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CHILDREN'S GOSPEL 
 STORY-SERMONS 
 
Children's Gospel 
 Story-Sermons 
 
 By 
 HUGH T. KERR, D.D. 
 
 Author of ^^ Children" s Missionary Story-Sermons,' 
 ** Children' s Story-Sermons,"'' etc. 
 
 New York Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
 , y pfii 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in United States of America 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 WILSON A. SHAW 
 
 A FRIEND 
 OF ALL THE CHILDREN. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THE kindly reception given to the two 
 preceding volumes, "Children's Story 
 Sermons" and "Children's Missionary 
 Story Sermons," together with the persuasive 
 insistence of the children and their friends, 
 have led to the publication of this volume of 
 "Children's Gospel Story Sermons." 
 
 During the past few years there has been 
 an encouraging increase in the publication of 
 religious literature for children. It is impos- 
 sible to exaggerate the value and importance 
 of meeting a need that is obvious to all who 
 think. The danger is that those who attempt 
 to meet the need may miss the mark. 
 
 These are Story Sermons. They are not 
 stories and must not be so judged. Some- 
 times they "tag a moral to a tale." They are 
 not sermons and must not be tested by the 
 one, two, three method of the classroom or 
 the pulpit. Simplicity has been aimed at but 
 the great central doctrines of the Christian 
 faith have not been neglected. 
 
 Sir James Barrie in "The Little Minister" 
 says that the first question always asked 
 7 
 
8 FOREWORD 
 
 of the child in his day was not, "What is your 
 name?" but "What are you going to be?" and 
 that one child in every family replied, "A min- 
 ister." If this volume succeeds in interesting 
 one outstanding boy to become a minister who 
 will preach better Story Sermons than these, 
 the purpose of this book will have been se- 
 cured, 
 
 H. T. K. 
 
 PnrsBURGH, Pa. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBR 
 
 I. The Flower Clock 
 
 2. The Holy Road .... 
 
 3. The Bengal Tiger 
 
 4. The Best Not Good Enough . 
 
 5. A Word That Was a Lamp . 
 
 6. Bells of Gold .... 
 
 7. The Name in the Garden 
 
 8. The Penny and the Dollar . 
 
 9. Things Money Cannot Buy . 
 
 10. The Boy Who Became a Deacon 
 
 11. Playing Church .... 
 
 12. A Christmas Story-Sermon . 
 
 13. Three Pictures of a Boy . 
 
 14. The Little Lame Prince . 
 
 15. The House by the Side of the Road 60 
 
 16. A Fire in a Cold Room 
 
 17. The Closed Doorway . 
 
 18. Ihe Timber Line 
 
 19. The Preacher and the King . 
 
 20. Building a Life . . . . 
 
 9 
 
 VA6B 
 
 13 
 16 
 
 22 
 26 
 30 
 
 33 
 37 
 40 
 
 43 
 
 47 
 50 
 54 
 57 
 
 63 
 66 
 
 69 
 
 72 
 
 75 
 
lo CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER JAC« 
 
 79 
 
 — 21. Listening to God 
 
 22. The Gladdest Day of the Year 
 
 23. Pussy Wants a Corner 
 
 24. When Lincoln Failed 
 
 25. The Sights of a Great City . 
 
 26. The Puzzle Garden . 
 
 27. If You Became President . 
 
 28. The Best Part of the Story 
 
 29. Hearing and then Seeing 
 '^ 30. The Three Choices . 
 
 31. The Little Foxes 
 
 32. A Little Baby and a Grasshopper 
 
 33. The Apostle Who Loved Children 
 
 34. The Little Anchor . 
 
 35. The Prince with Many Names 
 
 36. Asking the Blessing . 
 
 37. The Oldest Thing in the World 
 
 38. The Value of a Bishop 
 
 39. Playing the Game 
 
 40. In Verdun 
 
 41. A French Patriot 
 
 42. The Little Companion 
 
 43. Greater Than Alexander 
 
 44. The Ice That Made Fire . 
 
 45. I Never Knew His Name . 
 
 82 
 85 
 89 
 92 
 
 96 
 
 99 
 103 
 106 
 109 
 112 
 
 115 
 118 
 121 
 124 
 127 
 130 
 
 133 
 136 
 
 139 
 142 
 
 145 
 149 
 
 152 
 
 15.S 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 II 
 
 CHAPTBR 
 
 46. The Light in the Window 
 
 47. An Easter Story-Sermon 
 
 48. The Unknown Prince 
 
 49. Very Little But Very Wise. 
 
 Ant" 
 
 50. Very Little But Very Wise. 
 
 Coney " .... 
 
 51. Very Little But Very Wise. 
 
 Locust" .... 
 
 52. Very Little But Very Wise. 
 
 The 
 The 
 The 
 The 
 
 PACM 
 
 162 
 
 168 
 
 Lizard" 178 
 
THE FLOWER CLOCK 
 
 "I make all things new." — Rev. 21 : 5. 
 
 THE Other day, I heard about a new sort 
 of clock. I had heard about grand- 
 father clocks and banjo clocks and 
 eight day clocks and electric and radium clocks 
 and clocks that would not go. I had even 
 heard of John B. Cough's clock. When it 
 pointed to three o'clock, it struck six, and then 
 he knew it was half-past nine. But I had 
 never heard about a flower clock. That was 
 a new sort of clock. 
 
 It was made by a great lover of flowers and 
 shrubs and trees. His name was Linnaeus 
 and he lived in Sweden. His real name was 
 Karl Von Linne. When he was four years 
 old he began to ask queer and interesting 
 questions about plants and flowers and when 
 he became an old man he was as reverent in 
 a garden as he was in church. His motto in 
 life was, "Live quietly. God is here." 
 
 His garden was full of rare and strange 
 plants and it was in the garden that he kept 
 13 
 
14 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 his flower clock. The hours of the clock were 
 marked by flowers that opened and closed at 
 exactly the time of day where they appeared 
 on the dial of the clock. The first flower to 
 open was the goat's beard which marked the 
 hour of three o'clock in the morning and from 
 that hour on to midnight, every hour was 
 marked by the opening of a new flower. At 
 midnight the large flowering cactus closed its 
 petals and then until three o'clock the great 
 flower clock rested. What a strange clock it 
 was and what a wise man he was who made it. 
 He knew every flower and the hour when it 
 opened and closed its petals. Each hour was 
 thus marked by a beauty and fragrance of its 
 own. 
 
 Every true life oughi to he lil:e :i f;rt.at 
 flower clock. Every hour und every day an • 
 every year shonlvl be bripjl^t and beautiful. 
 The Christian lite Is full of })leasai)t surprises 
 and is like a continuous springtime. The hours 
 are full of joy and beauty, and youth and old 
 age have always their own delights. Did you 
 ever notice how often in the Bible life is com- 
 pared to flowers and plants and trees? 
 
 "As a flower of the field so he flourisheth." 
 "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow." 
 "He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." 
 "Erery good tree bringeth forth good fruit." 
 
THE FLOWER CLOCK 15 
 
 If you will call to mind the words of the 
 First Psalm which is one the Psalms boys and 
 and girls should know by heart, you will dis- 
 cover that it almost exactly describes a good 
 life in terms of the flower clock: 
 
 "He shall be like a tree 
 Planted by the rivers of water, 
 That bringeth forth his fruit 
 In his season; 
 
 His leaf als» shall not wither; 
 And whatsoever he doeth 
 Shall prosper." 
 
 In the very last chapter of the Bible, we read 
 of the tree of life which bears twelve manner 
 of fruits and yields her fruit every month. 
 The Christian life is like an unfading flower 
 and like unfr.iHn.9f fruit. 
 
II 
 
 THE HOLY ROAD 
 "The way of holiness." — Isa. 35 : 8. 
 
 THERE is a road in France that is called 
 "The Holy Road." It is not a long 
 road. It runs between the little city 
 of Bar de Due and the great fortress of Ver- 
 dun. Our American soldiers called Bar le 
 Due "jelly town" because the finest jelly in the 
 world is made there. 
 
 The road from Bar le Due to Verdun runs 
 among hills and beautiful valleys. I travelled 
 up that road one day in a Ford truck and it 
 reminded me of a name I once saw painted on 
 an old overworked automobile, "Rolls Rujff." 
 
 The German Army decided to capture Ver- 
 dun at any cost and the French determined to 
 hold it at any cost. If you go there to-day 
 you will see what a price was paid by both 
 Germany and France, but France kept her 
 pledge: "They shall not pass." 
 
 When the great battle began, the railroads 
 running into Verdun were destroyed and the 
 French Army had to be supplied by means of 
 16 
 
THE HOLY ROAD 17 
 
 trucks and the road from Bar le Due was the 
 only highway. So over this road thousands of 
 army trucks travelled day and night. Every 
 day for three long cruel months, 12,000 trucks 
 went up to Verdun, loaded with soldiers and 
 food and guns and ammunition and every day 
 for three long cruel months 12,000 army 
 trucks returned from Verdun loaded with 
 wounded and wearied men. If anything went 
 wrong with a truck it was cast aside and the 
 great grey procession moved on. Over that 
 highway more soldiers travelled never to re- 
 turn than over any other road in the world. 
 That is why the French people call it "The 
 Holy Road." It led over the road of sacrifice 
 and service to the gates of death and victory. 
 
 I often think of that Holy Road and the 
 graves I saw there and it has always seemed 
 to me since that there are other Holy Roads 
 that we can travel even in days of peace. 
 
 A good life is a Holy Road, and this was 
 v/hat the prophet meant when he spoke of the 
 coming of Jesus who would build in the world 
 "the way of holiness." Jesus shows us the 
 true way to live. He leads us not in byways 
 and in dangerous paths, but in ways of right- 
 eousness, in right ways, on the road of holi- 
 ness. 
 
 A life of ser\nce is a Holy Road. This was 
 
i8 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 the road the soldiers travelled. They went for- 
 ward to serve their country. Every time we 
 do something for others we travel over a Holy 
 Road. The missionary travels a Holy Road 
 to India or China or Africa. The teacher 
 travels a Holy Road to school or church. 
 The boy or girl who comes or goes cheerfully 
 at the call of father or mother travels a Holy 
 Road, but the holiest of all roads is the road 
 Jesus travelled to Calvary, and we, too, may 
 travel the Holy Road with him if we will rise 
 up and follow him. 
 
