These are the wings of the sun. We call them sunbeams. The prophet says that there is healing in the sun- beams, just as there is in the medicine that the doctor leaves us when we are sick. Peo- ple are just beginning to know what a won- derful healer the sunshine is for those who are ill. If you take a plant and put it down in the cellar where there is no light and leave it there for a few days, that plant will become 55 56 The Soul of a Child sick and die. It must have the sunshine ii it is to live and grow, and it is the same way with people. Most of the hospitals have a great room where the sun can shine all day, and there the people are taken who are getting well, so that the sun can shine on them and help them in their recovery. A doctor in one of the hospitals said not very long ago, " There are some rooms here where people seem to get well sooner than in others, and they are always the roo;ns where the sun shines the most." This is what the prophet meant when he said that the sun has healing in its wings. But he was really telling us about Jesus. He calls Him the Sun of Righteousness and says that there is healing in His wings, just as there is in the great sun that shines up there in the sky. There are some sicknesses that only Jesus can heal. You know there are diseases of the body, and there are diseases of the mind, and there are diseases of the soul. Sin is the great sickness of the soul. We are all troub- led with this disease, and there is no cure in the world for it but Jesus, the Sun of Right- eousness. Suppose one of you were sick, and were to The Wings of the Sun 57 go to your doctor and he were to say to you, " What you want is sunlight. Just stay out in the sun and air all that you can and you will be well." Wouldn't you go out into the sunlight ? Of course you would. Now God, the great doctor of the soul, comes to us and says, ** Your soul is sick. It is sin that ails you. What you need is the sunlight of Jesus. If you will come into that sunlight you will be well." There was once a man named Peter. He was a rough, cursing fellow who had not led a very good life. Doctors tell us that disease germs grow best in the dark. If you want to kill bad germs, open the windows and let the sunshine come in. This man Peter had been living in the darkness, and the germs of sin and evil had grown in his life till he was a great sin- ner. But one day Jesus passed along and called Peter to follow Him. He went, and the sunlight of Jesus destroyed the evil, and made him well so that he became one of the greatest saints of all time. There was another man named Saul. He went everywhere, trying to do all the evil that he could, till one day, as he was on the way to a city called Damascus, there began to shine upon him a light from heaven. It shone 58 The Soul of a Child right down into his wicked soul, as the sun shines into the face of the sick man in the hos- pital, and he began to be a better man, and this man Saul became the great Apostle Paul. When I was a small boy I used to go out in the summer and pick blackberries. There was a clump of blackberry bushes back of the barn, and they were the biggest and finest berries around anywhere. It didn't take long to fill a little pail full of them. But when I tasted one they were sour and bitter. The trouble was that there were some big trees there, that kept the sun from shining on those blackberry vines, and the fruit was always sour. But one year men came and cut down the trees and then the berries became sweet and good. That is the reason so many lives are bitter and sour and sinful. There is something that is keeping the sun from shining on them, the Sun of Righteousness. XIV The Hook and the Bait "The wiles of the devil." — Ephesians vi. ii. Do you know what many of the Lord's dis- ciples did for a Hving ? They were fisher- men. Jesus sometimes went with them on their fishing trips and He fished, too. In those days, just as now, there were two ways to fish. Sometimes they used a net and caught a great many at once. One night the disciples went out and fished till almost morn- ing and didn't catch a thing. It was time to go home and they had no fish to carry to the market and sell, so that they could have money to buy food and clothes for their families. Just then Jesus came along the shore. He told them to cast the net on the other side of the ship. They did as He told them, and caught so many fish that there was not room for them all in the boat. Then they used to fish with a hook and line as we do. Once Jesus and Peter needed a little money to pay their taxes. They were very poor men, and when the tax collector came around they didn't have enough to pay 59 6o The Soul of a Child him. Jesus told Peter to take his rod and line, and go to the lake, and to look in the mouth of the first fish that he caught. Scarcely had Peter dropped the bait in the water when he had a fine bite and hooked a big fish. He was so excited getting that fish to land, that I imagine he forgot for the mo- ment what Jesus had sent him for, but when he opened the mouth of the fish to take the hook out, there was the money, just enough to pay the tax for Jesus and for him. When Jesus asked the disciples to follow Him, He told them that they were going to be fishers of men. Instead of catching fish and bringing them to market, they were to find men and bring them to Jesus. That is just what the church is doing. We are try- ing to be fishers of men. Sometimes we bring a large number at once as the fisher- men do when they use the net, but mostly it is like using the hook and line : they come one by one. One of the first things necessary to fish successfully is to have some bait. God has given us the bait to use when we fish for men : good deeds, and loving words, and the Bible and prayer and the church and Sunday- school ! These are all baits which we can use in bringing others to Jesus. The Hook and the Bait 6l Satan is a fisherman, too. A great man once said that Satan is the ape of God. Whatever God does, he tries to do for an evil purpose. He uses bait, and he is trying every day to catch boys and girls. One bait that Satan uses is play. Play is a fine thing. Children must have play. But there are some games and amusements that are baits which Satan has fixed up to catch them with. We should be very careful in our recreation and play that we are not led into evil. Then there are our books. We could not do without our books. They are necessary to us. We learn from them every day, and they give us pleasure and profit. But there are some books that Satan is using as bait to get men and women and boys and girls. Be- fore we read a book we ought to be sure that we know just what kind of a book it is, we ought to look and see that Satan's hook isn't sticking in it somewhere. Then there are our companions. Every- body loves good company. We would not be happy if we did not have some compan- ions. Old Satan knows this and he tries to catch us and make us do evil, by means of bad company. There was once an old fish, very wise, who 62 1 he Soul of a Child said to one of the young fish, " Before you bite anything go all around it and see that there is no hook sticking into it anywhere." Money is another of Satan's baits. There was a bad criminal once who confessed that his evil life had started when he was very young. He had been employed as an office- boy. Some one left a quarter lying on a desk, and went away and forgot about it. Satan came and tempted that boy to steal the money. He took it. That was the be- ginning of a life of evil. Satan used that money as the bait to catch him. When we catch a fish on the hook he hasn't much chance to get away. If Satan gets us with his bait we will have a hard time to escape. So let us all be very careful. XV Saying "No" ** Let your nay be nay, lest ye fall into condemnation." — James v. 12. Our newspapers have been having fun over the names of some of the towns in Russia. They are long names and hard to pronounce, and the attempts that people make to say them are often very funny. But there are words in our own language that are hard to speak. One of the shortest words that we know is one of the very hardest to say sometimes. It is the little word of two letters, '' No." Some one was telling me of a young man who had gone wrong. His parents did everything for him and gave him every ad- vantage. The great trouble was that they had not taught him to say *' No." When temptation came to him to do what was wrong, he never had the courage to stand up and say, " No, I will not." He had learned many things but he had never learned that. There was a little boy named Albert Smith, 63 64 The Soul of a Child and one fine summer afternoon his mother told him that he must not go swimming that day. So he made up his mind to stay around the house the rest of the day. But before long he heard the boys coming down the road, and calling out to him, " Come on. Let's go swimming. The water is fine.*' Now, Albert's mother had told him not to go, and he ought to have said, ** No, I can't go to-day." But just then Albert began to think about that water and the fun that the boys were going to have, and when he tried to say ** No," it seemed to stick somewhere in his throat, and wouldn't come out. The first thing he knew, he was going down the road with the boys to do what his mother had told him he must not do, and all because he hadn't been able to say " No." We have all had times when it was hard to say that little word that seems so easy. When an army pitches its tents for the night, sentinels are stationed all around the camp, and no one is allowed to go through those lines of sentinels, unless he is able to give the password. Do you know that there is a password to life which we must all learn, before we can enter into the larger, greater life that every boy and every girl longs for ? It is the litde word " No." Saying "No'' 65 There are so many times in life when you need that word more than anything else in the world. When bad companions come, and they try to induce you to do what you know is wrong, have the courage to say " No," and mean ** No." You know there are some peo- ple who say ** No " and do not half mean it. A little coaxing will make them say " Yes." Our text tells us what to do. " Let your nay be nay." Say *' No " and mean it, and hold to it. Then we must say " No " when we are tempted to forget what we have been taught in Sunday-school, and in our Christian homes. Long ago there was a young man in the employ of Stephen Girard, the great Philadel- phia merchant. One day Mr. Girard told him to do some work on Sunday. The young man said, " No, I am a Christian, and I promised my mother that I would not work on Sunday." Mr. Girard told him he could not keep him unless he was willing to do as he was ordered, and he was discharged. Not very long after a man came to Mr. Girard and said, " I need a young man to fill a very responsible position in my business. Do you know of any one ? " Mr. Girard an- swered, ** I know just the man. I had to let 66 The Soul of a Child him go because he would not work on Sun- day. He wasn't afraid to say * No,' and stick to it, even when it meant the loss of his place. You will not make any mistake to take him." And so he found a better position than the one he had lost. All the world honors the boy or girl who is able to say ** No." The bravest boy is not he who fights the most. That is not real courage. A dog, oi a snake, or a bear will fight bravely if he is angry enough. The highest, finest kind of courage is that of the boy who is able to say ** No " when he is tempted to do something that is wrong. He has won a battle with Satan, and that is the greatest victory that any of us can win. XVI The Lion and the Bear •« Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear." — I Samuel xvii. 36. One of the greatest soldiers who ever lived was David. He was so strong that he could break a bow of steel with his arms, and he was so brave that he was not afraid to go and fight a giant, with nothing but a sling and a few stones. Before he became king he had been a shepherd boy. It had been his duty to lead the sheep out to the hillside every morning and stay with them all day so that no harm would come to them, and then bring them safely back home to the fold at night. One day a lion came to kill the sheep, and David stood between the lion and the sheep and killed the lion. At another time a bear got into the sheepfold. David took a club and killed him. These were the first battles that David fought, and they show what a brave boy he was, for it takes courage to stand up against a lion and a bear. In after 67 68 The Soul of a Child years he had many other hard battles, with Goliath, and with the Philistines, and with the Syrians, but I am sure that none of these fights were quite so hard as those first ones with the lion and the bear. If he had let the lion or the bear conquer him, he never would have lived to fight with Goliath, and to be a great king. Every boy and girl is like King David in one thing. The first batdes thy have to fight are with the lion and the bear. Let me tell you first about the lion. It isn't a lion in a cage such as you see when the circus comes to town. It is a lion inside of us. It is bad temper. Almost all of us have somewhere inside of us a temper that sometimes gets the better of us. You know how a lion attacks a man. He watches his chance, and when the man isn't looking or thinking, he springs upon him. That is the way bad temper and passion come upon us. They spring upon us and get the mastery before we know it. If you go to the menagerie you will see a lion shut in a strong cage. You are not afraid of him because he is locked in behind those stout bars. But if some one should leave that door open, so that he could get out, then you would be afraid. That is the way The Lion and the Bear 69 with the lion of temper. He must be shut up and guarded day and night, so that he cannot hurt any one. And if our tempers do some time get the mastery of us, we ought, as David did with that lion, to fight and overcome them. Paul said, " He that overcometh his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." Then there is the bear. We must not for- get about him. David killed the bear, too. The best thing about a good litde child is his gentleness. You know little bears are not gentle. They are cross and clumsy and go around making trouble wherever they are. They are very much Uke some little boys, who are rough and cross and ill-mannered. They used to say that an old mother bear never lets the little bear out of the den till he has been licked into shape. Some one has said that there are hosts of fathers and moth- ers who let their children out into the world, before they have been made to mind, and that is why they are so ill-mannered and cruel and unkind, for all the world like little bears. David's second great fight was with the bear. One of the first things that every- body ought to do is to fight and overcome his bearishness. Paul said in another place, " Be ye kind." 70 The Soul of a Child Kindness is one of the best weapons with which to overcome bearishness. Some of the biggest, strongest men in the world have been the gentlest, because they knew how to be kind. One day Abraham Lincoln was riding with one of his friends along a road in Illi- nois, when he stopped, jumped down from his horse, and began to feel around in the grass under a bush. His companion said to him, *' Did you lose something, Mr. Lincoln?" ** No," he said, " I saw a little bird fall out of her nest as we passed, and I am trying to find her and put her back again." It was little acts such as this that made him so gentle. David, I imagine, killed the lion and the bear with a club. We can kill our lions and bears with kindness and gentleness. XVII Behavior in Church ** Thou oughtcst to behave thyself in the house of God." — I Timothy iii. 15. Long ago the great Apostle Paul wrote a letter to his young friend, Timothy, and in that letter he told him something that I wish you would all remember. It was this, " Thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God." Fathers and mothers, these days, have to tell their children to behave when they go to church, and I imagine that the boys of Paul's time were very much as they are to- day, for Paul here had to tell Timothy to be- have himself when he went to church. There are a few things about the house of God we ought never to forget. The wise man, Solomon, once said, *' Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God." That means to walk softly and be reverent. I once saw a little girl tiptoeing past a house, and when I came to the house I saw that there was crape on the door. She thought that God had been there, and she ought to 71 72 The Soul of a Child go very softly. So we ought to tread very softly and reverently when we enter the church. It is God's house. Then when we come in we ought to offer up a little prayer. When you go to some- body's house and he comes to the door you always speak to him, don't you? It would not be very polite to go into some one's house without speaking to him. So when we come into God's house we must speak to Him in prayer. Then all the time we are in the church, we must try to think about God and the things that we hear. Sometimes when we are talk- ing to some one, we know he is thinking about something else all the time. This is very rude and we are likely to feel hurt. But it is what many people do when they come into God's house, where He is being wor- shipped. They spend the whole time think- ing about other things than the service. I don't wonder, do you, that God is hurt and angry. God wants us when we come into His house to think about Him. And there is one other thing that we must do in God's house. We must ask God to forgive our sins. There is a stor}^ about a fairy who went up to the gate of heaven and was not allowed to Behavior in Church 73 enter. The angel said, " If you will bring the gift that is dearest to heaven, then you can come in." So the fairy flew back as fast as she could to the earth and found the most lovely and fragrant flower that there was on the earth, and brought it, but the gate was shut. Again she flew back to the earth, and this time she brought a drop of blood from a young hero, who had just died for his country ; but the gate was shut still. The third time she went to the earth, and while she was wan- dering around, she saw a wicked old man stopping at a fountain to give his horse a drink. Just then the man saw a little child kneeling down to say his little evening prayer. When the bad man saw that, all his wicked life arose in his memory and he was sorry, and he, too, knelt and prayed, and as hi. prayed he wept. And the fairy, who had seen it all, caught one of those tears of re- pentance and flew up to heaven with it, and the gate was open, and she went in. There is nothing that is so dear to the Lord as the repentance of His children. That is what makes Jesus, and the Bible, and the church so dear to us. They show us how to repent so that Heaven's gate may open wide for us. XVIII Seeing and Knowing God " I have seen God face to face." — Genesis xxxii. 