 "In simple trust like theirs who heard, 
 Beside the Syrian Sea. 
 The gracious calling of the Lord 
 Let us, like them, without a word 
 Rise up and follow Thee." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE BENGAL TIGER 
 
 "Free from sin." — Rom. 6 : 22. 
 
 THE Other day I took five-year-old 
 Donald to see the great tiger at the 
 Zoo. It walked up to the bars from 
 the back of the cage and Donald's face got 
 white and then he ran away. I did not blame 
 him. If there were no iron bars I would have 
 run faster than he did. 
 
 But how would you like to be alone with a 
 great Bengal tiger on a lonely hillside? I 
 heard of a man who had that strange experi- 
 ence. He was a British officer in India. He 
 had a little summer house on the top of a high 
 hill which overlooked the jungle, but far 
 enough removed from it to cause him no fear. 
 And then he was an army officer and had rifles 
 and pistols, so why should he be afraid? 
 
 One year in the time of the rainy season, 
 a great flood covered the fields. There was 
 water everywhere. The streams overflowed 
 and the jungle became a great swamp, and the 
 only dry place around was the hill where the 
 19 
 
20 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 army officer lived. As the water rose higher 
 and higher, the native people took refuge on 
 the hill around his home, and out of the forest 
 came the jungle animals. It was a strange 
 group that found shelter on that Indian hill- 
 side. Suddenly fear fell upon the people, for 
 as they looked out over the rising flood, they 
 saw the head of a great wild Bengal tiger. It 
 was swimming in the water and was coming 
 directly to the hill where there was still dry 
 ground. When it reached the land it shook 
 off the water and lay down on the grass as 
 quietly as a lamb. 
 
 It did not know what to do. It was afraid. 
 Fear had taken away all its fierceness. It was 
 more afraid than the people who had been 
 terrorised by its coming. What could they 
 do? Some pitied it. But the Indian officer 
 knew better. He knew that soon the flood 
 would disappear and that fear would pass 
 away and the fierceness of the tiger would 
 return, so he took his gun and walked up to 
 the great beast which was lying so still and 
 brought the gun close to its head and shot, 
 and the great tiger rolled over dead. 
 
 Now what do you think ? Do you think the 
 officer did the right thing or was he cruel ? I 
 am sure he did the right thing, for had he 
 waited, the great wild tiger would soon have 
 
THE BENGAL TIGER 21 
 
 attacked the helpless women and children who 
 had taken refuge on the hill. There was only 
 one thing to do with that wild tiger, and that 
 was to shoot it dead. A wild tiger is never 
 safe. Better shoot it than have it destroy and 
 kill. And there is only one thing to do with 
 sin, which is just like a wild beast, and that 
 is to kill it. Don't wait. Even if it seems 
 harmless, kill it. If you leave a bad habit alone, 
 sooner than we think it will master us and 
 enslave and destroy us. There is just one 
 right thing to do with temptation and sin and 
 bad habits, and that is to kill them right now. 
 Don't wait. Do with sin what the army officer 
 did with the Bengal tiger — shoot it dead. 
 
IV 
 
 THE BEST NOT GOOD ENOUGH 
 
 "Very Precious." — John 12 : 3. 
 
 NEXT to his own home Jesus loved best 
 the home at Bethany. Whenever he 
 could get away from the busy city of 
 Jerusalem he would disappear from the crowd 
 and spend the night with Mary and Martha 
 and Lazarus in their Bethany home. The 
 story tells us that "J^sus loved Martha and her 
 sister and Lazarus." 
 
 They were each so different, yet Jesus loved 
 them all. Mary was patient and sweet, Martha 
 was restless and always busy. Lazarus was 
 sick and almost always silent, but Jesus loved 
 each one. They seemed to understand him 
 even better than his disciples. 
 
 Mary especially understood and knew when 
 Jesus came to their home the Saturday before 
 Good Friday that his enemies would soon be- 
 tray him and put him to death. So one night 
 Mary planned to show her love to Jesus before 
 he should die. You know when people die we 
 send flowers to the home, but Mary knew a 
 22 
 
THE BEST NOT GOOD ENOUGH 23 
 
 better way. She would give the flowers to 
 Jesus while he was still with her. That is 
 much the better way. Only instead of giving 
 him flowers she poured at his feet rich and 
 fragrant perfume, for in those days people did 
 not give flowers as we do. The perfume which 
 Mary poured out was so rare and costly that 
 everybody wondered and Judas called it 
 "waste," but Jesus understood and his heart 
 was made glad. 
 
 I have often wondered where Mary got such 
 rich and rare perfume, and I remember an old, 
 old story about her. It is said that the morn- 
 ing after the thought came into her heart she 
 went to the shop in the city where perfumes 
 were kept and told the owner what she wanted. 
 He showed her one box and when he told her 
 the price she asked to see something else. He 
 showed her another and another, but she was 
 not satisfied. The shopman was puzzled, but 
 Mary was so much in earnest that he continued 
 to show all his goods. She would test the per- 
 fume, ask the price and then inquire if there 
 was not something still better. At last she 
 had tested all that was in the shop and was 
 still dissatisfied when the owner said that he 
 had one box of precious perfume, but it was 
 so rich and so rare and so costly that he felt 
 she would not wish to buy it. 
 
24 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 Mary was not a wealthy woman and the 
 precious box would cost in our money about 
 fifty dollars. Mary's eyes showed in a mo- 
 ment that she was interested and so the man 
 brought from a little closed cupboard the pre- 
 cious box. When Mary saw it and smelled 
 the sweet and delicate fragrance she said, 
 "This is what I want. Nothing is too good 
 for my Lord." So she paid the price and that 
 night at the supper table when her friends were 
 with her she took the precious perfume and 
 "anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his 
 feet with her hair: and the house was filled 
 with the odor of the ointment." Judas was 
 angry at what he called Mary's wasteful ex- 
 travagance, but Jesus knew she had done it 
 because of her love for him and he said : "She 
 hath done what she could; she hath anointed 
 my body beforehand for the burying. And 
 verily I say unto you, Wheresoever the gospel 
 shall be preached throughout the whole world, 
 that also which this woman hath done shall 
 be spoken of for a memorial of her." 
 
 That is a beautiful old story and it has two 
 sermons wrapped up in it. The first is that 
 Mary did not wait till Jesus died before she 
 showed her love. She brought her perfume to 
 Jesus while he was still with her. Let us be- 
 stow our gifts and our flowers now and not 
 
THE BEST NOT GOOD ENOUGH 25 
 
 wait till it is too late. The second sermon 
 is that nothing is too good for Jesus. Mary 
 was not satisfied with anything, not even with 
 a second best. She gave Jesus the very best 
 she could find and the most costly gift she 
 could purchase. Let us give Jesus our best 
 years, our best thoughts, our best love. Noth- 
 ing is too good for him. 
 
 Let this be our prayer: 
 
 Dear Lord, the best was not too good for 
 Thee to give us. 
 
 Thou didst give us the greatest gift — Thy- 
 self. 
 
 Thou didst love us and give Thyself for 
 us. With Thyself Thou hast given light to 
 guide us, love to satisfy us, life to make us 
 strong. 
 
 Dear Lord, we would give Thee our best. 
 We would give Thee our best thoughts, our 
 best love, our best days. 
 
A WORD THAT WAS A LAMP 
 "Thy word is a lamp." — Psalm 119:305. 
 
 IF you listen I will tell you how a word 
 can be a lamp. Many, many years ago, 
 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven hun- 
 dred years ago a man whose name was Gil- 
 bert a Becket lived in London, England. He 
 was young and brave and good. He was a 
 merchant but he left home and went to the 
 Holy Land to fight to win back Jerusalem 
 from the heathen people who had held it for 
 years. He was a Crusader. Perhaps you 
 know what that means. 
 
 Well, Gilbert a Becket went to the war and 
 he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave to 
 a Saracen Prince who was very cruel and 
 very rich. The prince put him to work in his 
 garden, a beautiful garden, and at night shut 
 him up in a prison so he could not escape. 
 One day when he was hard at work, the daugh- 
 ter of the prince came into the garden and 
 saw this young man with the beautiful white 
 face and became much interested in hhn 
 26 
 
A WORD THAT WAS A LAMP 27 
 
 After awhile when no one was looking she 
 spoke to him and told him that she was very 
 sorry for him. 
 
 That was not all. That is never all when 
 a beautiful young woman meets a handsome 
 young man. She learned to love him and after 
 awhile they knew that they loved each other. 
 One night she gave him money and opened the 
 door of his prison and let him go free. She 
 told him to fly to England and she would fol- 
 low him some day. So they kissed each other 
 good-bye, and that was the end of his garden- 
 ing. 
 
 But what has that to do with a word being 
 a lamp ? Listen. 
 
 Weeks and months passed, and one day the 
 princess could wait no longer. She too would 
 be a Christian and fly to England and meet 
 her lover. But those were hard cruel days and 
 the way was not easy. She did not know the 
 language of the country where her lover had 
 gone. Before he left he had taught her this 
 word — "London" and she knew his name, "a 
 Becket." That was all she knew, — "London a 
 Becket." 
 
 She found an English ship and when she 
 was asked where she wished to go said "Lon- 
 don a Becket." That was all. The sailors 
 did not understand everything, but they under- 
 
28 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 stood enough. That word became a lamp to 
 her feet and a light to her path. It lighted her 
 over the deep dark dangerous sea and she came 
 at last to the English shore. London was far 
 from the shore and there were then no fine 
 roads and no fast railroads. The road was 
 rough and full of robbers and bad men. "Lon- 
 don a Becket" was all she could say, but that 
 word pointed out the way for her and led her 
 on. She felt strange and lonely when she came 
 to the great city and men and women and 
 little children looked wonderingly at her, but 
 all she could say was "London a Becket." 
 