30. What does God look like ? Almost every boy and girl asks that question sometimes. When we pray to Him and read about Him in the Bible, we are always wondering and wishing that we could see Him. The Bible tells us that no man can see God and live. This used to trouble me very much. I couldn't understand why, if He is a good and loving God, everybody cannot see Him. One day I heard a little story that made it plainer to me. There was a missionary who was visiting a king in India. He had been trying to tell the old heathen ruler about the true God. At last the king said, ** Why don't you show me your God ? I tell you about my gods and I take you and show them to you. You tell me about your God, but you never let me see Him." The missionary answered, ** But no one can see my God. No one can look on Him and live.'* 74 Seeing and Knowing God 75 The old heathen said, " I don't understand that." Then the missionary went to the win- dow and told the king to come and look at something. When the king came he pointed at the sun and told him to look hard at it for a moment. The king tried and then turned his head away and said, " I can't look at the sun. It blinds me." "Yes," said the missionary, "that sun is just one of God's poor servants, and if you are not able to look at that, do you think that you could look at God Himself? " That is the reason we cannot look upon God. He is so great and so wonderful and so bright that the very sight of Him is too much for our eyes to see. Perhaps we cannot see God's face, but we can come very close to Him if we know how. In the time of Moses God came down on Mount Sinai, and the people all ran away. They were afraid, but we are told that Moses went straight up to the place where God was. He was not afraid. Some years ago some men went to Wash- ington to see the president. When they came to the door of the White House where he lived, they were told that he was very busy, and it would be a long time before he could see them. So they sat down there to wait. 76 The Soul of a Child While they were sitting there, a little boy came up the walk, and opening the door of the president's room, went straight in and sat down by the president. Do you know why he went in while every one else had to wait ? It was because he was the son of the presi- dent, and he could see him at any time. That is why Moses was not afraid to go into the presence of God. Moses was God's child, and God loved him, and he loved God. If we love God, and He loves us, then we are His children, and He is always ready and willing to have us come to Him. God wants us to know Him. There was once a wise king who desired to know his subjects, and wanted them to know him. While he lived in the palace he could never come to know them very well. They were too far away from him. So he dressed him- self so that they would not know he was the king, and went and lived among them as a carpenter. They did not know who this poor workman was, but he was so good and gentle that they all came to love him, and then they found out that he was their king. That is what Jesus did. He came and lived among us as a poor workman. He came to make us love Him and to show us how much He loves us. And before He Seeing and Knowing God 77 went away He said, '' He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." It is this that I want you to remember most of all in connection with this text. If you want to see God, look at Jesus. Take the New Testament and read about Him and in learning to know Him you will come to know God. XIX What Jesus Did When He Was a Child ** Who went about doing good." — Acts x. 38. The New Testament tells us many things about Jesus after He became a man. It does not say much about the child Jesus, so we ought to study and treasure very carefully everything that is said about His boyhood. What kind of a place did Jesus live in when He was a boy ? It was a very small town and a very poor and very dirty town. The streets were so narrow in some places that a woman could reach her hand out of her window on one side of the street, and shake hands with the woman, who was stand- ing in her window, on the other side of the street. If a cart or a camel came along one of those narrow, dark streets, the children had to run into the houses to get out of the way. The streets were also very dirty. There were no sewers then, or garbage wagons, and there was rubbish and filth everywhere. 78 The Child Jesus 79 The only time that the streets were cleaned was when it rained very hard. Jesus lived in a very poor little house. The walls were bare and there was almost no furniture. He had none of the comfort- able and pretty things that you have in your homes. He was a very poor boy. There were no beds or chairs in His home, and when He went to sleep at night He lay on the floor on a little rug. Nowadays sometimes we hear boys and girls grumble and complain because they haven't as much as some one else, but there is not one of you who has not a better home, and more to make you contented than Jesus had when He was a little child. What did Jesus do when He was a child ? I think that He did pretty much the same things that boys do now. He was like every other healthy boy. He loved to run and play and have a good time. Some of the games that we play now are thousands of years old. "Hide-and-seek," "fox and geese," and some of our other out-of-door games, were played in Palestine in the time of Jesus, and I have no doubt that some of the very games that you enjoy so much, Jesus used to play long ago when He was on earth. 8o The Soul of a Child But Jesus did something beside play. We are told that He went about doing good. That means that everywhere He went He tried to make people happier by helping them. There was an old English admiral, long ago, who always carried with him a pocket- ful of acorns. Whenever a chance came he would plant one. Some one asked him why he did it. He replied, " I want to have plenty of oak trees to make ships for my country." Wouldn't it be a fine thing for every one of us to carry goodness and happiness about with us, and leave a little everywhere we go ? That was what Jesus did. " He went about doing good." There was a man of whom I heard, who rode out every evening from business to his home in a railroad train. There isn't much fun in standing every day for three-quarters of an hour on a crowded train. But this man has a good time doing it. Let me tell you how he does it. Every day there are many people on that train who have to stand. Among them are tired women, and old men, who cannot hurry enough to get there before all the seats are taken. This man said to himself : ** I am big and strong and every night, when the rush comes for seats, I am The Child Jesus 8l going to get a good seat and hold it for some one who needs it more than I do." So every evening when the crowd pushes through the gate, he is one of the first on the train, and always gets a good seat. Then when it is crowded he gives that seat to the most tired person that he can see, who has not been able to get there in time to find one. He said, " I used to think hard of the rail- road because they do not give us enough seats to go around in the rush hours, but I am glad of it now, for it gives me a fine chance to help some one else." There is a little verse that we all ought to know, said to have been written by William Penn, " I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not neglect it, or defer it, for I shall not pass this way again." XX I Didn't Mean To ** A certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the armor." — I Kings xxii. 34. About twenty-seven hundred years ago there was a king of Israel named Ahab. One day he went out with his army to fight against the Syrians. Now, Ahab was a coward. He was afraid that when the Syrians saw him they would try to kill him because he was the king of Israel. So he took off the fine armor and the plumed helmet that kings always wore in battle and put on the armor of an or- dinary soldier. He did this so that the Syr- ians would not know who he was. By and by the batde was being fought and the Syr- ians looked around for Ahab, but they could not find him. Off there in the Syrian army was a sol- dier with a bow and a quiver of arrows. He tightened his bowstring, took an arrow and put it against the string and looked for an Israelite to shoot at. He did not see any very near him so he just shot off that arrow into the air, not at anything in particular. 82 I Didn't Mean To 83 That is what we mean by drawing a bow at a venture. Let me tell you what became of that arrow. It went up and over and down, and hit the king of Israel who was trying so hard not to be killed that day. There was a place in the armor where the girdle and the breastplate came together, a little joint, and in there the arrow went and killed King Ahab. The man in the Syrian army did not mean to do that. It is likely that he never knew as long as he lived that his arrow had killed the king. Did you ever hear boys and girls say, " I didn't mean to " ? When we start out we very seldom mean to do wrong. How is it, then, that we are so often guilty of doing evil things ? There was a story, that I read once in an old school book, of a workman who was busy building a ship. He came upon a wormy plank in a pile of lumber. He ought not to have put it into the ship, but he thought to himself, '' It is only one small plank and it will not matter." So he put it in and forgot all about it. After a while the ship was fin- ished and went to sea. For years it did well, and then it was found that the timbers were eaten with worms. They tried to repair it but it became worse and worse, till one day while out at sea it began to leak badly. They 84 The Soul of a Child tried to pump out the water, but it came in faster than they could get it out, and the crew only saved themselves by taking to the boats. It was that one wormy plank that caused the less of that valuable ship. The man who put it in there did not mean to sink the ship, any more than that soldier meant to kill the king, but he did. Some of the little things, that we do not mean to do, are those that most hurt others. The Prophet Jeremiah says that the tongue is like an arrow. It is often like the arrow of this soldier. It does what we do not mean it to do. There was a story in one of our papers about a poor girl in one of our great cities. Her father had been killed, and she was work- ing for her living, and trying to support her mother and her little sisters and brothers. It took so much for all this that she did not have anything left to buy pretty clothes with. Some of the girls in the shop where she worked made fun of her shabby dress. She was very sensitive and thought about it till her mind became affected. Then she ran ofl and jumped into the river. Those thought- less girls did not mean to hurt her feelings. Their tongues were like that arrow. They killed when they did not mean to. I Didn't Mean To 85 Good words are as arrows too. One of the great ministers of this country tells of crossing the ocean one summer. On the ship was a lawyer, the attorney-general of his state. One night the minister was pass- ing the lawyer's stateroom. The door was open, and as he looked in he saw him read- ing his Bible. Just then the lawyer looked up and saw the minister and said, " Come in," and he went in. *' I am very glad," said the minister, " to see you reading the Bible." ** Yes," said the other, " I read it through at least once each year. I did not know much about this book till a few years ago. One day a litde girl said to me, * Judge, have you ever read the Bible through ?' I said, * No, have you ? ' She said, ' Yes, of course I have.' That set me thinking. I said to my- self, * Here I am, the attorney-general of this state, and I have never read through the book upon which our whole civilization rests.* For pure shame I went and read it to the end, and I have never failed once each year to go through it again." That little girl's arrow had hit the judge. Be sure that the words you speak are good words, so that when they hit, they will help instead of hurt. XXI Small Beginnings ** Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. And the tongue is a fire." — James iii. 5-6. About forty-five years ago there was a terrible fire in the city of Chicago. Seventy thousand people had their homes burned up ; two hundred were killed, and one hundred and ninety millions worth of property was destroyed. Do you know how that great fire started ? It all came from a tiny lantern that a man had taken with him to the barn. While he milked his cow it was knocked over in some hay and that began it all. There were two little boys whom I knew. They had been told by their father not to play with matches. Back of the house where they lived was a great forest, which ran up over the mountain for many miles. One day those boys went off into the mountain for a tramp, and took some matches with them. One of them said, ** Let's make a fire with some of these old leaves." So they disobeyed their father and made a fire, and after watching it 86 Small Beginnings 87 a while came away and left it. That night while they were sleeping, the fire alarm was sounded in the village. The forest was on fire. Every man turned out, and by working hard all that night, and all the next day they succeeded in putting the fire out, but many hundreds of dollars worth of fine timber had been destroyed. See what a great matter a little fire kindled. The good man who wrote this verse said that the tongue was like a fire. It is very small, like the flame of a match, but it can do great evil if we do not watch and control it. There are two families living on opposite sides of the street. The men have had a big quarrel, and the women do not speak to each other when they pass, and the little children have been told not to have anything to do with one another. Those two families have had so much trouble that it is the talk of the town, and it all started from one little unkind thing that one woman said about another. This is what is meant by these words, " The tongue is a fire." It is very little but it can start a world of trouble. Not only can the tongue do great evil if it speaks wrong words, but it can do great good if it speaks the things that are right. In the city of New York there is a building 88 The Soul of a Child called the McAuley Mission. It is one of the most famous missions in the world, for thou- sands of wicked men have found God there, and have started to live good lives. Let me tell you how that mission got its name. Many years ago there was a bad man in that city named Jerry McAuley. He had spent the most of his life in prison. He was a river thief, who stole from ships and boats along the docks. No sooner would he be out of prison for one crime than he would commit another and be sent back. His family had all deserted him and the police hated him. He did not have a friend in the world, and for months at a time no one ever thought of speaking a kind word to him. One cold winter day he was standing on the street corner shivering. He was hungry, too, for he had had nothing to eat since morning. Just then a man came along and stopped and spoke a few kind words to him. It was so long since Jerry McAuley had heard any one speak that way that he did not know what to say. It was the kind word that man spoke that finally made Jerry McAuley a Christian. Then he went and opened a place, where he might help other poor men like himself, and before he died he had saved thousands of Small Beginnings 89 them. It was all the result of that kind word. A match is not as big as a baby's little fin- ger, but it can do great things. That match can start a fire in the stove that will warm the house, and cook your dinner, and make everybody happy and comfortable. Or it may set fire to the house, and burn up the things that you love most, and make every one wretched and unhappy. The tongue is like that match. If we use it to speak kind and gentle words, it will bless and help. But if we speak evil words it will bring a curse instead of a blessing. XXII Lamps ** Thou shalt bring in the candlestick, and light the lamps thereof." — Exodus xl. 4. To-day we are to talk about lamps. A lamp is something that gives light. The very first lights that people had long ago were torchlights. They made a fire at the end of a dry stick and set it up in the ground. That was the best light that they knew. Then a little later they made lamps of brass, and filled them with olive oil, and put a little wick in the oil and lighted it. That was a much better light than the torch. Next they learned to make candles, and there are people living to-day who will tell you that the finest lights that they had in their houses when they were young were candles. About fifty years ago they discovered pe- troleum in Pennsylvania, out of which they made kerosene oil. That was better yet. Then they began to make gas lights, and now we have electricity and our houses are as 90 Lamps 91 bright at night almost as they are in the day- time. It is interesting to guess what the next kind of light will be, for we seem to be getting something new and better all the time. In the little verse which we have for a text, God told the people to bring in the candle- stick and light the lamps thereof. In the city of Rome there is a church that has not a single light in it. This seems very strange, and one of the first questions that people ask when they go into that church is : How do they get along without any lights when they have a service at night? If you go into that church some night just before the time for service to begin, you will find the church in darkness, and you will have to grope your way along the wall to keep from falling. But very soon the people begin to come and each one carries a lighted candle. One candle does not give much light in a big church, but the people keep coming and coming, hundreds of them, each with a can- dle, and by and by the church is as light as day. Each one has done his part, and the church is blazing with light. Jesus once said, " Ye are the light of the world." This is a dark world. There is much that is evil and wrong in it. But if we 92 The Soul of a Child each let our little light shine it will not be long before it is all bright. Did you ever see a smoky lamp ? I have seen lamps that scarcely gave any light at all, and when we came to examine them, we found that something had gotten into the wick, or the air-chamber of the lamp, and was stifling it. The lamp has to be clean before it can send out a bright, clear flame. There are some of us just like that smoky lamp. We ought to be giving out a bright and beautiful light, and instead of that it is the poorest, dimmest kind of a flame. Some- thing has come into our lives that is spoiling the light. Sometimes it is bad company. Sometimes it is a He we have told, or some wrong we have done somebody else. No lamp can give a good light unless the wick is clear, and no life can shine brightly unless the heart is pure. There is a village on the Eastern Shore, a very little village, too small to have any street lamps, but the streets are so bright at night that no one ever stumbles. And it is so easy too. Every w^oman along the main street of the village, when night comes, puts a light in her window so that it will shine out on the road, and it makes the whole village light. Lamps 93 Each one of us has a little part of the world that has been assigned to us to play in, and work in and live in. If we all keep our lights bright and shining, the way will be bright for others when they pass by. When the old Simeon took the child Jesus in his arms, he said He had come to be a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel. So God wants us to be lights in our homes, and in school and wher- ever we are. XXIII Love Your Enemies '* I say unto you, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you." — Luke vi. 27. Our papers are all filled these days with news of the great war in Europe. They tell us that the Germans hate the English, and the English hate the Turks, and the Turks hate the Italians, and the Italians hate the Austrians, and the Austrians hate the Russians. Everybody hates somebody else, and so we have this dreadful war, for war teaches men to hate their enemies. Jesus taught us to love our enemies. He was always telling us to do something that is hard. It is not hard to love your parents, and your friends and those who love you. You can't help loving them. But it is not so easy to love those who hate you. Jesus loved His enemies. He loved Judas. He prayed for the men who crucified Him, and then He died to save them from their sins. And He told us that we ought to love our enemies. If people would only love their enemies, there would be no more war. 94 Love Your Enemies 95 There are several reasons why we ought to try to love our enemies. Here is one. If we love them, they will not be enemies very long, but friends. Paul said, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him, if he thirst give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." In war time, when an army wished to conquer a city and make it impossible for it to be an enemy any longer, they set it on fire. They put coals of fire on it and burned it up. That was a sure way to overcome it. So Paul tells us if we want to conquer our enemies, the best way is to do good to them. It will make it impossible for them to be our enemies any longer. One of our papers told the story of an Englishman and a German, who had both been severely wounded in one of the battles in Northern France. They lay very near to- gether in the trench. One of them had some water in his canteen, and the other had none, so the one who had the water crawled over and shared it with his suffer- ing enemy. And then they began to love each other, and when they loved one another, they couldn't be enemies any longer. The surest way to conquer an enemy is not to fight him, but to love him. 96 The Soul of a Child Another reason we ought to love our enemies is because it brings out the very- best that is in us. If you had a Httle garden, what would you do with it ? You would plant flower or vegetable seeds there, and raise something that would be pretty and useful. You would not plant in that garden the seeds of weeds and poisonous plants that would be useless and hurtful. In the same way Jesus tells us that in the garden of the heart we must be sure to plant only- good seeds, seeds of love and kindness. We must not allow a single plant of hate to grow there, even hate for our enemies. But there is a greater reason still for loving our enemies, and that is because Jesus com- manded us to do it. Long ago there was a negro slave in the West Indies who had been converted and become a Christian. He was so useful to his master that he made him overseer of the plantation. One day the planter was going to buy some new slaves from a ship that had just landed and he took the overseer to help him select them. After looking about a little the overseer found a poor, decrepit old man and asked his master to purchase him. The planter laughed at the idea. What was such a poor old man good for? Love Your Enemies 97 But the overseer begged so hard that the owner of the ship offered to throw the old man in, if they would buy a certain number of other slaves, and the master agreed to take him. On the way home the overseer was very careful of the poor, broken down old man. When they reached home he took him to his own hut, and laid him on his own bed, and gave him the best food that he had and treated him like a king. The planter was surprised that he should show so much kindness to the old African, and said to him, " Is that old man your father, that you take such good care of him ? " ** No, massa, he no my father." ** Perhaps he is your brother ? " *' No, massa, he no my brudder." " Then he must be your uncle, or some old friend?" "No, massa, he no kin to me at all." "Then why show so much kindness to him ? " " Massa, he my old enemy. He the man that took me from my house, and sold me to the trader. My Bible tell me to love my enemy ; when he hungry, feed him ; when he thirsty, give him drink. So I do what my Bible tell me." Wouldn't it be a fine thing if we could all try to do what our Bibles say, as this slave did ? There would be no more war or trou- ble, but all w^ould be peace and happiness. XXIV God's Jewels ** And they shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels." — Malachi iii. 17. In a jeweler's window there is a litde color- less stone, no bigger than your finger nail, and the price is one thousand dollars. That little stone that takes so much money to buy, is a jewel. Jewels are the most costly things in the world for sale. Sometimes when parents wish to speak of their children they call them their jewels, because they are so precious. There was a Roman mother long ago named Cornelia. One of her neighbors came in for a call one day and asked to see her jewels. Cornelia called her two boys and said, " These are my jewels." In our text this morning, God speaks of good people as His jewels. He values them more highly than anything else that He has in the whole world. There are several facts about jewels that we must try to remember. 98 God's Jewels gg 'First, they are very costly. There is a diamond in the crown of the Czar of Russia, called the Orloff diamond, that is worth many millions, and it has a very interesting history. Long ago it was the eye of an idol in India. There was a Frenchman who saw it there, and made up his mind that he was going to get it. So he made a piece of glass that looked just like it, and one night he got into the temple, and took out the diamond and put the glass in its place and ran away. After a little while he began to be afraid to carry such a valuable treasure in his pocket, so he sold it to a sea captain for ten thousand dollars. The captain took it to Europe, and sold it to a merchant for one hundred thou- sand. After being bought a number of times more, it was purchased by Count Orloff, for Empress Catherine of Russia, for more than half a million dollars. The Czar values that diamond because it cost so much. God calls us His jewels, because we cost Him so much. He paid far more for us than the Russian Empress paid for the Orloff diamond. He gave His Son for us. It is no wonder that He calls us His jewels. Some jewels are shams. They make dia- monds out of paste so skillfully that they look just like the real thing. They seem like dia- lOO The Soul of a Child monds, but they are worthless, and if you take one of them to a jeweler he will tell you at once that it is paste. There are some people like that. When we first see them they seem genuine and good, but after we have come to know them better we find out that they are shams ; insincere, and untruthful and wicked. We cannot al- ways tell a sham when we see one, but God can. No one can deceive Him. Then there are some jewels that have flaws in them. Once I saw two diamonds. They were the same size and looked just alike to me, but I was told that one was far more valuable than the other. I said, *• How is that ? '* The man who was showing them to me handed me a magnifying glass and I looked through it and saw that there was a tiny flaw in one of them, so small that I could not have seen it without the glass. That lit- tle flaw made a great difference in the value of the diamond. Sometimes we see boys and girls who seem to be so fine and so good, and then all at once we discover that they are not quite truthful, or not quite honest, or they are lazy, or there is something else that mars them. These jewels are perfect all but the flaws. God wants His jewels to be without flaws. God's Jewels loi When jewels come out of the ground they are often coarse and rough, and before they can be sold they must be polished. They must be ground, and cut and rubbed. This is hard for the jewels, but it has to be done if they are to be perfect. God's jewels need to be polished, too. That is why very often God sends us trouble, and suffering and pain. It is to make us perfect. The writer of the Hebrews spoke of Jesus being made perfect through sufferings. That is the way God deals with us. He sends us suffering to make us perfect, as the diamond is made beautiful and perfect through polishing. XXV Self-Sacrificc " And Cain brought an offering unto the Lord." — Genesis iv. 3. We often hear the word " sacrifice " and we ought to know just what it means. A sacrifice is something that we give up for God or for some one else. God expects us to make sacrifices for Him. He has made great sacrifices for us, and He has the right to expect that we shall do the same for Him. The only sacrifices that God cares about are those that cost us something. Do you know why Cain killed Abel? It was because of envy. One day both of these young men came to offer a sacrifice to God. Abel loved the Lord and took the very best lamb that he could find in his flock and gave it to God. He perhaps said, as he gave it, ** There isn't anything that I have that is too good for the Lord, and I will give Him the very best that I have." But Cain was different. He didn't love the Lord as Abel did. When it came time to make the sacrifice he said, '* I suppose I must 102 Self-Sacrifice 103 give the Lord something, but almost any- thing will do for Him." So he took some leaves and grass that did not cost him any- thing and offered that to God. You all know what the Lord did. There was only one thing that He could do. He accepted Abel's sacrifice and thanked him, but Cain's He would not accept. God will not accept a sacrifice from any of us that costs us nothing. That made Cain very angry. He couldn't kill God, so he killed Abel, his brother. There is a story very much like this over in the New Testament, when Jesus went into the temple one day and stood by the collec- tion box to see what the people were giving. In those days they didn't pass around the collection plates as we do now. They put a big box in the corner of the temple, with a slit in the lid and the people marched up and put their money in the slit. You know now there are some people, when the collection plate is passed, who do not want others to see what they are giving. They have plenty of money for pleasure and other things, but when Sunday comes they only have a penny or a nickel for the Lord. So they hide it in their hands and drop it on the plate softly so no one will be able to see it. 104 The Soul of a Child In the temple, the box was fixed so they could not do that. They had to go up and drop it into that slot in the top, and every- body who was there could see just what they gave. That day as Jesus and the disciples stood there, along came a number of old rich Pharisees. They went up there before every one, and each put in a big silver coin, after holding it up so every one could see what they were giving, and making it jingle and rattle in the box. What they gave didn't cost them anything. They had plenty more where that came from. They didn't give the Lord any more than they would give a beggar. Just then there came in a poor widow. She had only two mites, less than half a penny it was, but it was everything that she had in the world, and she put it all in. I suspect that she had to go without her supper and her breakfast because she gave that. And when the Lord saw her He said, " She has given more than all the rest." Her sacrifice was the one He loved because it cost her so much. God always measures our gifts not by what we give but by what we have left after we give. He doesn't care for any gift unless it costs us something. That is a real sacrifice. XXVI Sympathy " Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for My yoke is easy." — Matthew xi. 29-30. What is a yoke, and what has a yoke to do with sympathy ? That is what I am go- ing to try to tell you about to-day. A yoke is a wooden frame, used to couple oxen to- gether so that they can pull big loads. I used to think that a yoke was a heavy burden. People say, ** It is a good thing to bear the yoke in your youth," as though it is something very hard and difficult. But a yoke isn't a burden at all. It is a help. It is the yoke that makes it possible for the oxen to help one another, and to share each other's loads. If it were not for the yoke they would have a hard