 That word led her on from street to street 
 and from door to door. At last the people be- 
 gan to understand and they too began to speak 
 the word, and they carried it from house to 
 house until they found the home of Gilbert a 
 Becket. You see now how a word became a 
 lamp. When he saw her and heard her voice, 
 he ran and caught her in his strong arms and 
 brought her into his home and they were hap- 
 pily married. That word had lighted her path 
 and brought her to the very door of her lover 
 and into his arms. They were very happy and 
 like all true stories, they lived together and 
 loved each other for many years. She was the 
 mother of one of the world's great men — 
 Thomas a Becket, who became Archbishop of 
 
A WORD THAT WAS A LAMP 29 
 
 Canterbury, about whom you have read and 
 heard. 
 
 So you see a word can be a Hght and a lamp. 
 There are hundreds and thousands of words 
 in the Bible which have guided men and wo- 
 men over hard and dangerous roads, through 
 dark nights, and brought them to happiness and 
 peace. Let me give you two or three of these 
 guiding words. 
 
 "Come unto me." 
 
 "Trust in the Lord." 
 
 "Fear not. I am with thee." 
 
 "God is love." 
 
 "The Lord is my Shepherd." 
 
 Boys and girls should hide away God's words 
 in their hearts. Those who walk in the light 
 of Bible truth will never wander. 
 
 "Thy Word is like a starry host; 
 A thousand rays of light 
 Are seen to guide the traveller 
 And make his pathway bright." 
 
 There is one word which has lighted mil- 
 lions on their way. Little children and old 
 men have followed its leading, and its light 
 never burns dim and never goes out. It is the 
 word "J^sus." When we speak his name he 
 comes. He is the Light of the World and He 
 is our Guide. 
 
VI 
 
 BELLS OF GOLD 
 "Bells of Gold."— Ex. 28:33. 
 
 THE Bible does not say much about bells. 
 The people of the Bible did not use 
 bells as we do. Those little bells of 
 gold in the text were little tinkling ornaments 
 on the fringe of the garment of the high priest. 
 The people of olden times did not have beauti- 
 full bells and chimes such as we have. We use 
 bells to tell the time, to give alarm, to herald 
 a celebration, to call to church. The Jews did 
 not ring bells to call to worship, they sounded 
 a silver trumpet. But a bell can be heard much 
 farther than a trumpet and for centuries 
 church bells in all countries have been calling 
 people to prayer. We wonder how people got 
 along without bells and chimes, calling them to 
 worship and telling them that the Sabbath had 
 come and the doors of the temple had been 
 flung wide open. 
 
 Over in England, near a pretty little coun- 
 try village called Warmsworth, there Is a little 
 old church that has no steeple and no bell. It 
 30 
 
BELLS OF GOLD 31 
 
 is located nearly a mile from the village and 
 when you look carefully at the church you feel 
 that once upon a time it must have had a bell 
 and a steeple. Well, it had and this is the 
 story. 
 
 The church was so far from the village that 
 the people rarely heard the church bell ring. 
 If the wind was high or the day stormy or the 
 people busy, the bell would ring and no one 
 would hear and so Sunday was forgotten and 
 the church neglected, for the people in the 
 olden times did not keep track of the days and 
 the hours as we do. They did not have watches 
 and clocks and calendars and some times they 
 lost count of the days of the week. The old 
 minister was worried and at last he said, "This 
 is what ril do. If the people cannot hear the 
 bell, then I'll make them hear it. I'll take the 
 bell into the village." And he did. He had 
 the steeple removed from the church and put 
 up in the town and whenever services were held 
 in the church, the bell would ring right in the 
 midst of the people. There, to-day, among 
 the houses you can see the ivy covered steeple 
 with the belfry and people cannot forget the 
 hour of service. Don't you think he was a 
 very wise and wonderful old minister! 
 
 And lest we forget, God has put a little bell 
 not in our village but in our hearts. There 
 
32 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 it rings and we cannot help hearing it. It rings 
 in among our thoughts and feehngs and ac- 
 tions. Sometimes it rings an alarm as if it 
 were an iron bell and we say : 
 
 "Hear the tolling of the bells, 
 Iron bells." 
 
 Sometimes it rings for joy and we listen as 
 if to golden bells. Sometimes it warns and 
 startles us and then again it rings like chimes 
 in among happy music. What do we call that 
 little bell ? Yes ! It is conscience. We speak 
 of it as a voice — the voice of conscience, and 
 we call it the voice of God in our souls, but I 
 like to think of it as a bell, that calls us to 
 prayer, to worship, to God, 
 
 "Far, far away, like. bells at evening pealing, 
 
 The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea; 
 And laden souls, by thousands meekly stealing. 
 Kind Shepherd, turn their weary steps to Thee." 
 
VII 
 
 THE NAME IN THE GARDEN 
 
 "In the beginning God." — Gen. i : i. 
 
 I WONDER how many know the very first 
 verse in the Bible. Of course everybody 
 knows what it is. It begins, "In the be- 
 ginning God." I think that is a wonderful way 
 for the Bible to start. It puts God first. It 
 puts God in the very first verse of the first 
 chapter of the first book in the Bible and that 
 is the way every boy and girl should begin 
 life. They should put God first. 
 
 Away over in a city called Aberdeen, nearly 
 three hundred years ago, there lived a great 
 wise man who was a poet, that is, he wrote 
 verses, and he was also a philosopher, that is, 
 he said and wrote many wise things. So wise 
 was he that the King of England sent for him 
 and gave him a pension of a thousand dollars a 
 year for the wonderful wise way he had of 
 telling plain people and little children about 
 the things of God. 
 
 I am going to tell you how wise he was. His 
 name was Dr. James Beattie, and he had a 
 33 
 
34 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 little boy in his home who was just five years 
 old, and he had learned to spell out his own 
 name. You know that is the first word a little 
 child learns. To spell his own name is the 
 most important thing in the world to him. 
 This wise father was anxious to have his lit- 
 tle boy learn something else than letters and 
 words. He wanted him to learn about God, 
 and he wondered and wondered how he could 
 teach his little boy that everything in the world 
 belonged to God. 
 
 One day he went out into the garden and 
 wrote his little son's name in the ground with 
 his finger and then sowed some mustard seed 
 in the place where he had written the letters 
 of the little lad's name. He said nothing about 
 what he had done. After ten days or so, the 
 little boy came running into his father's study 
 saying, "Father, father, my name is coming 
 up in the garden." He could read it and it 
 was as wonderful as a miracle to him. His 
 father tried not to show any surprise and told 
 his son that it must be a mistake, that it could 
 not be that his name was growing up in the 
 garden, and that he should not talk like that. 
 But the little boy would not be still, and taking 
 him by the hand said, "Come, father, come, and 
 see for yourself if my name is not coming up 
 in the ground." Sure enough there it was in 
 
THE NAME IN THE GARDEN 35 
 
 beautiful green letters, and the l.'ttle boy 
 could spell out his own name, — J-A-M-E-S 
 B-E-A-T-T-I-E. 
 
 But still the father seemed not to be sur- 
 prised and said, "There is nothing strange 
 about it. It just came there I suppose," The 
 boy was not satisfied and taking his father by 
 the hand, he led him into the house and said, 
 *T don't think it came by chance, father, it 
 could not come by chance." "Do you think 
 somebody put it there?" asked his father. 
 "Yes, father, I do. I think somebody put it 
 there." Then the great man took the little 
 boy on his knee and told him that somebody 
 had put it there, that he had put it there him- 
 self. 
 
 He then told him about the great world, and 
 that Somebody must have made the great beau- 
 tiful world with its flowers and trees and birds, 
 and that Somebody had made him and put him 
 into the garden of life, and that that Some- 
 body was God, and that he was God's little boy 
 and was more wonderful than all the mustard 
 seed and all the gardens, for God had put him 
 into this life for some great purpose. 
 
 God cares more for little children than for 
 flowers and trees and mountains and starry 
 nights, and just as God cares for the grass 
 of the field, so He cares for His own dear chil- 
 
36 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 dren. God is the great Gardener, and it is He 
 who makes beauty in a leaf and in a life. 
 
 "He leant, at sunset, on his spade. 
 
 (Oh, but the child was sweet to see, 
 The one who in the orchard played!) 
 He called, 'I've planted you a tree !' 
 
 "The boy looked at it for a while. 
 
 Then at the radiant woods below; 
 And said, with wonder in his smile — 
 'Why don't you put the leaves on though ?* 
 
 "The gardener, with a reverent air, 
 Lifted his eyes, took off his hat — 
 'The Other Man, the One up there,' 
 He answered, 'He must see to that.' " 
 
VIII 
 THE PENNY AND THE DOLLAR 
 "Faithful in that which is least." — Luke i6 : lo. 
 
 JESUS had faith in little things. He 
 loved little children. He called his dis- 
 ciples his "little flock." He tested suc- 
 cess according to faithfulness in little things. 
 The other day I heard about a quarrel be- 
 tween something that was very little and some- 
 thing that was big. No ! It was not between 
 a little dog and a big dog. It was a quarrel 
 between a penny and a dollar, and this is how 
 it began and this is how it ended. The dol- 
 lar said to the penny something like this, — 
 "Little penny, you're just no good. You can't 
 buy anything any more and you're not worth 
 carrying around. It takes a hundred of you 
 to make one of me and even I can't buy much, 
 but you're just no good. You might just as 
 well go out of business." When it heard that 
 the little penny turned over twice and looking 
 straight into the face of the big dollar, said, 
 "Mr. Dollar, most of what you say is true. 
 Every one knows it's true. But when you say 
 37 
 
38 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 that you are better than I am, that is not true. 
 I am better than you. Indeed, I am much bet- 
 ter, for I go to church every Sunday and you 
 go only once in awhile." 
 
 And that is how the quarrel ended, for out 
 of the pennies and the nickels and the dimes, 
 missionary schools and colleges have been 
 built. Big things are always quarrelling with 
 little things and all the time the little things go 
 on with their work. 
 
 I have heard too of another quarrel between 
 something that was very little and something 
 that was very big. It was between a little liv- 
 ing thing and a great big thing, as big as a 
 mountain. Indeed, it was between a great big 
 mountain and — what do you think ? The story 
 is told in verse and this is the story: — 
 
 "The mountain and the squirrel 
 Had a quarrel 
 And the former called the latter 'Little Prig.' " 
 
 Now that was not nice. It is never nice to call 
 people names, and the mountain was big and 
 strong and the squirrel was little and timid. 
 But the squirrel turned up his bushy tail and 
 shook it at the mountain and said, "Oh !" 
 