time to draw the heavy wagon. It is the yoke that makes it easy. Perhaps this will make it plainer for us to understand what Jesus meant when He said, "Take My yoke upon you, for My yoke is easy." Jesus wants you to let Him help you carry your load, just as one of those oxen 105 io6 The Soul of a Child helps the other. If you have a big load share it with Him. He will take the other side and it will be easier for you. Now the yoke stands for sympathy. A boy once was asked what sympathy is. He said, *' Sym- pathy is a kind of going halves with a fellow." When I was a small boy and went to school in the country, some of the boys used to go every day and bring a bucket of water from the spring, about a quarter of a mile away. If one boy tried to carry that bucket alone it would be very heavy. But we used to take a long stick, and hang the pail on the middle of it and each boy would take an end, and the pail was very Hght. We can share with others not only the loads that we carry with our hands, but our troubles. Did you ever have a trouble that worried you very much, and you went and told it to your mother or your father? It didn't seem half so heavy after that. That is because they were carrying part of it for you. Now that is what Jesus wants us all to do. If we have troubles, let us tell them to Him and let Him help us carry them. / I read this week a story of the war be- tween the French and the Germans forty years ago. The French army was defeated and driven back towards Paris. There was Sympathy 1 07 not much to eat, and there were many times when the soldiers had to go hungry. In the army was a young duke who had enlisted as a private soldier. One day the duke was eating a piece of stale bread, which was all they had, and thinking of the splendid din- ners they had had before the war began. He couldn't eat the bread so he threw it in the road. At once another soldier snatched that bread from the dirt and ate it greedily. The duke said to him, " Excuse me for throw- ing that bread away. I did not know that any one could be as hungry as you are." The soldier replied that he had been hungry all his life. He had been an orphan who lived on the streets ; then he had been ap- prenticed to a master who almost starved him ; he had learned a trade that did not pay him and now he was a soldier in a defeated army. He had always had a great appetite, though he had never had enough to eat once in his life. Then said the duke, "You and I will go shares in the future. I have a very small appetite, and I will give you part of my ra- tions." So when the evening meal came, Jacques, the hungry soldier, had part of the duke's supper, and they lay down to sleep side by side. lo8 The Soul of a Child At midnight the watch came around to arouse those who were to go on sentry duty. Jacques was awake. It was not his turn to go. It was the duke's turn. But the duke was asleep. Jacques said, '* It is a shame to wake him. He is sleeping so soundly. Til go in his place." So he went. That night the Germans made an attack and Jacques was shot at his post. Long after the war was over, the duke was going home from a banquet with a friend, when he suddenly stopped and picked a piece of bread out of the street, wiped the mud off it, and laid it very gently on the curbstone. As he did so he said to his friend, " I am do- ' ing this in memory of a friend who gave his life for me." Sympathy is helping others bear their load. XXVII The Shepherd Boy Who Became King ** He raised up David to be their king." — Acts xiii. 22. Boys and girls all love books that have plenty of life in them. There are no more thrilling stories in the world than those we find in the Bible. The life of David is one of the finest that was ever written. Here was a shepherd boy who was brought home from the fields to be anointed king. Then he killed a lion and a bear. Next he was sent for to play his harp before the king. After that we see him killing a big giant with his sling and a stone, and then he marries the daughter of the king, and becomes king him- self. Did you ever read in all your story books a more wonderful tale than this, and the best part of it is that it is all true. We always think of David as the shepherd who became king. God made him king, but He would not have done it if David had not been the right sort of a boy. There were some things about the boy David that it 109 no The Soul of a Child would be well for us all to remember and try to imitate. First he was a thoughtful boy. While he was a shepherd lad he was thinking and planning for the future, and when that fu- ture came he was ready for it. So many of us when we have done wrong say, " I didn't think." That is just the trouble. We do not think enough. God wants us to think. He expects us to use our minds to help us to do right, and to prevent us from doing wrong. The second fact we notice about David was his industry. He worked hard. While he was a boy tending the sheep on the hillside, he did not have much to do, just watch a few sheep all day. Some boys would have idled away the time and have become loafers. But David worked every spare moment. It was while he was tending the sheep that he learned to play the harp better than any one else in the whole land. It was there that he wrote some of those lovely poems which we have in the book of Psalms. There, too, he trained him- self to shoot with the sling so that he was able to kill the giant Goliath. How much he did with his idle minlites ! If we would only learn to put in our spare moments doing something that was useful, we, too, could do great things. The Shepherd Boy Who Became King 1 1 1 Sometimes we see slot machines, that will not work unless we put in a penny, and then they will work a second or two and stop till you put in another penny. There are some boys and girls like a slot machine. They do not like to work unless you give them something, and then they want to stop very soon till they are paid again. We ought to work not for what we can get out of it, but for the good that the work does. ^The third fact about David was his great patience. He knew how to wait. He was anointed king, and then it was many years before he became king. But all those years he was very patient. He knew that the best things in hfe come very slowly. Not far from here there is a great oak tree. Years ago when General Washington was liv- ing in this state, that oak tree was there. Long, long ago, hundreds of years perhaps, a little acorn fell to the ground, and after a while there was a tiny shoot that appeared and began to grow. How slow it was ! It grew only a very few inches in a year, and it took many, many long years for it to become a big tree. But when at last it was grown, it was the finest tree in the forest, and will stand there for centuries. A mushroom will grow up in a night, but it takes an oak a century 112 The Soul of a Child to develop. If we are going to do great things as David did we must be patient. But the best thing of all about David was his gentleness. He said on one occasion, *' Thy gentleness hath made me great." He was gentle to his brothers and to his friends and to his enemies, and he was humble and obedient to his God. God may not make us kings, but if we will try to imitate these traits of David's, that I have mentioned, I know that He will bless us. XXVIII Keeping the Thoughts Pure " Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues of life." — Proverbs iv. 23. A FEW miles out from one of our big cities up in the hills is a small lake. That lake is always most carefully watched and guarded. No boats are allowed upon it. Fishing is not permitted. Animals cannot get near to it. There is a man living not far away who does nothing but watch the lake, and see that nothing gets into it. If you were to ask that man why he is so carefully guarding the water, he would tell you that at one end of the lake there is a great pipe, that carries the water down to the city, where thousands of people drink it every day. That is why the lake is kept day and night. It is drinking water, that brings life to the city, and nothing impure or poisonous must be allowed to get into it. Now this is what Solomon meant by this verse, " Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." We are "3 1 14 The Soul of a Child to watch everything- that goes into our hearts just as faithfully and as carefully as the man at the lake, and see that nothing poisonous or impure enters there. When we were very small children we learned that there are some things in the world that are poisonous and will hurt us. When I was a little boy I was out in the yard one day and saw a pretty little fly buzzing around a flower. Pretty soon he settled down on the flower, and I put out my hand and took him. Then all at once I felt a sharp pain in my hand and dropped him and ran into the house. My mother told me that a bee had stung me and put something on it to draw out the poison. That is one kind of poison. Then there is a vine that grows along the fences in the country that it is not well to touch. If you do touch it, very likely in a few days your hands will begin to swell and you will have trouble. That is another kind of poison. We all remember, too, when we were very young, being told that there were some bot- tles in the medicine closet at home, that it would not do to taste, because they were poison and would hurt us. So we learned that there are some things Keeping the Thoughts Pure 1 15 in the world that we must never take into our hands, and there are some things that we must not touch, and there are other things that we must never take into our mouths, because they are poison. But there is something else that it is just as important to remember. There are also some things that we must never take into our minds. A filthy book or story, or an obscene picture, will poison the mind just as a swallow of arsenic will poison the body. Sometimes we see boys whose minds have been poisoned by the evil things they have taken into them. A poisoned mind is worse than a poisoned body. That is why we are told to keep our hearts with all diligence. We can keep our hearts by never allowing anything to come into them that is impure and unclean. And if evil thoughts do come in, we can drive them out. We can't help them from coming in sometimes, but we can keep them from staying in. And then we can fill our minds with good and pure thoughts by reading good books and associating with pure companions and looking at clean pictures. If we fill our thoughts with the things that are pure and holy there will be no room for the evil thoughts to come in. Il6 The Soul of a Child We ought always to try hard to keep our thoughts pure, for there cannot be a strong character unless first there is a clean heart. You have all seen a moth come flying in at the window in the evening, go straight for the lamp, and fly right through the flame. He gets his wings scorched, and as he lies on the table he begins to think. It would have been a great deal better for him if he had done his thinking before he went into the flame. That is the great trouble with so many boys and girls. When their minds have been poisoned by evil then they begin to think. It would be better to think before- hand, and keep the poison out. Keep thy heart with all diligence. XXIX Covetousness «* Take heed and beware of covetousness.'* — Luke xii. 15. Covetousness is wanting something that belongs to somebody else. There are some sins that trouble men and women, and there are others that boys and girls have to watch out for, but there is one sin that we all need to guard ourselves against. It seems like a very little sin, and that is what makes it so dangerous. You know how little a match is, not one-half as big as your little finger, and when you strike the match there is a tiny flame no larger than your thumb nail, but that little match-flame can kindle a fire that will consume a big house if we let it go. That is the way with covetousness. It seems like a small sin, but it starts big sins, and that is why Jesus told us to especially beware of it at all times. I am going to tell you the story of a covet- ous man, a story written by a great Russian named Tolstoi. 117 Ii8 The Soul of a Child There was once a poor Russian named Pakhom. He was very poor, like most of the Russians, but he had a great desire to have a piece of land for his own. What great things he could do if he just had a little farm ! One day the rich woman who owned most of the village sold her land. He went to her and told her that he would like to have fifty acres. He would pay her half at once, and the rest in two years. So she sold him the fifty acres, and at the end of two years he had it all paid for. But he wasn't happy. He kept thinking and thinking how much more he could do if he only had twice as much land. One day he heard that up along the Volga River there was cheaper land, and that if he sold what he had, he could buy over one hundred acres there. So he moved to the Volga, and now he had one hundred and thirty acres. You would have thought that he would have been very happy then with all that land, but he was not happy. He wanted more land. One day there came along a traveller who told him that in one of the provinces, three hundred miles away, for one thousand roubles he could get just as much land as he wanted. Now the man had a fine farm and a happy home, but all the time he was thinking how grand it would be Covetousness 119 to have all the land that he wanted. So he sold his farm for one thousand roubles and went three hundred miles to see the governor of that province about it. It was true. He was told that for one thousand roubles he could have all the land that he could walk around from sunrise to sunset. The next morning he started at sunrise and walked as fast as he could. He saw over there a fine forest, and said to himself, " I'll walk around that and it will be mine." Then he saw a splendid lake, and said, ** I'll make that mine too." So he went on and on. All at once he looked up and the sun was long past noon. He had to get back by- sundown or he would lose it all. So he walked as fast as ever he could, but the sun kept on going down. Then he began to run, faster and faster. The sun was almost down. There was a little further to go and it would all be his. Just then he felt a pain in his side, he had been running so fast. At last, just as the sun went down he reached the place where the governor was waiting for him. Then as he staggered up to the place, he fell down dead. He had won all the land, but had killed himself trying to get it. That is always the way with the covetous man. He is never happy no matter what he 120 The Soul of a Child gets, and he never has anything out of what he gets but a place to lie down and die in. There is something that is far better than covetousness. The covetous boy is he who is always thinking of what he can get from other people. The contented and happy boy is he who is always thinking of what he can give to other people. Do not think so much of what you will get, but think more of what you can give. That is the secret of the best riches that the world knows. XXX Growing " And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." — Luke ii. 52. We have all seen a tree growing. There are three directions in which it grows. It becomes taller and taller. And as it grows taller its roots must go down deeper and deeper into the earth. If the roots did not grow the first big storm that came along would blow the tree over. And that is not all. The tree grows wider and wider, so that after a while it becomes a fine shade-tree. There are three ways, too, in which a boy or girl grows. Our text tells us that Jesus grew in stature, in wisdom, and in favor with God. These are the three directions the growth of every child ought to take. First we must grow in stature. Most of you have somewhere at home a little mark on the wall, which shows just how tall you were on your last birthday, and when the next one comes you will stand up there and your father will make a mark for this year to 121 122 The Soul of a Child show how much you have grown. A young friend of mine once told me that he did not think that he was any kind of a boy, if he could not grow an inch every month. That is more than any boy can grow, but we ought to be growing some all the time. Bad habits keep us from growing and bad company, too. We ought to be very careful to avoid these things, for our business when we are small is to grow. Then there is a second way in which we must grow. We must grow in wisdom. We have not only a body but also a mind. It will not do for the body to grow stronger and the mind to stay just as it is. A man with a big body and a little mind is a very poor sort of a man. Once I was walking along the street and a man came up to speak to me. He was a big man, bigger and taller than I am, and he had a litde piece of paper in his hand. He held it out and asked me to read it to him. I be- gan to be very sorry for him, for I thought that maybe he was blind. But when I looked I saw that he could see just as well as I could. He couldn't read. Long ago when that man's body was growing bigger and bigger, and he ought to have been in school improving his mind, he was playing truant, Growing 1^3 and idling away his time. He thought then that he was having a very good time, but now he is a big man and lie does not know as much as some of the smallest children in the Sunday-school. Did you ever see a dwarf ? He is a man with a very small body. But there are mind- dwarfs, too, whose minds have not grown since they were small children. And there is another part of us that must grow, too. It is the soul. It is said of Jesus that He grew in favor with God. That means that while He was growing taller, and His mind was being improved with study at home and in school, that His soul was getting better and bigger, too. The soul is the best part of us. It is the part that doesn't die. The soul is going to live forever. Therefore, we ought to take the very best of care of it and see that it is growing every day that we live. It is food and work that makes the body grow ; it is study that makes the mind grow, and it is the Bible, and prayer, and kindness, and gentleness, that make the soul grow. Not long ago some one was speaking to me about a man that had a *' measly, little soul.'