 "You are doubtless very big! 
 But all sorts of things and weather 
 Must be taken in together 
 To make up a year 
 And a sphere 
 
THE PENNY AND THE DOLLAR 39 
 
 And I think it no disgrace 
 To occupy my place 
 I^ I'm not so large as you 
 You are not so small as I 
 And not half so spry." 
 
 I am sure you feel that was a very good reply. 
 But the squirrel was not through. He was 
 bound to have the last word so he said to the 
 mountain : 
 
 "I'll not deny you make 
 A very pretty squirrel track; 
 Talents differ; all is well and wisely put 
 If I cannot carry forests on my back 
 Neither can you crack a nut." 
 
 Now that was the end of the quarrel for there 
 was nothing left for the mountain to say, and 
 Emerson who wrote those pretty lines meant 
 us to see that each was best in its own place. 
 And yet we like to remember that Jesus loved 
 little things best of all, for once when the 
 disciples were quarrelling about who was the 
 greatest, Jesus took a little child — perhaps a 
 little blue eyed boy with curly hair, and taking 
 him on his knee he told them that a little child 
 has first place in the Kingdom of God. 
 
IX 
 
 THINGS MONEY CANNOT BUY 
 
 "Silver and gold have I none." — Acts 3 : 6. 
 
 WHEN Christmas comes, we like to 
 buy presents for our friends and 
 before we know it, our money is all 
 gone. Somehow we get to think that if we 
 have no money we can give nothing and do 
 nothing and we forget that the very best things 
 in the world cannot be bought with money. 
 We cannot buy love or laughter or friendship 
 or the stars or the sky or the birds or the great 
 wide sea with money. 
 
 When Peter and John met the beggar at the 
 Beautiful Gate of the Temple, he asked them 
 for money. Peter and John had no money. 
 They were poor men. They were almost as 
 poor as the beggar himself. But they did not 
 pass him by. They did not say "no" to him. 
 They looked at him and Peter said, "Silver 
 and gold have I none; but such as I have, give 
 I thee : In the name of Jesus Christ of 
 Nazareth rise up and walk." The beggar ob- 
 tained that day the greatest gift he ever re- 
 40 
 
THINGS MONEY CANNOT BUY 41 
 
 ceived and it was a gift that had nothing to 
 do with money or silver or gold. If we could 
 only remember that the best gifts have nothing 
 to do with money, much happiness would be 
 added to life. 
 
 I was reading not long ago about a poor 
 man who had lost his memory. For years he 
 was cared for like a little child. He had been 
 a rich man and had had a college education, 
 but everything that he once had, meant noth- 
 ing to him and when he died he left a "will" 
 behind. It was a strange but beautiful will 
 and it read as follows : — 
 
 "I leave the children for the term of their childhood 
 the flowers, fields, blossoms and woods, with the right 
 to play among them freely, warning them at the same 
 time against thistles and thorns. 
 
 "I devise to them the banks, the brooks and the 
 golden sands beneath the waters thereof and the white 
 clouds that float over the giant trees and long, long 
 days to be merry in and the night and the moon and 
 the train of the milky way to wonder at. 
 
 "To the boys I devise the meadows with the clover 
 blossoms, butterflies thereof, the woods with their 
 beauty, squirrels, birds, echoes and strange noises, all 
 the distant places that may be visited together with 
 the adventures there found. 
 
 "And to those who are no longer children or youths 
 or lovers, I leave memory and bequeath them the 
 volumes of Burns, Shakespeare and other poets, if 
 there be others, to live over their old days again with- 
 out tithe. To the loved ones with snowy crowns, I 
 bequeath happiness, old age, the love and gratitude of 
 little children, until they fall asleep." 
 
 What gifts the dear old man left in his will! 
 He gave no money, no stocks, no bonds, no 
 
43 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS ^ 
 
 gold. But he gave love and sunshine and song 
 and happiness and we are all his heirs. 
 
 The greatest givers have had no money to 
 give away. Socrates and Lincoln, Shake- 
 speare and Florence Nightingale left no wealth 
 behind them. We remember too that Jesus 
 had no money and yet he was the world's 
 greatest giver of good gifts. He was home- 
 less. Once he said : 
 
 "The foxes have holes and the birds of the 
 air have nests but the Son of Man hath not 
 where to lay his head." He was homeless 
 and yet what priceless gifts he gave the world! 
 It was he who said: 
 
 "I came 
 That they may have life, 
 And may have it 
 Abundantly." 
 
 Yes! It must be true. The best things 
 cannot be bought with money. 
 
THE BOY WHO BECAME A DEACON 
 
 "Come and he cometh." — Matt. 8 : 9. 
 
 HIS name was Tony. He was a boy 
 without a country. His father and 
 mother came from Italy, but Tony 
 was born on a French ship, out on the great 
 Atlantic. He had played as a boy under the 
 blue Italian sky and among the bright Italian 
 flowers, but like thousands of other little 
 Italian boys had come to America to win for- 
 tune and perhaps fame. Tony and his father 
 and mother settled down in the East side of 
 New York, At first the great city, with its 
 noise and hurry made him afraid, but after 
 awhile he became familiar with the streets and 
 he felt as much at home as if he were in sunny 
 Italy. 
 
 His father and mother w-ere loyal Roman 
 Catholics and Tony went every now and then 
 with them to the great cathedral on Fifth 
 Avenue. One day when he was five years old, 
 one of his playmates said to him. "Tony, come 
 with me," and Tony went, not knowing where 
 
 43 
 
44 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 he was going. It was Sunday and when he 
 reached the place, where do you think he was ? 
 Well, he was at a Presbyterian Sunday School. 
 That was a strange place for a little Roman 
 Catholic boy, and Tony felt very, very strange. 
 He is not quite sure but he thinks it was the 
 Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church Sunday 
 School, for this is a true story and Tony is 
 now a man, and if you ask me about him, I 
 will tell you his name and where you can find 
 him. 
 
 After awhile Tony liked the place. The mu- 
 sic interested him and the sweet face of the wo- 
 man who taught the class pleased him, and so 
 he went back again next Sunday and continued 
 to go back every Sunday until he was twelve 
 years old. During those seven years he learned 
 a great deal about God and the Bible, and he 
 was thinking. He was thinking hard. 
 
 One Sunday night he slipped away from 
 home. It was summer and the doors of the 
 church were open and Tony went in and sat 
 in the back seat and listened. Just before the 
 sermon started, some one sat down beside him 
 and when he looked, it was his mother. She 
 had missed him and knowing how fond he 
 was of the church, she had gone out to find 
 him and had found him in the church. They 
 sat quietly through the service for they both 
 
THE BOY DEACON 45 
 
 liked it and they went again. They kept on 
 going until the minister knew them, and one 
 evening he called at their humble little home 
 and talked to the mother and Tony about God 
 and his great love for them. 
 
 This is the way Tony became interested in 
 church and one Sunday morning his mother 
 and he stood up before the great congregation 
 and confessed their faith in Jesus as their Sa- 
 viour. From that day to this, Tony has never 
 missed church. When he grew up he moved 
 away from New York, but in his new home up 
 in New York State, in a beautiful city, he 
 found another church and he is a Deacon in 
 that church, and a useful, helpful, earnest 
 Christian whom every one loves and trusts. 
 
 You can never tell what will happen when a 
 boy starts to go to Sunday School, and per- 
 haps the very best thing you can do is to say 
 to some playmate or friend, "Come with me." 
 Nobody knows the name of the little Italian 
 boy who one Sunday morning said to Tony, 
 "Come with me," but because he was interested 
 enough to say it, there is now in one of our 
 churches a helpful, happy man whose life was 
 made useful and happy by the quiet invita- 
 tion of a playmate. 
 
 How glad we should be that we have Sun- 
 day Schools where thousands and millions of 
 
46 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 boys all over our land and other lands, can 
 learn about God's great love for all little chil- 
 dren! 
 
 How do you show your loyalty to your 
 church and Sunday School? Suppose in your 
 school there are five hundred scholars and sup- 
 pose every scholar did what was done by 
 Tony's friend. What would be the result? 
 How many scholars would your school have? 
 Instead of having five hundred you would have 
 a thousand. And suppose every one of the 
 thirty-five million or more Sunday School 
 scholars of the world were to do the same 
 thing how many Sunday School scholars would 
 there be in the world ? Can you answer that ? 
 If you cannot perhaps you can try to answer 
 this more simple question: 
 
 "What sort of school 
 Would our school be, 
 If all the members 
 Were just like me? 
 
XI 
 PLAYING CHURCH 
 
 "A little child shall lead them." — Isa. ii:6. 
 
 CHILDREN like to play church. They 
 hke to sing and they like to preach. 
 Some of the world's great preachers 
 have played at church when they were very 
 young. Charles Kingsley preached his first 
 sermon when he was four years old. There 
 seems to be a sort of instinct in children for 
 preaching, and I wonder why more of them 
 do not keep on and become real preachers? 
 
 Did you ever hear of a preacher called Gipsy 
 Smith ? Gipsy is not his real name, but he was 
 born in a Gipsy camp and every one calls him 
 Gipsy Smith. He is a great preacher, a great 
 singer, and he tells us how his children used 
 to play church and to imitate him. 
 
 One night after he had come home from a 
 meeting very tired and it was time for the 
 children to be in bed, his two boys, Albany 
 and Hanley, came to their father's room to say 
 good-night. They did not want to say good- 
 night for they wished to visit for awhile 
 47 
 
48 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 with their father, and so they agreed that they 
 would have a "meeting" in their father's room. 
 When they had kissed him good-night, Al- 
 bany said to his brother, "Hanley, let's have 
 a meeting, let's sing 'Jesus Loves Me This I 
 Know,' and Brother Gipsy Smith will play the 
 accompaniment." So they all sang. Then the 
 little lad said, "Brother Gipsy Smith will pray." 
 You see, they were making good use of their 
 father. Gipsy Smith kneeled down and prayed 
 very simply that God would bless his two boys 
 and would make them good men. When the 
 prayer was over Albany said, "We will now 
 have Hanley Smith's experience." So little 
 Hanley rose and said: 
 
 "I am only a little sparrow, 
 A bird of low degree ; 
 My life's of little value, 
 But there's One who cares for me." 
 