* Do you know what the trouble is with that man ? His father and mother were careful to see that his body grew big 124 The Soul of a Child and strong. And they sent him to school and college that his mind might grow, but they never thought about his soul, and now people say of him, " Oh, he has such a little soul." I told you of the little marks we have somewhere which tell how much taller we have grown each year. Then if we look at the school books we have studied, we know how much our minds have grown. Do you know that God has a place where He is keeping track of our souls ? He knows how much they are growing too. It will not do just to grow in stature, and in wisdom. We must grow in favor with God also. We need good bodies and strong minds, and above all we want big souls. XXXI Let Your Light Shine "Let your light shine." — Matthew v. i6. One of our papers told the story of a man who for forty years, had kept an account of the sunshine. He had a little book, and in that book he had a record of every day of that forty years. He knew how many hoursf of each day the sun had shone, how many it was cloudy, and how many it rained. There is a machine that keeps account of the hours of sunshine. It is a very interest- ing little machine. There is a burning glass that turns around as the earth moves. Under- neath it there is a piece of paper, and when- ever the sun shines through that glass it makes a little burnt mark on the paper. When night comes they take out that piece of paper and lay it away, and put in another for the next day. Day after day that little record is kept, and next year or ten years from now, they can turn to those papers and tell just how much the sun was shining every day. In the little text that I have given you we 125 126 The Soul of a Child are told to let our light shine. Let me try to tell you what is meant by this command. It means that we are to carry light and sun- shine with us wherever we go. There are some people in the world who are just naturally sunny. Wherever they go it always seems brighter and pleasanter, and there are others who are always gloomy. The room always seems a little darker when they come in. Now Jesus tells us here that we are to let our light shine. We are to try to make it brighter for others wherever we go. Just as that machine that I told you about keeps a record of the sunshine each day, so Jesus is keeping an account of the number of hours each day, that we are letting our light shine. There is a story of a poor woman in London who was informed one day that one of her relatives had died and left her a sum of money, that would make her comfortable the rest of her days. She had been very poor all her life. There had been plenty of days when she had not had enough to eat. What do you suppose was the first thing she thought about ? The good time that she was going to have with all that money? No, her first thought was of the good that she could do. She went and found another woman who had Let Your Light Shine 127 to work hard in a garret, and took her off to the country, and gave her a month of rest and brought her back strong and well. Then she thought of something else that she could do to make some one else happy, and so the days went by, and at the end of each day the recording angel in heaven put away the record of another day of sunshine for her. People used to think that a gentleman was one of noble birth, and no one was called a gentleman or a lady unless they had been born in the nobility. But people know more than that now. A gentleman or a lady is one of gende manners and life, one who thinks not of self but of others, and tries to let his light shine. When a girl who has been looking forward to vacation, gives it up that she may stay at home and help her tired mother, she is letting her light shine. When a boy is tempted by his companions to go to some place, or to do something, that he knows is wrong and tells them that he will not because it is wrong, he is letting his light shine. Every day God puts away the record of the day for every boy and girl. What kind of days are they, days of sunshine or days of gloom ? XXXII What I Want to Do and What I Ought to Do Sometimes there is a great difference be- tween what we want to do, and what we ought to do. They used to say that bad children did what they wanted to, and good children did what they ought to. There is an old legend about the Knights of the Cross, who lived on the Island of Malta many hundreds of years ago. There was a terrible dragon that lived on that island, that killed and ate the children and the women, and of whom every one was very much afraid. Many of the soldiers had gone out and tried to kill the dragon, but none of them ever came back. More and more brave men went to try to rid the island of the monster but they w^ere all killed, till at last the Master of the Knights commanded that no more of them were to fight against him. There was no use, he thought, of wasting the lives of any more of his men. 128 What I Want to Do 129 But one day there was a young knight who came to join the order. He heard about the awful dragon, and he thought to himself, what a great thing it would be to go out and kill him, and not tell any one about it until after it was done. So he took his sword and went outside the walls, and met the dragon ; and after a hard fight he killed him. Then he came back into the city and told the people what he had done. They were very glad and cheered and cheered. Then they made a big procession to go and tell the Mas- ter of the Knights. But when the Master heard of it, he said, ** What is the first rule of our order?" The young man answered, ** It is obedience, sir." Then said the Master, ** You were commanded not to fight against the dragon. You did not obey, and they who do not obey have no right any more to wear the Cross of the Order. Take ofi the badge. You can no longer be a Knight." And the young man took it off, and went away without saying a word. But after he had been gone a while the Master sent for him, and said, ** You have gained a better victory by obeying the order to take off the Cross, than you did by slaying the dragon. You may have the Cross again." And the young man became a great warrior, and they 130 The Soul of a Child say that when the Master died, he became the Master in his place. This legend teaches us that there are many things that we would like to do and that seem right, but if God has commanded us, or our parents have commanded us not to do them, we must not. • Now how are we going to know what we ought to do? There are several ways of knowing. , First there is that little voice within us that we call Conscience. It almost always tells us what we ought not to do. When your conscience tells you a thing is wrong, you may be pretty sure you ought not to do it, for that conscience is the voice of God, that is speaking to you. Then there is the Bible. The Bible tells us our duty. If we read our Bible and try to do what it says we will not have any trouble to know what our duty is. And there are our parents. If they are good Christian parents, and most of them are, they will teach us what we ought to do. It is not always easy to do what is right. One of the greatest soldiers that ever lived was Frederick the Great. It is said that when he was a young man and was fighting his first battle, he became so frightened What I Want to Do 131 that he turned his horse's head and ran away as fast as he could. But he never did that again and he Hved to be the bravest soldier in all Europe. It may be hard at first but if like King Frederick, we keep on trying we will find that it is easy to do the things that we ought to do. We very often use the word " duty." Duty means doing what we ought to do. In the heart of London, there is a great monument to one of England's heroes, Lord Nelson. Over a hundred years ago Lord Nelson was commander of the British fleet. His greatest fight was the battle of Trafalgar. Just before the fight began he ran out from the masthead of the flagship this signal to the fleet, ''England expects every man to do his duty." Every man did his duty that day, and they won a glorious victory. Jesus expects every boy and girl to do their duty ; to do, not what they want to do, but what they ought to do. Then they too will win the victory. XXXIII Paul's Message to the Children •• Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." — Ephesians vi. II. Do you know that there is a book in the Bible that has a children's page ? It is the book of Ephesians. If you will turn to that book, you will find in the last chapter, a page that Paul wrote especially for the children. Let me tell you how he happened to do it. During the last years of Paul's life he was a prisoner in Rome. They put him in prison, not because he had done anything wrong, but because they hated the Christians, and Paul was a Christian. In the prison with Paul there was a soldier, who was there to watch Paul and see that he did not try to get away. One day Paul thought that he would send a letter to his old friends back in the city of Ephesus. So he sat down to write the letter, with the soldier there in the room with him. After he had finished several pages and was about to sign his name, he said to himself, 132 Paul's Message to the Children 133 " I ought to put something in this letter for the children in Ephesus. They are going to be men and women by and by, and it will never do to neglect them." And then Paul began to think to himself, ** What shall I write to those children ? I can't talk to them about the things that I have been writing of to their fathers and mothers. They wouldn't under- stand." So he began to look about the room, as we do sometimes when we can't think what to write about in our letters. Just then he noticed that soldier there, and he said to himself, '* Why, the very thing. I will tell them about the armor that a soldier wears. I am sure that they will be interested in that." Let us all turn to this letter of Paul's, as I try to tell you what he told those children about that armor. Soldiers wore armor to keep them from being wounded by the spears and arrows and swords of their enemies. They could not win a victory unless they had their armor on. But some boy says to me, ** Why do we need armor ? We have no battles to fight these days." Yes, we have. Paul says in this verse, " Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of 134 The Soul of a Child the devil." The devil is our great enemy, and he is trying, with might and main, to conquer us, and make us do the things that are wrong. The devil has a great many wiles or tricks that he uses in his efforts to make us sin. There is a story of a sentinel in one of our Indian wars. The soldiers were out in the Indian country where they stopped to camp one night. A sentinel was put in a certain place to watch. The next morning they found that he had been killed during the night. The other sentinels had heard noth- ing and they could not imagine what had happened to him. The next night another man was put there to watch and when the morning came he too was found dead. So the commanding officer called the most trusted man in his command, and said to him, '' I want you to take that place to-night, and you must not let anything escape you. If you see anything move shoot at it." When night came the man went to his place. For several hours nothing happened, and then at last he thought that he heard a twig break, and there came the sound of something walking very softly in the dry leaves. He cried out, " Who goes there ? " But there was no answer. All was quiet and he Paul's Message to the Children 135 thought that he must be mistaken. Then he saw something move, and he was just going to fire when he discovered that it was only a big dog creeping through the bushes. He put down his gun thinking how foolish he had been to be frightened by a dog. Then he remembered the words of the officer to shoot at anything that moved, so he lifted his gun and fired and the dog fell. He ran over to where the dog lay, and there he found a dog- skin with a dead Indian inside. Every night that Indian had crept into that skin and had come so near the sentry that he could kill him, before he knew that there was any danger. Pretty wily old Indian, wasn't he ? Paul tells us to look out for the wiles of Satan. He is like the Indian. He comes and tries to make us believe that it is perfectly safe to trust him and obey him, and then when we let him come too near, he gets us in his power. This is the reason that Paul told us to always have on the armor, which will protect us against the wiles of the devil. XXXIV The Whole Armor ** Put on the whole armor of God." — Ephesians vi. 1 1. Let us see how many different parts there are to the armor of which Paul spoke. There is the helmet and the breastplate and the girdle and the shoes. Did you notice any- thing strange about this armor? There is not a single piece of armor for the back of the body. It is all for the front. That seems Uke an oversight, doesn't it ? Do you think that Paul could possibly have forgotten about the back ? No, he did not forget. There is no armor for the back. The only kind of a soldier who is wounded in the back is the one who is a coward and runs away. Long ago in Greece sometimes a young soldier was carried home wounded from the batde-field. We are told that the first thing his mother did was to look and see if the wounds were on the front of the body, or in the back. If they were in the back she knew that he had had his back to the enemy when he was struck, and that would make her far 136 The Whole Armor 137 more sorrowful than the fact that he had been hurt. God doesn't give us any armor for the back. He wants us to be brave against the evil and to stand like boys and girls who are not afraid. Then Paul tells us to put on the whole armor. It will not do to put on a part and leave off the rest. We must put on the whole armor. If we do not, Satan will strike us where we have no armor on. At night we lock up our houses to keep the burglars out. Probably you have heard your father going around the last thing be- fore he goes to bed to be sure that the house is all secure. If he should forget one little window, it would not make any difference how careful he had been with all the rest. That is where the thief would come in. I once heard of a man who did a thing like that. He had a fine horse in his barn that he valued very highly, and every night he locked the barn carefully, for he had heard that there were horse thieves in the country. There were three doors to that barn. There was a big door in the front, and a little door at the side, and another door at the back. Well, one night he locked the big door in the front, and then he locked the little door on 138 The Soul of a Child the side, but he was in a hurry and said to himself, ''I will leave that door in the back open to-night. It is hot very likely that any one will go around there." But that very night a thief came. He tried the front door. It was fastened. He tried the side door, and that was locked, too. Then he went around to the back. Sure enough, the door was open. And he took the horse. The man had left just one door unlocked, but it was through that door that the thief came. Do you see now why God tells us to put on the whole armor ? If we leave one little place unprotected Satan is going to get in there and do us harm. A teacher was telling me about a little girl in her room. This is what she said: "She is such a good little girl in so many ways. She is bright and neat and kind, but we cannot believe what she says." There was a little girl who had all the armor on but the girdle of truth, and Satan had come and made a liar of her. There are boys you know who are so promising, such splendid fellows, every one would love them if they did not have such bad tempers. What is the matter? They have forgotten the shoes of peace. The Whole Armor 139 There is a legend of a Greek hero named Achilles. He was a great warrior. Arrows and swords and spears could not hurt him, and for many years he led a charmed life. But there was one weak spot in his body. It was in his heel. His enemies found out about it, and one of them shot a poisoned arrow that wounded him in the heel and killed him. Satan knows the weak spot in every one of us. When we forget to put on one piece of the armor he knows it, and it is there that he will attack us. So you see we must have on all the armor if we are to stand strong when Satan comes. ** Put on the whole armor of God." XXXV The Girdle of Truth «* Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth." — Ephesians vi. 14. Before we think of the Girdle of Truth, there is one other thing that we must not forget about this armor of the Lord. We must wear it all the time. When we come into the house on cold days, we lay off our overcoats, because we do not need them there. When we go to sleep at night we put off the clothes we have been wearing during the day. But this armor is something which we must never put ofif. Oliver Cromwell, one of the greatest sol- diers of all time, is said to have kept on his armor day and night. He said that he never knew when an enemy was coming to attack him, and he wanted to be ready. So we never know when Satan is coming to tempt us. Therefore, we must never lay aside our armor day or night. Now let us think of the various parts of the armor. Which of them do you think 140 The Girdle of Truth 141 Paul speaks about first? There is the hel- met, and the breastplate, and the girdle, and the shoes, and the sword, and the shield. We would think that he would have put the helmet first, for it is meant to cover the head and protect the brain ; or the breastplate, which covers the heart. But no, Paul puts the Girdle of Truth first. That is the part of the armor to be considered first. Everything else that the soldier has, is in some way de- pendent upon that girdle. The breastplate fastens to it in front, and the greaves, or shoes, are connected with it from below, and just at the side there is a hook, where the sword hangs, and in the back there is a place to which the shield is fastened when it is not in use. The girdle, when we come to think about it, is the most necessary part of the armor of the soldier. So Paul tells us that first of all and above all, we must have the Girdle of Truth. That is the first thing that a man wants to know about a boy. Is he truthful ? It is the one thing that we want to know about every girl. Does she always speak the truth? I once heard a man, who knows a great deal about children, say that it did not make any differ- ence how ignorant a child was. He could be taught. It made no difference if he was ill- 142 The Soul of a Child mannered. He could learn to be a gentle- man. But the child who cannot tell the truth is hopeless. There isn't anything to build on. It is like laying the foundations of a house on the sand. It will not stand. So, boys and girls, when you go out to fight the battle of life be sure, first of all, that you have on the Girdle of Truth. Every lie is unnecessary and dangerous. Boys and girls sometimes tell lies '* just for fun," as they say. They do not mean any- thing by it. Once I heard a little girl say to her playmate, ** Your mother wants you." When the little playmate went to see, she found that her mother had not called her at all. The other little girl had only meant it for a joke, but it was an untruth for all that. Did you ever have an apple that was fine and good outside and then when you cut it open it was bad at the core ? There are some lies that are like that. They seem all right, till we look into them, and then we discover that they are just as wicked as any others. To be on the safe side it is best always to wear this Girdle of Truth that Paul tells us about, then Satan will not harm us. The old Persians long ago had a law that when any person was found guilty of telling three lies he was never allowed to speak The Girdle of Truth 143 again. If we had that law there would be some of us who would not be doing much talking, would we? Let us not forget the Girdle of Truth. There is an expression that is often found in the Bible. We read, " He girded up his loins." That means that he tightened his girdle. Before a man could run a race, or fight a battle, or do some hard work, he had to look out for his girdle, and see that it was good and tight. Now while you are young and life is before you, you ought all to look out for the girdle. You must try to take a tighter grip on the truth than you have ever done before, and make sure that all that you are, and all that you say, are true. XXXVI The Breastplate of Righteousness ** Having on the Breastplate of Righteousness." — Ephesians vi. 14. In the Tower of London there is a famous room known as the Armory. In it is the greatest collection of armor in the world. There are shields and helmets and swords and spears, that the kings and nobles of old England used to use, when they went out to war. There is armor there for horses, and there is one suit of armor that is more beau- tiful than all the rest. It was made for an English prince, a little boy, and is ornamented with gold and silver. Paul in this sixth chapter of Ephesians tells us of the armor that every boy and girl ought to wear now. I have spoken to you of the girdle, and now I wish to tell you about the breastplate, the Breastplate pf Righteousness. The breastplate of the soldier is very im- portant, because it covers the heart and the lungs. God has done much to protect the 144 The Breastplate of Righteousness 145 breast. When I was a small boy, sometimes another boy would come up to me and put his finger on his chest and say, " Hit me there." He wanted to show me what a hard blow he could stand on his chest. Do you know why the chest is so strong ? It is be- cause God has put a stout wall of bones and sinews all around it, to protect the heart and the lungs. But when the soldier went into battle, and was to fight with men who had spears and swords, those bones were not enough, and he needed besides a breastplate of steel to protect his heart. In this verse Paul tells us to put on the Breastplate of Righteousness. What is right- eousness? It is simply doing right. That is all, and we can all do that. The breast- plate of the soldier kept him from being hurt, and Paul tells us that the very best way we can keep from being hurt is to do right. There is nothing in the whole world that will do so much to protect us from harm as doing right. Almost every time we are hurt and have to suffer, it is because we have been doing wrong. We did not have on the Breastplate of Righteousness. When I was a small boy I was one day punished in school for something that I ought not to have done. It hurt, and when 146 The Soul of a Child I went home I told my father about it, but he didn't give me much sympathy. He said : *' If you had been doing right you would not have been hurt." Some time ago I saw two men coming along the street. They had been in a fight and looked as though they had had the worst of it. They were coming out of a saloon. If they had been doing right, they would not have been hurt. One of our doctors told me that almost all the diseases that trouble us are the result of wrong-doing. People do wrong, and then they have to suffer for it. If men and women, and boys and girls, would only do right, there would not be nearly so much disease in the world. The very best safe- guard against disease is to do right. More than that, most of the worries that come to us are caused by the fact that we know we have not done right. Let us see if we can remember what Paul tells us here. The best protection in the world against sin and evil is the Breastplate of Righteousness, just doing right every day that we live. Can we do it ? Let's try. XXXVII The Shoes of Peace •* Your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace." — Ephesians vi. 15. Paul has told us about the Girdle of Truth, and the Breastplate of Righteousness, and now he commands us to put on the Shoes of Peace. It sounds a little strange to think of a soldier having on Shoes of Peace. Everything else that he wears has something to do with war and fighting, all but the shoes, and they have to do with peace. He re- minds us here that no man ever made a good soldier unless down underneath it all there was in his heart a longing for peace. Now let us see if we can discover what these Shoes of Peace mean. Suppose one of you boys were to get up some cold winter morning, and were to forget to put your shoes on when you went to school. The hard, rutty road would hurt your feet, every little stone and stick you stepped on would make you jump, until, before you had gone very far, you would be cross and out-of- 147 148 The Soul of a Child sorts, and all because you had forgotten those shoes that morning. Paul tells us that we are to put on the Shoes of Peace. They will keep us from strife and trouble. You all know what it means to wake up some morning, peevish and bad-tempered about everything, and to be hateful and unkind to everybody, until probably before night your mother says to you, *' You certainly did get out of bed the wrong side this morning. You have been as cross as a litde bear all day long." Let me tell you just what the matter was that day. You did not have on those Shoes of Peace about which we read in this verse. Some day you go to school and everything is bright and pleasant all the day. You en- joy your breakfast and you know your lessons and your teacher is so kind, and you have great fun on the playground, and it is a fine day all the way through. Then, maybe, the very next day every- thing goes wrong. You think your parents do not love you very much ; you do not know your lesson, your teacher is cross, you have trouble on the playground, and are naughty to your mother, and when father comes home you are very likely punished. Almost every boy and girl has a day like The Shoes of Peace 149 that sometimes when everything goes wrong. Now what was the matter ? Didn't the sun shine just as brightly that day ? Of course it did. Didn't your parents love you as much that day ? Of course they did. Were your teachers and playmates unkind to you that day ? Of course they were not. Well, then, what was the matter ? Let me tell you. You didn't have on the Shoes of Peace. You forgot and left them off that morning when you dressed, and all day you have been unhappy. When we wake up in the morning we ought to say to ourselves, " I am going to be at peace to-day with everybody." And the way to be at peace with every one is to try and do as much good, to as many people, in as many ways as we can. If you each were to be given a little book, and were told to tear out a leaf every time you were guilty of speaking an angry or un- kind word, how long do you think that book would last ? Let us remember when we start the day to be sure and put on the Shoes of Peace. XXXVIII The Shield of Faith "Above all taking the Shield of Faith." — Ephesians vi. 1 6. The shield was the weapon the soldier car- ried on his arm, to protect him from the spears and swords of his enemies. You all have seen pictures of shields. Some of them were oval in shape, and some were round, and there were others that were rectangular. They were made of brass, or wood, or leather, and sometimes of gold. Solomon made a great many shields of gold, which were all taken away by the king of Egypt when he came up to fight against Jerusalem. A shield was a very necessary part of the armor of every good soldier. When he saw an arrow coming his way he held up the shield and the arrow hit it instead of him. When an enemy struck at him with his sword he received the blow on his shield instead of on his head. If he knew how to handle the shield it would protect his whole body. A soldier without his shield did not stand much chance in a battle. 150 The Shield of Faith 151 If we are good Christian soldiers, Paul says, we must every one of us have the Shield of Faith. The Shield of Faith is that which protects us in our hours of danger. If I were to ask one of you children what man in the world loves you most you would tell me your father. Your father would not allow any harm to come near you for any- thing. If he were some day to take a sharp sword and hold it within an inch of your heart, you would not be afraid. You know that your father would not hurt you. You would be no more afraid than if there were a great shield of brass there to protect you. There is no shield there, but there is some- thing that does keep you from being afraid, and that is your trust and faith in your father Or perhaps you go out to walk with him some night when it is very dark. You are afraid of the dark. You would not like to be out alone in the dark. But with your hand in your father's hand you are not afraid. If anything were to try to hurt you you know that your father would stand between you and any harm that might come to you. Your faith in your father is like the shield about which I was telling you. It keeps you from fear, for you know that with him nothing can harm you. 152 The Soul of a Child Now if we are to be good Christians we must have the Shield of Faith in Jesus Christ. When a soldier fought, it was the shield that received the blow instead of him. Let me tell you something about Jesus that you must never forget. He died on the cross for us. He was like that good shield that I have been trying to tell you about. He received the blow that was meant for us. He kept us from losing our souls by dying there in our places. That is how Jesus is the shield of the Christian. We need not be afraid of the evil that is in the world, and the temptations that trouble us every day. He stands between us and the evil and will be our shield if we will love and serve Him. You do not fear the dark if your father is with you. He is the shield that keeps you from harm. So we need not fear death even, for Jesus goes with us just as the loving father holds the hand of his little child, as they go out walking in the night together. " Above all, taking the Shield of Faith." XXXIX The Helmet of Salvation •* And take the Helmet of Salvation." — Ephesians vi. 17. The helmet is the hat of the soldier. It is the armor for the head. The brain, one of the most important organs in the whole body, is in the head, so he must take great care to protect it from harm. You have most of you seen the firemen, dashing away to a fire behind the big, fine, fire horses. You have noticed those funny helmets that they wear on their heads, and you have perhaps wondered why they wear them. They put them on to protect the head. If they were fighting a fire and a piece of brick or wood from a burning build- ing were to fall on their heads they would be killed, so before they go near the fire they put on their helmets. I once saw a fireman standing near a building that was on fire and he did not have on his helmet. A piece of brick fell down from one of the top stories and hit him on the shoulder. If it had struck him on the head 153 154 The Soul of a Child it would have killed him, because there was no helmet there to save him. That is the reason that firemen all wear helmets. In the same way every good Christian needs a helmet, the Helmet of Salvation. This helmet is meant to protect the soul. You know that there is more to every one of you than the body, that you can see, and the mind that you use when you study in school. There is beside a soul, and that soul is the most important part of you. Not long ago I went to the funeral of a lit- tle child. They took that little body and put it in the cemetery, and we didn't see her any more. But there was one part of that little girl that did not go into the ground. There was a part of her that did not die at all, but went to live forever with God. It was her soul. That soul is the best part of every one of you. It is the part that is going to live forever. So we ought to be very careful with these souls. God has given us a piece of armor to pro- tect the soul. It is the Helmet of Salvation. If you trust and love Jesus you have on the Helmet of Salvation, and nothing can harm your soul. You are safe. There are some kinds of helmets that would not do a soldier much good. It The Helmet of Salvation 155 would not do him much good to go into bat- tle with a paper helmet. A helmet like that would not protect his head very well. And it would not do him much good to wear a wooden helmet. One good stroke of the sword would split the helmet, and then where would he be ? He must wear a steel helmet, and then he is safe. In the same way there is just one kind of helmet that will save the soul. It is the Helmet of Salvation. There are people who wear other kinds of helmets. Some people think that if they do not break any of the ten commandments that that will save their souls. And there are others who believe that if they are good and kind that that is enough. These are pretty good helmets, but they will not save the soul. There is only one helmet that will always save, and that is the Helmet of Salvation, loving and serving and trusting Jesus Christ, the Saviour. XL The Sword of the Spirit ** Take