 When he sat down, Albany said, "We will 
 now have Brother Gipsy Smith's experience," 
 and so the great preacher told how God took 
 him from a gipsy tent and made him a preacher 
 of the blessed gospel and urged his boys to 
 live and speak for God always. 
 
 Albany had conducted the service very well 
 and it was now his turn to speak, but with a 
 merry twinkle in his eye, he said, "Friends, 
 the meeting is over," and kissing their father 
 
PLAYING CHURCH 49 
 
 once more good-night, they tumbled off to bed. 
 Boys always tumble off to bed. 
 
 There are two things to remember in this 
 story sermon. First, — the little boys' religion. 
 It was real and it was simple. Do you know 
 the words of the hymn from which Hanley 
 Smith quoted ? 
 
 "I am only a little sparrow, 
 
 A bird of low degree; 
 My life is of little value, 
 But the Lord doth care for me. 
 
 "I have no barn or storehouse, 
 
 I neither sow nor reap ; 
 God gives me a sparrow's portion, 
 But never a seed to keep. 
 
 *'l know there are many sparrows 
 
 All ovm; the world we're found : 
 But our Heavenly Father knoweth 
 When one of us falls to the ground. 
 
 "Though small, we are never forgotten; 
 
 Though weak, we are never afraid; 
 For we know that the dear Lord keepeth 
 The Hfe of the creatures He made." 
 
 Second, — the father's beautiful loyalty. 
 Next time you play church, be sure your father 
 plays with you and be careful to give him the 
 biggest part of the meeting. Playing church 
 is not very interesting unless you have father's 
 help. 
 
XII 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY-SERMON 
 
 "God with us." — Matt, i : 23. 
 
 TWO A'merican girls were spending the 
 winter in the city of Rome. Their 
 parents were there on business and dur- 
 ing the winter months Jean and Sarah attended 
 the girls' school and became very much in- 
 terested in art. 
 
 Every Saturday morning they would visit 
 the galleries and cathedrals where the old mas- 
 terpieces could be seen, and on the following 
 Monday reported to their teacher what they 
 had found and why they were especially in- 
 terested in such and such pictures. They spent 
 day after day in the Vatican museum where 
 they saw Raphael's painting of the Transfig- 
 uration which is so familiar to us and many 
 other wonderful and priceless treasures. 
 
 One Saturday they set out to see a painting 
 
 of which they had often heard. It is called 
 
 the Aurora and represents the chariot of the 
 
 sun coming up through the clouds and driv- 
 
 50 
 
A CHRISTMAS STORY-SERMON 51 
 
 ing away the dark. It was painted by an Ital- 
 ian named Guido Reni. He painted many re- 
 ligious pictures but this painting of the Aurora 
 is one that is most familiar. It is a picture of 
 horses and clouds, youths and maidens, dark- 
 ness and light. 
 
 He painted it in such a strange place. He 
 did not paint it on a canvas, nor on a wall, 
 but on the ceiling of a wonderful palace. 
 
 When Jean and Sarah reached the Palazzo 
 Rospigliosi, for that is the name of the palace, 
 they were eager to see the wonderful painting 
 of which they had heard so much and seen so 
 many copies. They were not disappointed. 
 Far up in the ceiling they saw for the first 
 time the horses and the clouds and the attend- 
 ants upon the chariot of the sun. "Aurora" 
 you know means the dawn and the painter was 
 trying to show in art how the morning dawn 
 came out of the night. The painting was far 
 more wonderful than they had dreamed, for 
 now they saw it with all its beautiful colors 
 and its great and golden background. 
 
 Did you ever try to look at something high 
 up above your head? Perhaps you have tried 
 to look at a balloon, or an aeroplane, or a kite, 
 or the great stars far up above. You know 
 how hard it is. Your back gets tired, your 
 eyes grow weary and hazy, and after awhile 
 
52 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 you can look no longer and turn away to rest 
 your eyes upon the ground. 
 
 This is just what these American girls did, 
 but they were very much surprised when they 
 turned their eyes to see before them the very 
 same painting in all its colored beauty. How 
 could that be? I will tell you. When they 
 turned away to rest their eyes, they saw be- 
 fore them what they had missed by their eager- 
 ness. They saw a large table, and the table 
 top was one large and splendid mirror which 
 exactly reflected the painting on the ceiling. 
 So instead of looking up they could stand be- 
 side the table, or sit comfortably, and look into 
 the mirror, and see all the beautiful painting 
 perfectly imaged forth. 
 
 What they had tried to see up in the ceiling 
 they now saw plainly before their eyes. 
 
 Christmas is just a mirror. In it we see the 
 glory of God. For centuries the world had 
 been looking up to see God and had grown 
 weary looking and then God came down to 
 earth and was born in Bethlehem as a little 
 child, and in Jesus we look into the very face 
 of God. Jesus said, "He that hath seen me 
 hath seen the Father." 
 
 They called his name Emmanuel which 
 means, "God with us." In Jesus' face we be- 
 
A CHRISTMAS STORY-SERMON 53 
 
 hold the glory of God. This is what Christ- 
 mas means. This is why we sing: 
 
 "O come 
 
 Let us adore Him 
 Christ 
 The Lord." 
 
XIII 
 THREE PICTURES OF A BOY 
 
 "There is a lad here." — ^John 6 : 9. 
 
 THE hero of this story is nameless. 
 Jesus took the five rolls and the two 
 little fish of this little nameless lad, and 
 fed the great multitude of 5,000 men, beside 
 women and children. I have always wished 
 that this boy's name had been told us. Per- 
 haps it was Stephen, or James, or Thomas. 
 We do not know. We do not know where he 
 lived and we do not know what became of 
 him. We only know that he followed the 
 crowd around the lake so as to meet Jesus 
 when he landed from the boat on the other 
 side. 
 
 His mother, knowing how hungry boys get, 
 had prepared for him a little lunch but he had 
 been so interested in all that was happening 
 that he had forgotten it until he gave it to 
 Jesus. You remember the story. The people 
 were so occupied by what Jesus had been 
 saying and doing, that before they knew it 
 was late, the evening had come on and there 
 54 
 
THREE PICTURES OF A BOY 55 
 
 was nothing for them to eat. The disciples 
 had neither food nor money and they were 
 about to dismiss the multitude when Andrew 
 came with the news that he had found a little 
 lad with five small rolls and two fish. That 
 was all he had found. But Jesus was imme- 
 diately interested and the boy was brought to 
 him. 
 
 What do you think Jesus did ? He took the 
 little lad's food and blessed it and gave it to 
 his disciples and they in turn gave it to the 
 people. How proud and happy the little boy 
 was when he saw what had happened ! He had 
 not only been fed himself, but all in the great 
 crowd had all they could eat. What a fine 
 story he would tell his mother when he re- 
 turned and ever after he would be pointed out 
 as the boy who had given his lunch to Jesus. 
 He had not much to give but he had given 
 all that he had and Jesus had used his gift to 
 feed a great multitude. Jesus needed just 
 what that nameless little boy had to give. 
 
 Somewhere I have seen an old picture of 
 three boys. The picture is in three parts. The 
 one to the left shows us a boy with a book in 
 his hand and he is reading and thinking, and 
 the motto at the bottom of the picture is "I 
 Learn." The one to the right is of a boy with 
 a sword in his hand and it has for a motto, 
 
56 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 "I Fight." That is a good motto. I once 
 heard of a boy whose motto was, "I ain't 
 afraid to fight and I ain't afraid to pray." 
 The picture in the centre is of a boy who holds 
 in his hand a spade and his motto is, "I Work." 
 Those mottoes are good mottoes for boys. "I 
 Learn," *T Fight," "I Work." I would like 
 to paint a fourth picture of the little lad who 
 followed Jesus. He did not have in his hand 
 a book, or a sword, or a spade. He had only 
 a little lunch, and his motto was, *T Give." 
 
 When we think of it, that too was the motto 
 of Jesus. He said, "I came not to be served 
 but to serve and to give my life a ransom for 
 many." This little nameless lad had learned 
 in the presence of Jesus the true meaning of 
 life. We are here not to get, but to give. We 
 are to serve others rather than to be served 
 by others. And this is the beautiful thing 
 about such a life, that Jesus takes the little we 
 give and multiplies it by a thousand, or per- 
 haps a million. 
 
XIV 
 THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE 
 
 "He was lame." — 2 Sam. 9:13. 
 
 THE Story of the friendship of David 
 and Jonathan is familiar to all of us. 
 Every boy and girl knows how David, 
 the shepherd boy, was loved by Jonathan, the 
 Prince. The story tells us that the soul of 
 Jonathan "was knit" to the soul of David. 
 Just as you knit silk to silk and wool to wool 
 and steel to steel, so the true, strong soul of 
 Jonathan, the Prince, was knit to the true, 
 strong soul of David, the shepherd lad. 
 
 It happened that Jonathan's father, Saul, 
 hated David and tried to kill him, but Jonathan 
 warned David and pledged him his love. He 
 went out into the woods and put his own 
 princely garments upon David and told him 
 that he would be king over Israel. Jonathan 
 was so much in love with David that he was 
 willing to give him his own right to the 
 throne. The story is very beautiful and very 
 sad for in time both Saul the King and Jona- 
 than the Prince were lost in battle and David 
 57 
 
58 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 mourned for Jonathan as he would have 
 mourned for his own brother. 
 
 The years passed and David was made king 
 and the family of Saul suffered from the hands 
 of David's friends. Now Jonathan had a son. 
 He had a long, long name. I will spell it, — ■ 
 M-E-P-H-I-B-O-S-H-E-T-H— Mephibosheth. 
 When Jonathan, his father was killed, Mephi- 
 bosheth was just five years old. When the 
 news came to the palace that both King Saul 
 and Prince Jonathan were killed, the royal 
 nurse picked up the little Mephibosheth and 
 hurried off with him to a safe hiding place. 
 But in her hurry, she fell and the little lad was 
 hurt. He became that day a cripple for life 
 and ever after was lame on both feet. 
 
 Some years after David had been king, he 
 was told about Mephibosheth and sent for the 
 little lame prince. When he saw the boy, he 
 loved him and adopted him as his own son 
 and Mephibosheth ever after lived in the palace 
 and ate at the king's table. I suppose people 
 envied him as they saw him sitting at the win- 
 dow or riding in the royal chariot, but if they 
 had known everything, they would have felt 
 sorry for the little lad who could not run and 
 jump and play like other boys. 
 
 We like to think of David's kindness to the 
 little lame prince and that the lad was com- 
 
THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE 59 
 
 forted by the friendship of the king. He was 
 not to be envied because of his lameness, but 
 he might be envied on account of the king's 
 friendship. 
 
 As I was thinking about Mephibosheth, I 
 came upon these verses and if they are not 
 part of the story, they are surely part of the 
 sermon. 
 
 "Most every day a little boy comes driving past our 
 
 house 
 With the nicest little pony — just the colour of a mouse — 
 And a groom rides close behind him, so he won't get 
 
 hurt, you see 
 And I used to wish the pony and the cart belonged 
 
 to me. 
 
 "I used to watch him from our porch and wish that I 
 
 could own 
 His pony and his little cart, and drive out all alone. 
 And once when I knelt down at night I prayed the 
 
 Lord that he 
 Would fix it so the pony and the cart belonged to me. 
 
 "But yesterday I saw him where he lives, and now I 
 
 know 
 Why he never goes out walkin' — 'cause his legs are 
 
 withered so ! — 
 And last night when I was kneelin' with my head on 
 
 mother's knee, 
 I was glad he had the pony and the cart instead of me." 
 
 A great man has said that if we knew all 
 that was in the heart of every man, we would 
 envy no one. There is a beautiful verse in the 
 New Testament which says, "Love envieth 
 not." Can you find where it is? Will you try 
 to find what it means ? 
 
XV 
 
 THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE 
 ROAD 
 
 "Come into my house." — Acts 16:15. 
 
 WERE you ever a stranger in a strange 
 city? You meet hundreds and thou- 
 sands of people but you know no one, 
 and not one knows you. It is a very lonely 
 feeling. 
 
 It was the way Paul felt when he went to 
 Philippi, the great city which Alexander the 
 Great and Philip his father had made famous. 
 One day he wandered out of the big Roman 
 city down by the river side and there he found 
 a group of people. He had to introduce him- 
 self and then he told them about Jesus and 
 after that he had many friends. One of his 
 friends was Lydia, a rich woman of Philippi, 
 who opened her house to Paul and his com- 
 panions, and from that home Paul carried on 
 his great and wonderful work. 
 
 Her home was like the house about which 
 Sam Walter Foss wrote. You know what he 
 60 
 
THE HOUSE BY THE ROAD 6i 
 
 said about "The House by the Side of the 
 Road." Let me tell you how he came to write 
 those beautiful verses. He was taking a long 
 tramp through England. He loved to walk in 
 the country among the fields and through the 
 little country villages. One day he came to a 
 long hard hill and near the top there was a 
 little unpainted house that at first looked as if 
 it were built right on the road. When he came 
 up to the house, he saw a queer little finger- 
 post pointing in toward the yard and under- 
 neath was a still more queerly painted sign 
 with the words, "Come in and have a drink." 
 He was hot and tired and the little garden 
 looked inviting, so in he went and soon found a 
 spring of ice cold water beside which was an 
 old-fashioned dipper made out of a gourd. 
 Do you know what a gourd is? It is like a 
 squash. But that was not all he found. On a 
 rough bench beside the spring was a basket of 
 ripe red apples with another sign — "Help your- 
 self." He did help himself and sat down to 
 enjoy both the spring water and the fragrant 
 apples. 
 
 By and by an old man came out of the house 
 and seated himself beside the visitor and the 
 old man told how he and his wife lived to- 
 gether all alone in the little house. They were 
 too poor to give money and too old to help in 
 
62 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 the good work of the world, so they took this 
 way to help make other people happy. 
 
 I think it was a very nice way and so did 
 Mr. Foss, for he began to think about it and 
 then he wrote the verses which have been read 
 all round the world. 
 
 "Let me live in a house by the side of the road, 
 
 Where the race of men go by, — 
 The men that are good, the men that are bad. 
 
 As good and as bad as I. 
 Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat. 
 
 Or hurl the cynic's ban? 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the road 
 
 And be a friend to man." 
 
 I think the dear old man and his dear wife 
 in their dear little home were doing just what 
 God would like them to do. They gave no 
 money but they gave rest and joy and happi- 
 ness to those who passed their house. It 
 would be a more friendly world if all of us 
 tried to follow their example. 
 
XVI 
 A FIRE IN A COLD ROOM 
 
 ^They kindled a fire." — Acts 28 : 2. 
 
 ONE of England's greatest men is Earl 
 Grey. He is a great Statesman and he 
 loves to fish and roam in the fields and 
 listen to the birds. When Theodore Roosevelt 
 went to Europe, Earl Grey took him out into 
 the woods and told him the names of all the 
 birds that were singing in the trees. 
 
 His father was once the Governor General 
 of Canada and he was a great and good man. 
 One day Earl Grey was talking about his 
 father and telling some of his friends what 
 sort of man he was and this is what he said. 
 He said that his father "lighted so many fires 
 in cold rooms." I wonder if you know what 
 he meant. 
 
 You know how cold a cold room is and how 
 nice and cosy it feels after a bright warm fire 
 has been lighted in it. When Paul was ship- 
 wrecked upon the island after the awful storm 
 that destroyed the ship, the first thing the peo- 
 ple of the island did was to light a fire. Paul 
 63 
 
64 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 and all his shipwrecked friends were cold and 
 wet and the fire was like the gift of God to 
 them. 
 
 Well, there are other kinds of fires besides 
 those that are made with coal and wood and 
 oil and gas, and there are other kinds of cold 
 than frost and snow and chilly wintry winds. 
 
 There is such a thing as a cold church. Peo- 
 ple come and go and are not interested in one 
 another and everything seems cold and dead. 
 Then perhaps sonie good man or good woman 
 comes into the church, or a new preacher, or 
 God himself comes by his Holy Spirit, and 
 there is a "fire" lighted in that cold church, and 
 everybody begins to feel differently and to act 
 differently and pray differently. 
 
 There is such a thing as a cold person. We 
 talk sometimes of receiving a chilly reception. 
 We know some boys who seem to throw cold 
 water on every plan, and we know some boys 
 who like Earl Grey's father light fires in cold 
 rooms. Whenever and wherever they come, 
 people feel happier and more friendly. It 
 was said of Whittier the poet that "he never 
 darkened a day or shadowed a life." He was 
 one of the people who lighted fires in cold 
 rooms. Would you not like it to be said of 
 you that you too lighted fires in cold rooms ? 
 
 There is such a thing as a cold heart. The 
 
THE CLOSED DOORWAY 6;^ 
 
 Holy Door. It is opened only once in twenty- 
 five years. Four times in a century the door 
 is opened and through it the Pope and all his 
 cardinals pass in all their robes of state. Four 
 times in a century the Pope approaches it with 
 a little silver hammer. He knocks three times 
 and then the door suddenly opens, and he and 
 his cardinals enter, followed by the great mul- 
 titude of waiting people and they pass on into 
 the great church to worship and to pray. 
 
 Some of them never entered through that 
 door before. Some will never enter that way 
 again. Twenty-five years is a long period and 
 before the time comes round again very many 
 of them will be gone from earth forever. 
 
 The door that leads into the presence of God 
 is always open. Perhaps that is why people 
 forget to pray. Suppose the door of prayer 
 were opened only once in twenty-five years, 
 how eager we would be to crowd through that 
 open door and make our wants known to God ! 
 Suppose we could go to God only once or twice 
 in a whole life time, how glad would we be 
 when the time came ! And now when the door 
 is always open we forget. Suppose God closed 
 the door and said he was too busy to hear our 
 prayer! That would be terrible. But God 
 is not like that. The door to him is always 
 open and if it seems closed he tells us to knock 
 
58 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 and it shall be opened. God never closes the 
 door. It is we who close the door, I heard 
 of a little girl who said, "Mother, it's no use 
 telling me about Santa Claus, or about the 
 good things I am going to get at Christmas, 
 for up in heaven they think I'm dead." Her 
 mother was shocked and said, "Dear, dear, 
 what do you mean?" "Well," said she, "I 
 haven't said my prayers for a week, so they 
 must think in heaven that I'm dead." I think 
 the little girl was right. Prayer is a sign of 
 life. Not to pray is to stand before a closed 
 door. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE TIMBER LINE 
 
 "The child grew." — Matt, 2:40. 
 
 DID you ever notice how the Bible speaks 
 about Jesus? Some of the old books 
 nearly as old as the Bible speak of him 
 as a child who worked miracles and as one 
 dififerent from other children. The Bible al- 
 ways pictures him as like other children. This 
 verse tells us that he "grew," I like to think 
 how he looked when he was just three years 
 old and then how he looked when he was five, 
 and then eleven, and then twelve and then 
 seventeen. The Bible pictures him as a fine, 
 healthy, normal boy, growing like other boys 
 in height and weight and health. 
 
 Why should he not grow ? Boys like plants 
 and trees grow when they find the right soil 
 and the right atmosphere. Do you know what 
 atmosphere is? It is made up of sunshine and 
 rain and fresh air and dew and the fragrance 
 of flowers and the shadows cast by clouds, and 
 the distance from the equator and the height 
 above the sea. That of course is what atmos- 
 69 
 
70 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 phere means for flowers and plants and trees. 
 What does it mean for boys and girls? Well, 
 the atmosphere in which boys and girls grow 
 best is made up of love and play and books and 
 home and church and music, and friendship 
 and prayer and God. You see, wealth and big 
 houses and automobiles and balloons have noth- 
 ing to do with atmosphere. And Jesus grew 
 because his atmosphere was made up of love 
 and play and books and home and church and 
 music and friendship and God. 
 