the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." — Ephesians vi. 17. We have now come to the last piece of armor of which Paul tells us, the sword. No matter how many of the other parts of the armor a soldier wore, if he had no sword he would not be able to fight, so we must mind particularly what he says about the sword. Many years ago when King Edward the Sixth was crowned king they brought to him three swords to show that he was king of England and Ireland and France. Edward took the three swords and laid them down before him and said, " There is yet one other sword." They asked him, " What sword ? " He replied, '' The Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." So from that day when- ever a king of Great Britain is crowned they put into his hand the Bible as one of the swords of the empire. Paul calls the Bible a sword. It does not 156 The Sword of the Spirit 157 look like a sword, but there are many things about it that make us think of one. First it cannot be destroyed. A good sword is almost indestructible. In the old days they used to make wonderful swords in Toledo in Spain. They were formed of the finest steel and were so hard it was almost impossible to dull them. There are some of those old swords to-day and they are just as bright and keen as they were when Columbus discovered America over four hundred years ago. It is the same way with the Bible. Bad men have been trying to destroy the Bible for nearly two thousand years. But God made it so perfectly that it will last forever. There is another thing about the Bible that is like a sword. A sword cuts. So does the Bible. Men used to run their swords into each other's bodies in battle. In the same way the Bible sometimes cuts people to the heart. One day a man came to church. He had not been inside a church for a great many years. He had not been a good man. He did not love God. He came more than any- thing else to make fun of the service and trouble for the minister. The minister gave out his text, and there was something in that 158 The Soul of a Child verse that made that bad man listen. The text was, ** For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who- soever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Many years be- fore, he had heard his mother read that out of her Bible. She had been gone many years, but when the minister read those words that morning they went straight to his heart like the stroke of a sharp sword and made a Christian of him. That is why the Bible is like a sword. It goes straight to our hearts if we will listen to its teachings. And there is a third way in which the Bible is like a sword. It destroys evil. In the old days before they had any guns policemen used to carry long swords. When they heard that there were thieves and robbers in the city they took their swords and went after them. They used their swords to des- troy the evil. This is what the Good Book does. It destroys sin. Wherever the Bible goes evil has to flee. Away in the South Seas there is an island where they used to kill men and women and eat them. Those people were savage canni- bals. But one day the missionaries came there with the Bible. The people gave up their wickedness and became Christians, and The Sword of the Spirit 159 it is now just as civilized as it is at home. One day a trader met one of the old chiefs and said to him, " What has made the won- derful change in your island ? " The old man answered, ** It is the Bible. It is the Bible that has destroyed sin and made us good." So you see the Bible is like the sword. It endures. It cuts to the heart. It des- troys sin. There is one other thing every boy and girl ought to remember about this Sword. A sword will not do a man much good if he takes it and puts it away and never uses it. The Bible will not help us much if we are going to put it on the shelf and not read it. We ought to use it every day that we live. XLI Obedience " Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for thii is right." — Ephesians vi. i. The first lesson that every soldier has to learn is obedience, and the very first thing that every boy and girl ought to be taught by their parents is to obey. Several years ago a fire broke out, in the third story of one of the school buildings in a great city. When the fire alarm was sounded there was great panic among the children. They ran and pushed and crowded, trying to get out, and some of them were badly hurt. But one litde girl sat still in her seat and never moved. Her teacher, who was trying to help the children, saw her and ran to her and asked why she did not try to escape. The little girl answered, ** My father is a fireman, and he told me if ever there was a fire in the school, to sit still in my seat and he would come up through the window and get me." Sure enough, just at that moment, he came and carried the 1 60 Obedience 161 little girl out. That little girl had learned to obey. In our text the great Apostle Paul tells us that we must obey our parents. We are to obey them first of all because it is the right thing for us to do. We owe them obedi- ence. When you were very little, so little that you were not able to do anything for yourself, who was it that took care of you ? It was your parents. Your mother fed and clothed you, and ran hundreds of errands every day for you, and would not allow anything to harm you. And your father went to work every day to earn money that you might have what you needed to make you strong and well and happy. If it were not for those good parents you would not have been able to live a single day. Since they have done so much for you, you ought always to be thoughtful and kind and con- siderate to them. There is no better way by which you can show your thanks to them than by obedience. And there is another reason why children should obey their parents. They know so much more than you do about everything. The day after war was declared between Germany and England, there was a big Ger- man ship crossing the Atlantic with a great i62 The Soul of a Child amount of gold on board. One night the cap- tain of that ship received a message to hurry at once into some American port, or the ship would be captured by the English war-ships. The German captain did not know what to do. He couldn't go on and he couldn't go back. While he was puzzling about it, a man on the ship came to him and said, " Why don't you go into Bar Harbor ? We are very near there now and there you will be safe." The captain answered, "But I do not know the way into Bar Harbor. I would run on the rocks or the shoals." The man said, ** 1 have been all along this coast in my yacht, and if you will let me steer the ship I will bring you safe into the harbor." So the captain took the man to the pilot and said, " I want you to go just where this man tells you. He knows the way." So the man stood by the pilot that night pointing out the way, and the next morning they came safely into the harbor without striking a rock or a shoal. Boys and girls are very like this pilot. They do not know the way that is before them. They have never travelled it before. But their parents have been over it and know every part of the way. If they will Obedience 163 only obey, they will know how to steer dear of the rocks and the rough places. The great trouble is that many boys and girls think that they know more than their fathers and mothers, and when they try to go their own way, they run into trouble. There is no better command for young peo- ple than these words of Paul's, " Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." XLII How to be a Home Missionary " Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things Jesus hath done for thee." — Mark v. 19. The fifth chapter of Mark tells us about one of the first home missionaries. When Jesus sent him out, He said to him, " Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things Jesus hath done for thee." What do we mean by " home " ? Where is home? It is the house we live in, you say. Yes, that is home, but the word " home " means more than that. If you were in California and were to go to the railroad office, and ask the agent for a ticket home, he would ask you where your home is, and you would tell him the name of the town in which you live. That is home. But the word *' home " means something else. Suppose you were in Europe and some one over there were to ask you where your home is, you would say, " America is my home." So home means a number of things. It is not just the house you live in, but your town 164 How to be a Home Missionary 165 and state and country. This makes us un- derstand what a home missionary is. He is one who tries to make Christians of the people in his home and his town and his state and his country. Every boy and girl ought to be a home missionary. There was a little girl whose father was not a Christian, and every night when she knelt down by her mother*s knee she prayed, " Please make papa a Chris- tian," One night her mother was sick, and she knelt by her father, when she said her little prayer. He heard her say, ** Please make papa a Christian." After she was tucked in bed, he said to himself, " I think it is about time I helped to answer that prayer," and that very night he became a Christian. That little girl was a missionary in her own home. Then we can be missionaries to the thou- sands of people all over the country who do not love Jesus. I hear some boy say to me, ** I can't go and tell them about Jesus. They are too many, and they are too far off." But there is something that we can all do. Some one told me of a little boy in a very poor home in the city. He had learned to read, and he wanted a Bible very much, and there was no way he could get one unless some i66 The Soul of a Child one gave it to him. Do you know that there are a great many children in this country who have never seen a Bible or a Sunday- school. Now this is what you can do. You can help to send them Bibles and Sunday- schools. You can take some of the money that you spend for candy and soda water and ice-cream, and put it in the Home Mis- sion collection in Sunday-school. Ten cents will buy a Bible for some little girl or boy who has none. That is lots better than an ice-cream soda, isn't it ? Let's try it and see. And there is another way we can all help. We can all pray. When we kneel down at night, to ask God for the things that we want, let us not forget the boys and girls who have no Bibles or schools, and who do not know about Jesus. Jesus wants every boy and girl to be a home missionary. XLIII The Child Samuel ** I have lent him unto the Lord." — i Samuel i. 28. Nearly three thousand years ago, in the land of Israel there was born a little boy- named Samuel. There were several very interesting things about this boy. About a year before, his mother, Hannah, had prayed to the Lord that He would give her a son, and she had promised that if He would answer her prayer she would give him to the Lord. Just one year afterwards, God gave her the little son she wanted so much. For a few years, while he was very small, she kept him at home, but as soon as he was big enough, she remembered her promise, and took him to Shiloh to give him to the Lord. Some people make promises to the Lord and never keep them. Every time a father and mother bring their baby to be baptized they promise before God and the people that they will bring that baby up as a Christian child. And then sometimes they go away and forget all about that solemn promise 167 1 68 The Soul of a Child they have made. There are a great many boys and girls, who have turned out badly, who would have been good men and women, if their parents had kept their promises to God. Now Hannah did not forget her promise. She had made it to the Lord and she kept it, even though it must have made her heart ache to do it. There was at Shiloh an old priest named Eli. Eli had charge of the house of the Lord. So Hannah took the little boy Samuel to him, and asked him if there was anything that a little boy could do in the house of the Lord, for she wanted to give him to the Lord. Eli said, *' Yes, of course there is. I am old and my eyesight is getting very poor, and I need a little boy to wait on me. So you leave him here with me." Hannah was very glad and she left him there to wait on old Eli. That was one way in which he served the Lord, by being good to this old man. This is the way in which God wants some of us to serve Him, by helping to make life happy and pleasant for some one who is old and cannot take care of himself. Some of you boys and girls have old grand- fathers or grandmothers who are not as spry as they used to be. Perhaps they are deaf, The Child Samuel 169 or maybe they can't see very well. Like old Eli they need some one who is quick and will- ing to run errands for them, and to see and hear for them. I knew a little girl once who lived in the same house with her old grandfather. He couldn't see very well and she used to make it her business to find his slippers for him, and his spectacles, and when the print was too small for him, she would read to him. That is what Samuel did for Eli. He ran errands and made the fire when it was cold, and read to him from the Bible, and did everything that he could to help him. There are so many children who wish that they could do something for God. Samuel wanted to too, and God said, " If you would help Me the best way is to help some one who is old or feeble and helpless." One of the papers not long ago was telling the story of a poor man who received a letter one day saying that a woman had died and left him a great deal of money. He thought it was very strange for he had never heard of the old lady and he wondered why she should have given all she had to him. But there was a letter that explained it. The old lady said, " I was going for a long journey on the train and I was so worried and troubled, and lyo The Soul of a Child there was no one who paid any attention to me or did anything for me but a young man, who was so kind I can never forget him. I haven't any one else to leave my money to, so I am going to give it to him." We may not always have a reward like this for kindness to the aged, but God will always reward us by having people good to us when we are old. XLIV The Obedience of Samuel ♦* Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." — i Samuel in. 9. One night when Samuel was about twelve years old, as he was sleeping he heard a voice saying, " Samuel ! Samuel ! " He said to himself, " That must be Master Eli. He wants me to shut the door or the window for him.'* So he went to Eli and asked him what he wanted. But Eli said, '* I didn't call you. Go and lie down again." He hadn't been lying down very long be- fore he heard the voice again. So he jumped up and ran to Eli and said, ** Here I am." But Eli said, *' I did not call you, my boy. You must have been dreaming. Go back to your bed again." By and by he heard it again very plainly, " Samuel, Samuel." This time he knew that there was no mistake, and he went in to Eli and said, " Here I am, for I am sure you called me." Then Eli knew that it was the Lord who had spoken to him, and he told Samuel that 171 172 The Soul of a Child if he heard the voice again to say, " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." After a little while, sure enough, he heard his name called again. He said, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." Then the Lord told Samuel many things. He told him that Eli's family was to die because of the wickedness of his two sons. The Lord also told him that if he was a good boy, that when he grew up he would be the ruler of the people in Eli's place. Then the Lord stopped speaking to Samuel, and it was soon morning. He did not like to get up that day for he knew that Eli would want to know what the Lord had said to him and he did not like to tell. We don't any of us like to tell people unpleasant things about their relatives. But very soon he heard Eli calling. The old man was blind and very likely Samuel helped him to get dressed every morning. He didn't want to go, but when he heard Eli calling he went. That is one thing I want you to remember about Samuel. He was obedient. The first thing that he learned in the house of the Lord was obedience. The first thing that every one of us ought to learn is obedience, obedi- ence to our parents and to God. There was once an English army officer The Obedience of Samuel 173 who had a boy about fifteen years old. They lived in the suburbs of London, and the fa- ther went into the city every day. One morn- ing, just before he left for the city, the officer told the boy to be at London Bridge at noon, and to wait for him there. Then the father went on to the city. He was so busy all day that he forgot about the boy till he reached home late that night. His wife met him at the door and said, "Where is Henry?" " Why," said the father, ** he must be at London Bridge. I told him to meet me there at noon, and I forgot all about it." He hurried back to the city, and it was almost midnight when he reached the bridge. It was raining and cold. But there was Henry, who had waited all day because his father had told him he would meet him there. That boy, Henry Havelock, became one of the greatest soldiers that England ever had. He said when he was an old m.an that the best lesson he ever learned was the lesson of obedience. When Samuel was an old man he was one day talking to a young man who had dis- obeyed the Lord. He said to him, '* To obey is better than sacrifice." What he meant was that God would rather have us obey than anything that we can give Him. 174 The Soul of a Child I once knew a little girl who had disobeyed her mother. After a while she was very sorry and went out and picked a bunch of flowers and brought them to her mother. But the mother said to her, ** I would rather have your obedience than all the flowers that you can bring me." That is what Samuel meant when he said, ** To obey is better than sacri- fice." XLV Honesty, or Telling the Truth With Our Actions "They that deal truly are His delight." — Proverbs xii. 22. One night, you remember, while Samuel was lying in his bed, God told him of the great wickedness of the sons of Eli, and that very soon He would punish them for their sins. The next morning Eli wanted to know what the Lord had said to him. Samuel did not want to tell. Some boys would have told a lie. They would have left out what God said about their punishment, or they would have said that God did not say anything, but Samuel was not that kind of a boy. He was truthful and told Eli everything that the Lord had told him. This is another thing about Samuel to re- member. He was truthful. Some one said once that when a child is not truthful there is nothing to build the character on. That is, truth is the foundation on which life is built If a house has a poor foundation, the first 17s 176 The Soul of a Child strong wind that comes along will blow it over. This is the reason fathers and moth- ers are so careful about whether their children are truthful or not. They want the founda- tions of character to be strong and good. Sir Walter Scott once wrote two little lines which some of you know : ** Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive." Let me tell you what he meant. If any of you girls ever tried to sew with a thread that was too long you know what happened. The first thing you knew you had a knot in the thread, and while you were trying to get that knot out, you made several more knots, and the more you tried to straighten it out, the worse it was, till at last you had to go to your mother and get her to help you. That is what happens when we tell a lie. We have to tell another to get out of that, and then another, and another, till after a little we have such a tangle of falsehoods that we never can get them out at all. The only way is never to tell the first one, then we will never have the tangled web to un- ravel. Now honesty is truth. It is telling the truth with our actions. There are some Telling the Truth With Our Actions 177 people who would not tell an untruth with their lips for anything. No, indeed ! But they will deceive people with their actions, and that is just as bad. We can tell a lie by what we do as surely as by what we say. We call that kind of lying dishonesty. Boys and girls are often tempted to be dis- honest. A pupil in school who copies some- body else's work and then makes his teacher beUeve that he worked it himself, is dishon- est. He is telling a lie with his work. There is a story of a man whose daugh- ter was engaged to marry a contractor and builder. The man thought that he would give them a home for a wedding present. So some months before the marriage was to take place, he sent for this contractor, and said to him, '* I want you to build for me the finest little house you can construct. Put into it the very best material and work that you can." This man was not very honest, and he thought it would be a good chance to cheat a little. So, instead of putting in the best lumber and brick, he used very poor material, except in the places where it showed, and had the cheapest workmen. At last the cottage was done, and the owner came to see it. It looked very fine, for the father could not see how he had been swin- 178 The Soul of a Child died. After he had inspected it, he said to the contractor, *' You are going to marry my daughter, and I have built this cottage to give you for a wedding present, and you are to live in it." Then the man knew that in trying to cheat some one else he had been the loser himself. That is always the way in this world. The man who is dishonest with others, will find that he is the one who has been the loser, and he himself will have to live in the house that he has made. Let us be truthful in our actions as well as our words. XLVI Christmas ** It is more blessed to give than to receive.** — Acts xx. 35. If you will turn, in your Bibles, to the third chapter of the Gospel of John, to the third verse, you will read there of the first Christ- mas gift in all the world. " For God so loved the world, that He gave His only be- gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That was the greatest and the grandest gift that the world has ever seen. It was the gift of God to us, of His dear Son on that first Christmas night so long ago. This is the reason we give gifts to the poor, and to one another, because God gave us that priceless gift of His Son. There is a lovely story of a baby sitting on the floor, when, all at once, she saw a little sunbeam shining on the carpet. She crept over and kissed it. The sunshine is the smile of God, and so the baby loved it. It is this that makes Christmas happy and bright. It 179 i8o The Soul of a Child is the sunshine of the love of God, who gave to us Jesus nineteen hundred years ago. The words of our little text are very appro- priate for Christmas time or for any time. "It is more blessed to give than to re- ceive." Let us think of one or two rea- sons why it is more blessed to give than to receive. First, it makes us richer to give than to re- ceive, not richer in money, but in some things that are worth a great deal more than money. In New York State in the Catskills there is a lake. There are a great many Uttle streams that flow into it, and there is one big stream that flows out of it, to water the thirsty city of New York. Every day of the year that little lake gives hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to that great city. It is just give, give, give. And the water is perfectly pure and sweet. It is pure and good be- cause it is always giving. Over in the land of Palestine there is another lake. There are plenty of streams flowing into this lake, too, but there are no streams flowing out of it. This lake takes everything that it can get and it never gives up a drop for others. Do you know the name of that lake? It is called the Dead Sea. It is called by that name because the Christmas l8l water is poisonous. Nothing can live in it and it is not safe to build a house too near it. The boy and girl who are always receiving, and never giving, are bound by and by to be- come so selfish and hard that no one will care much for them. But those who give be- come kind and generous and thoughtful and are loved by every one. Second, it makes us happier to give than to receive. I know a Sunday-school class whose members always gave gifts to each other at Christmas. But one year they decided they would do something different. They took the money they had been spending on each other, and found a poor home where there would be no Christmas, and set to work to make it bright and happy for the children. What a fine time they had get- ting ready, and then the night before Christ- mas, they all went to the house, and trimmed a tree for the little ones, putting on it the things that they had brought. One of them said afterwards, '* It was the very best Christ- mas any of us have ever had." " It is more blessed to give than to receive." And the greatest and best reason of all why it is more blessed to give than to re- ceive is because when we give to the poor we are giving to Jesus. i82 The Soul of a Child There is a pretty story of a man who was coming one Christmas Eve h'om his work. He was thinking of his little children and what a good time they would all have the next day. All at once he saw a little boy in the street, ragged and hungry and almost frozen. He stopped and asked him where his home was and the boy said that he had no home. The man lifted him up in his arms and carried him to his own house, and they gave him something to eat and tucked him in bed with the rest of the children. When the house was quiet the father and mother began to prepare the Christmas gifts for the children. But they did not have any- thing for the little stranger. They were very poor and had been saving their money for weeks so that they might have a goose for dinner the next day. They talked it over and decided that they would do without the goose, and have just potatoes and porridge for dinner so that he might have a happy Christmas, too. So when the children woke up the next day there were some warm clothing and shoes for the little boy they had found. And how happy he was I By and by they sat down together for prayers, when each child was asked to say a verse. When it Christmas 183 came the turn of the Httle stranger he said, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And then He was gone. It was Jesus Himself who had come to them that Christmas day. When we do a kindness to one of those who suffer or are in want, we are doing it to Him. "It is more blessed to give than to XLVII The Best Life for the New Year " What wilt thou have me to do ? " — Acts ix. 60 Whenever one of you boys meets a stranger he is almost sure to ask you be- fore long, '' Well, what are you going to be when you grow up ? " Some of you will be business men like your fathers, and some will be lawyers, and others doctors, and some, I hope, will be ministers, which is best of all, and there are some of the girls who will teach, and there are many of you, like your mothers, who will have homes to care for. It is a very important question, to decide just what you are to do with your life, but there is something that is even more serious than the question as to the occupa- tion or profession we are going to follow. It is the question as to what kind of a life we are going to live this new year and every year. You know we only have one life and we all need to make the very best of it that we can. How can we live the best life ? 184 The Best Life for the New Year 185 First we can make our lives as near like the plan God has given us as possible. When this big church was being built, I used to come and see the builder every day. He had some plans marked off on blue paper, which the architect had made, and it was his busi- ness to make everything just like that plan. God has given us a plan for life. It is the Bible, and He expects us to make our Hves as near as possible like the life of Jesus, as it is described in this book. Most of you have played with picture puz- zles. They are made, you know, by cutting a thin piece of board into a great many queer shapes. The puzzle is to put them all to- gether. With each puzzle there comes a pic- ture-plan, which shows exacdy how they go. By looking at that plan, you know how to fit them together. Our lives are very much like one of these puzzles. There are many things about them that we do not understand at all. But God has given us, with our lives, a plan which shows us what we ought to do. That plan is the Bible. If we will consult the Bible every day we will know how we ought to live. My litde girl had one of these puzzles and she was very fond of playing with it, till one day her little brother came along and tore up i86 The Soul of a Child the plan, and then she couldn't fit the puzzle together very well because the plan was lost. In the same way there are some people who have lost their Bibles and they do not know how to live. If you would live the best life, be sure and do not lose the plan. Read and study the Bible. That is the first thing, and here is the sec- ond. Whatever we do we ought to ask the question, '' Is this what God would have me do?" Over in England there is a great or- phan asylum, which takes care of hundreds of poor boys and girls who have no fathers or mothers. It was built a great many years ago, by a merchant who gave all his money to it. If you were to go and visit that asylum they would show you the ledger in which the man who founded it used to keep his business accounts. At the top of every page, at the beginning of every day, he wrote, ** To the glory of God." In every business deal he made he tried to think of the glory of God. And then, when he died, he left all he had made to the glory of God, to take care of the orphans. This is a splendid rule for us all. When we go to school, when we go to play, what- ever we do, let us make up our minds that The Best Life for the New Year 187 we are going to try to do it just as we know God would have us. That is the way to make the most of our time and live the best life. Sometimes young people ask, " Is it wrong for me to do that?" mentioning some pleasure they love very much. There is one answer to all such questions : ** Can you do that to the glory of God ? " If you cannot read a certain book to the glory of God, better not read it. If you cannot go to a party to the glory of God, better stay home. If you can- not associate with some companion to God's glory, it would be better to lose his friend- ship. XLVIII The Resurrection ** I am the resurrection and the life." — ^John xi. 25. After Jesus was crucified, they took His body and put it in a tomb, a little room that had been cut in the rock, to put dead bodies in. Then they fastened the stone door of the tomb and came away. They thought that was the end of Jesus. But it wasn't. Three days after, a woman named Mary Magdalene went out to see the tomb. Easter Sunday you will see a great many people going out to the cemetery, to put flowers on the graves of their loved ones. Whenever you see a good woman, going to the grave of some one she loves, think of this Mary long ago, who went out there to see the tomb of Jesus that Sunday morning. When she reached there, the tomb was open, and the body of Jesus was gone. She thought at first that some one had come and stolen it. When she turned around there was a man standing there. She thought it was the gardener, and began to ask him some questions. Then he spoke to her, 188 The Resurrection 189 and she knew that it was Jesus. He had risen from the dead, and come out of the tomb, and was aUve once more. Almost all of us have had some one, whom we loved very much, who has died, and we had to take the body and put it in the ceme- tery. We have been very sad, because we have thought that we would never see him any more. But we will see him again. Just as Jesus died and rose again, so those we love are going to rise by and by, too. When you lie down to sleep at night, you don't know anything for a few hours. Then you wake up, and it is morning, and you are all ready to begin the day. Jesus says that death is like that. When people die they go to sleep for a little while. We lay them away, just as your mother tucks you in bed when you are asleep, and then by and by when the Lord is ready, He calls to them to get up, as your father calls you in the morning. Some boy says to me, " How is God going to make the body come together again ? " We do not know how He is going to do it, but God can do a great many things that we cannot do, and that we do not know anything about. Men can do wonderful things that we do not understand, and God is much more powerful than any man. 190 The Soul of a Child Some one was telling me of a workman, who was one day working with a beautiful silver cup, when it slipped out of his hand and fell into a very strong acid and was dis- solved. There was not a thing left of it. The acid had eaten it up. Then he took another liquid and threw it in, and the silver all ap- peared again, and he took it out and made a silver cup of it again. In the same way we believe that when the body has disappeared, God is able to gather it all together again and make it live once more. Another boy says, ** What kind of a body are we going to have when we rise again? Is it going to be just like the body that we have now ? " No, God says that it isn't. He told us about the wheat. If you plant a seed in the ground, by and by it comes up. It is not the same seed that comes up, but it is very much like it. So the body that God gives us, after the resurrection, will not be the same one, but very much like it. We would not want a body in heaven just like the one we have on the earth. You do not wear the same clothes to play in, and to go to church in. So the soul will have different clothes, when it gets to heaven, because it is a very dififerent place. The Resurrection 191 All our happiness and hope at Easter time, as we think that we are going to see our loved ones again, is because Jesus rose again. So we ought all of us to thank God, every day that we live, that Jesus rose from the dead. DATE DUE iSfiijii^p^n^ fmm i tMSSttS^I&^^itilMISi Ik .__ __ ______ i X«^ 1 ■^mmuM r^lj^ ^''''^mjmm^^^ 1 ' GAYLORD 1 PRINTED IN U.S A. ■*^