 Have you ever watched the trees on the side 
 of a great mountain ? I do not mean a moun- 
 tain like one sees among the Allegheny range, 
 for those mountains have trees growing up 
 the hillside to the very top. I mean one of the 
 mountain peaks of the Rockies, At its foot, 
 the forest grows and far up the mountain, the 
 trees are large and tall but as you go up and 
 up towards the top, they get smaller and 
 shorter and after awhile there are no trees at 
 all, and the mountain top is just bare rock. 
 There seems to be a line beyond which the 
 trees do not grow. It is called "the timber 
 line." There the atmosphere changes and be- 
 yond the timber line one finds only struggling 
 little stunted shrubs. Beyond the timber line, 
 the air is too chill, too thin and the summers 
 too short for trees to grow. A student of trees 
 
THE TIMBER LINE 71 
 
 and shrubs found far up the mountain a little 
 tree, just two inches high. If it had been be- 
 low the timber line, it would have been a forest 
 giant. When it was examined under the micro- 
 scope, twenty-eight rings were counted, which 
 means that it was twenty-eight years old. In 
 twenty-eight years it had grown only two 
 inches ! The fault lay not in the seed, nor in 
 the tree, but in the atmosphere. 
 
 We do not blame the tree. It could not help 
 itself. But we blame boys and girls, who are 
 satisfied to live in an atmosphere where they 
 cannot grow. To grow into good men and 
 women, boys and girls need the atmosphere of 
 home and school and church and prayer. In 
 this atmosphere they will "grow in grace and 
 in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
XIX 
 
 THE PREACHER AND THE KING 
 
 "Preach the Word." — 2 Tim. 4:2. 
 
 ALEXANDER McLAREN was one of 
 the great preachers of England. For 
 fifty years he preached from the same 
 pulpit in the city of Manchester, and people 
 from all over the world went there to hear 
 him preach. His sermons may be found wher- 
 ever the English language is spoken. 
 
 He used to say the making of good sermons 
 was such a hard and difficult work that when 
 he began to prepare a sermon he would put on 
 his strong out-of-door boots, because then he 
 would feel he was busy with a hard and trying 
 task. I have heard of preachers making ser- 
 mons with their slippers on and lying on a 
 couch, but Alexander McLaren put on his big 
 heavy boots when he made his fine sermons. 
 
 It is a wonderful thing to be a preacher even 
 though all preachers cannot be like Alexander 
 McLaren. His preaching was so wonderful 
 and so helpful that not only people from all 
 over England and America went to hear him, 
 72 
 
THE PREACHER AND THE KING -jz 
 
 but the King of England was interested and 
 sent for him. What would you think if the 
 King or the President sent for you? We ex- 
 pect statesmen and politicians and business men 
 and college Presidents to be sent for, but we 
 woqld scarcely expect the King or the Presi- 
 dent to send for a preacher! 
 
 But the king did send for him and the 
 preacher went to see the king. When he came 
 to the royal palace he was taken right in to 
 the presence of King Edward VH and the 
 king told him how happy he was to see him 
 and how glad he was that he was preaching 
 the Gospel of Jesus to the people. Alexander 
 McLaren was then an old man, but he went 
 back from the palace to his own pulpit younger 
 and happier because the king knew that he 
 was serving not only God but the people of 
 England and of the world, when he was 
 preaching the Gospel. 
 
 It is a great thing to be a preacher of the 
 Gospel. I wonder if any of the boys who are 
 listening to this story purpose in their hearts 
 to be preachers. Some day our King will call 
 us before him and how happy we will be if he 
 tells us that he is grateful to us because we 
 have told others the story of Jesus. Some one 
 has said that God had only one son and he 
 made him a minister. I want the boys to think 
 
74 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 about that and to think about Alexander Mc- 
 Laren who merited the king's favour because 
 he was a preacher. And he found favour be- 
 cause he was true to Jesus. He preached not 
 for the sake of preaching, but in order to win 
 men to believe in the Gospel and to turn from 
 their sins. It is said of Cicero the great 
 orator of Rome that when he spoke people said, 
 "What a fine orator is Cicero!" but when De- 
 mosthenes the orator of Greece spoke the peo- 
 ple said, "Let us go and fight Philip." Philip 
 was the enemy of Greece and the people were 
 not merely pleased with the fine sentences of 
 Demosthenes but they were stirred to action 
 and deeds of valour. The reason why King 
 Edward VII was interested in the preaching 
 of Alexander McLaren was not on account of 
 his fine words and beautiful sentences but be- 
 cause his preaching changed men's lives and 
 led them to God. If you are going to be a 
 preacher be a real preacher and not merely one 
 of words. 
 
XX 
 
 BUILDING A LIFE 
 "A wise man who built his house." — Matt. 7 : 24. 
 
 JESUS was a builder. He was a carpen- 
 ter, and he knew how to build well. He 
 knew what good material meant, and he 
 knew that every house must have a good 
 foundation. A well-built house must rest 
 not upon shifting sand, but upon solid rock. 
 
 It is easier, however, to build a house than 
 it is to build a life. Writing from Africa to 
 his sister, David Livingstone once said : "Oh, 
 Janet, know thou that if thou art given to 
 building castles in the air, that it is easy work 
 to erecting cottages on the ground." But both 
 castles in the air and cottages on the ground 
 are easy work compared to building a true life. 
 A true life must be built with a good founda- 
 tion, of good material, by a good workman, 
 and after the plan of a good architect. 
 
 Jesus is a builder. He builds lives. He 
 knows how to make a good, true, strong life. 
 If we follow his plan we will build well. Em- 
 erson, who was one of America's wise men, 
 75 
 
76 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 tells us that once when he was visiting in New 
 Hampshire he found a large building going up 
 in a country town. He noticed that it was a 
 sort of hit-and-miss affair, without any plan. 
 He asked the man who was working on it the 
 name of the architect who had planned it. The 
 workman replied, *'0h, there isn't any archi- 
 tect settled on as yet. I'm just building it, you 
 see, and there's a man coming from Boston 
 next month to put the architecture into it." 
 There are a great many boys and girls who 
 are building their lives just like that. They 
 think that they can throw their days and years 
 together in a sort of hit-and-miss, planless 
 way, and then sometime, somewhere, some- 
 body will come along and put the architecture 
 into their lives. They expect that somehow 
 or other, in some strange way, they will fall 
 upon fortune, but it cannot be done. It is 
 too late to put the architecture in after a build- 
 ing or a life is built. It is too late to plan one's 
 life after a boy has become a man. 
 
 Do not try to build your life around your 
 own plan. Follow the plan of Jesus. He is 
 the great Master-builder, and he has a plan 
 for your life. It is all right for you to dream 
 about what you will be and do when you grow 
 up to be men and women. Every boy and 
 girl dreams. I wonder if you know the verses 
 
BUILDING A LIFE ^7 
 
 — there are about ten of them — which ran 
 something like this: 
 
 "When I'm a man, a man, 
 I'll be a carpenter, if I can — and I can! 
 I'll plane like this, and I'll hammer so, 
 And this is the way my saw shall go. 
 I'll make bird-houses, and sleds and boats, 
 And a ship that shall race every craft that floats, 
 When I'm a man, 
 
 "When I'm a man, a man, 
 A doctor I'll be, if I can — and I can! 
 My powders and pills shall be nice and sweet, 
 And you shall have just what you like to eat; 
 I'll prescribe for you riding, and saiHng, and such; 
 And, 'bove all things, you must never study too much. 
 When I'm a man. 
 
 "When I'm a man, a man, 
 I'll be a minister, if I can — and I canl 
 And once in a while a sermon I'll make 
 That will keep little boys and girls awake; 
 For ah, dear me ! if the ministers knew 
 How glad we are when they get through ! — 
 When I'm a man." 
 
 We must build our lives not around dreams 
 only, but around the plan and purpose of Jesus 
 for our lives. The great city of London once 
 burned down. Fire swept over the city and 
 burned itself out. It was over three hundred 
 years ago and in those days the houses were 
 made of wood and there was no fire depart- 
 ment such as we have to-day. When the fire 
 had spent itself, the people began to plan for 
 the rebuilding of the city. The old city had 
 had narrow twisted streets and they thought 
 
78 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 it would be fine if the new city had straight 
 wide streets. So they got a great architect, Sir 
 Christopher Wren, to plan the new city, and 
 he did plan it and St. Paul's Cathedral was to 
 be the centre of it, and great wide, beautiful 
 streets were to run from all directions and lead 
 up to the Cathedral. Everybody was pleased, 
 but the new city was never built. The people 
 would not build on the new plan. They pre- 
 ferred to build on the old plan because each 
 person wanted to build his own new house on 
 the same land and in the same place where his 
 old house had been. It is a mistake to build 
 life on selfishness. Build it rather after the 
 plan of Jesus who builds not merely for time 
 but for eternity. 
 
D 
 
 XXI 
 
 LISTENING TO GOD 
 
 "Ears to hear." — Rev. 2 : 29, 
 
 ID you ever think why you have only 
 one mouth? You have two ears and 
 two hands and two eyes and two feet, 
 and only one mouth. Did you ever think about 
 it? Two feet to walk with, and two hands to 
 work with and two eyes to see with and two 
 ears to hear with. But you have only one 
 mouth. I guess it means that we should listen 
 twice as much as we should talk. A great 
 physician said the other day that we would be 
 less nervous if we talked less. There is an 
 old saying to the effect that speech is silver 
 but silence is golden. God means us to be si- 
 lent in his presence, so that we can hear what 
 he would say unto us. 
 
 The other day I heard a story about two 
 little girls. They lived in the same home and 
 they were sisters. One of these little girls 
 was called Rachel and she was eight years old. 
 The other was called Esther and she was six 
 years old. When a mother calls a girl by a 
 "Sible name she is apt to give a Bible name also 
 79 
 
8o GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 to one of the other girls. One day Rachel was 
 calling Esther and Esther did not want to lis- 
 ten and just like little girls do, she put her 
 hands over her ears so she could not hear. 
 Rachel kept on calling and calling and speak- 
 ing louder and louder until she was nearly 
 screaming into little Esther's hand-covered 
 ears. When she could stand it no longer, 
 Esther said, "Don't call any louder, Rachel, for 
 I can't hear you anyway." Now, what do you 
 think of that? She had heard all the time, but 
 pretended she had not and so would not an- 
 swer. She had ears but she did not hear for, 
 after all, it is not the ear that hears but the 
 heart. 
 
 I wonder if God sometimes calls to us and 
 we put our hands over our ears. You remem- 
 ber how he called to the little boy Samuel and 
 Samuel answered, "Speak, Lord, for thy ser- 
 vant heareth." God speaks to us through our 
 teachers and our parents and friends. He 
 speaks to us when we pray and he speaks to us 
 through conscience which tells us what to do 
 and what not to do. We should always quickly 
 answer as Samuel did, "Speak, Lord, for thy 
 servant heareth." 
 
 "O give me Samuel's heart, 
 A lowly heart, t'i\"Jt waits 
 Where in Thy house Thou art, 
 Or watches at Thy gates; 
 
LISTENING TO GOD 8i 
 
 By day and night, a heart that still 
 Moves at the breathing of Thy will." 
 
 Recently the Warden of Sing Sing Peniten- 
 tiary — you know, I suppose, what Sing Sing 
 is? It sounds as if it might be a music hall, 
 but it is not — well, the Warden of Sing Sing 
 Penitentiary once said that he trembled to hear 
 a boy say, "I won't," for he felt that that boy 
 was headed for the Penitentiary. If there was 
 ever a boy who might have been excused from 
 obedience, it was Jesus, He knew more than 
 his parents did. His mother did not under- 
 stand him. He spoke strange words, and his 
 life was a great mystery even to her. Most 
 boys think they know more than their parents, 
 but Jesus, you know, was the most wonderful 
 boy that ever lived. It is written about him 
 that when he was a little child, just a little lad, 
 that he lived at Nazareth in his parents' home, 
 and that he was obedient to them. The verse 
 says, "He was subject to them," and if we just 
 say that he lived in Nazareth and was obedient 
 to his parents, we get a picture of his life, 
 which is full of beauty and full of promise. 
 
 God has given us ears so that we may hear 
 him and answer him and obey him. 
 
XXII 
 THE GLADDEST DAY OF THE YEAR 
 
 "He is Risen." — Matt. 28 : 6. 
 
 THE gladdest day of the year is Easter 
 Day. I asked a little lad of five years 
 why Easter Day is the gladdest, hap- 
 piest day of the year and he said, "Because 
 it is Springtime!" The little lad was right. 
 Easter is Springtime, not only in the world 
 outside, but also in our hearts. It is the day 
 of all days when we like to sing and to hear 
 singing, rather than to preach and to hear ser- 
 mons. 
 
 Easter is the day when Jesus rose from the 
 dead. On Good Friday he hung upon the cruel 
 cross. All day Saturday his body lay in the 
 new grave in Joseph's garden. Sunday morn- 
 ing before the birds began to sing Jesus awoke 
 and stepping out of the grave, walked in the 
 garden and waited for his friends to meet and 
 greet him again. This is why we sing so 
 gladly, "Christ the Lord is Risen To-day, 
 Hallelujah." 
 
 Rising from the dead is more common than 
 
GLADDEST DAY OF THE YEAR 83 
 
 we think. Out in the world we see things that 
 seem to rise from the dead. After their long 
 winter sleep, the trees and flowers wake up and 
 come out of their deep, dark hiding place. 
 
 Did you ever see a sleepy old caterpillar 
 crawling lazily along the ground with its 
 brown or black fur coat and its hairy hands 
 and feet ? It crawls for a little while and then 
 it falls asleep. After awhile it wakes up and 
 creeps along a little further and then sleeps 
 again. It is old and slow and so sleepy that 
 at last it does not wake up but sleeps and 
 never moves. It draws the covers over it to 
 keep warm, and then settles down to sleep 
 a long, long sleep. It wraps itself up in what 
 is called a cocoon. This cocoon looks just 
 like a coffin and the old caterpillar looks as 
 if it were dead. It never moves. It lies 
 in its self-made grave for weeks and months 
 until it is forgotten. But God does not for- 
 get it and after a long, long sleep it begins 
 to wake up. The covers fall off and when 
 it really wakes up, what a strange new thing 
 it is. It no longer creeps and crawls. It has 
 wings and flies. Instead of being brown or 
 black or grey, it is a glorious thing of beauty, 
 perhaps red or white or blue or orange or yel" 
 low or scarlet, and like something that wil? 
 never grow old, it flits about from flower to 
 
84 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 flower. Yes, it is a butterfly ! But before its 
 Easter Day, it was a sleepy old caterpillar. 
 
 And now let me ask you a question. How 
 did it come about that the caterpillar rose, as 
 it were, from the dead? You say God did it. 
 And I say, yes, God did it and God raised Jesus 
 from the dead. But how did God do it ? Well, 
 it was because the caterpillar was not dead at 
 all. It was only sleeping. It had life in it all 
 the time. And so it was with Jesus. He was 
 not dead. His spirit had been with God and 
 when God chose he called him back to life. 
 Jesus is called "The Prince of Life." He can- 
 not die. He lives forever. And because he 
 lives, we too shall live with him. That is why 
 Easter Day is the gladdest day of the year 
 when nature sings and angels sing and we too 
 sing. And this is the song we sing : — 
 
 "Hytnns of praise then let us sing 
 Unto Christ our heavenly King, 
 Who endured the cross and grave, 
 Sinners to redeem and save, 
 Alleluia." 
 
s 
 
 XXIII 
 PUSSY WANTS A CORNER 
 
 "Boys and girls playing." — Zech. 8: 5. 
 
 OME day when you wish to ask your 
 father a question, ask him to tell you the 
 names of the games he used to play 
 when he was a boy. 
 
 Perhaps he will tell you about some games 
 you do not know. He may tell you about 
 "shinny" and "peg-in-the-hole" and "rag" 
 and "duck-on-the-rock," and you will be in- 
 terested in hearing what good times the boys 
 of long ago used to have over games you do 
 not know about and you will also be surprised 
 that most of the games your father played are 
 the same games that you are playing. But I 
 think the most interesting thing of all is that 
 the games our fathers and grandfathers and 
 grandmothers played are just the games they 
 are still playing, with this difference, — then 
 they played in fun but now they play in ear- 
 nest. 
 
 First of all, there is the game of "Pussy 
 wants a Corner." You know how to play that 
 85 
 
86 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 game. There are four corners and five or six 
 boys and girls. There are more children play- 
 ing pussy than there are corners and that is 
 the game and a fine game it is. How boys and 
 girls scramble for a corner just as they scram- 
 ble for a chair when they play "Going to Jeru- 
 salem !" And that is just what we do all 
 through life. There always seems to be too 
 few places for too many people and each of 
 us races and scrambles to win one of the fa- 
 voured places. 
 
 Then there is "Hide and Seek/' or "I spy.'* 
 That is a good game to play in the evening, 
 just as the dark is drifting down and the shad- 
 ows help to hide us. We can hide be- 
 hind trees, or up in the branches, or behind 
 stones, or in ditches or in wood piles, or stand 
 still beside a fence post and never move and 
 the seeker looks and looks and never finds us. 
 And it is the game grown-up men and women 
 still play, for they too are seeking for hidden 
 things, for treasures hard to find, for learn- 
 ing, or position, for power or friendship, for 
 some one to help or some good thing to do. 
 It is a game that is as old as the world. 
 
 It would take me hours to tell you about all 
 the children's games. There is "London 
 Bridge" and "Hide the Handkerchief" and 
 "Blindman's Buff" and "Pump-pump-pull 
 
PUSSY WANTS A CORNER 87 
 
 away." But the best of all the games we play, 
 either as boys and girls or as men and women 
 is "Prisoner's Base." You know how to play 
 "Prisoner's Base." It is something like "Tag" 
 and is played in many ways in many lands. 
 You choose sides and have a "home base" in 
 which all those on your side are safe. The 
 other side has a "home base" too and, if they 
 stay there, they are safe. But John runs out 
 over the line and Jane from the other side 
 runs out after him and if she "tags" him be- 
 fore he gets "home," he is her prisoner. So 
 the game goes on faster and faster with laugh- 
 ing and cheering until perhaps only George 
 is left on one side and all his companions are 
 prisoners. But George is swift and fleet of foot 
 and he wins back John and Betty and Tom and 
 when it looks as if John and Betty and Tom 
 will be caught again, George runs between 
 them and their pursuers and the enemy has to 
 leave chasing them and run after George who 
 is too fast for them and so after awhile George 
 has won the game for his side. It is a very 
 exciting but friendly game. We cannot play 
 it alone. We need strong friends and helpers. 
 And that is true out in the big game of life 
 where our fathers and mothers are. They can- 
 not play the game of life alone and when our 
 turn comes, we too cannot play it alone. We 
 
88 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 need friends and helpers. Above all, we need a 
 friend who is strong and sure. Such a true, 
 strong friend is Jesus, We can always count 
 on him. If we lose all and have him, we can 
 still win. He always wins. He never loses, 
 and we are his friends, for he himself said : — • 
 
 "I have called you friends." 
 
XXIV 
 
 WHEN LINCOLN FAILED 
 
 "He shall not fail" — Isa. 42 : 4. 
 
 THERE is an old saying to the effect 
 that "Nothing succeeds Hke success." 
 There is much truth in those words. A 
 big city becomes bigger. A rich man becomes 
 richer. A strong boy becomes stronger. Even 
 Jesus once said, "To him that hath shall be 
 given." 
 
 Suppose however, instead of saying, "Noth- 
 ing succeeds like success," we were to say, 
 "Nothing succeeds like failure." Would that 
 be true? You would surely say, "Oh! No, 
 that cannot be true." But it is true, and I will 
 show you how it is true. 
 
 Every one will agree with me when I say 
 that Abraham Lincoln was a great success. 
 He was one of America's greatest men. In- 
 deed, he was one of the world's greatest men. 
 A great British statesman recently said that 
 the face of Abraham Lincoln is the only face 
 known to all the world. And yet Abraham 
 Lincoln came to his success through failure. 
 8q 
 
90 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 A great poet has said that failure is like a 
 "stepping stone" to success, and an American 
 poet has said that 
 
 "We rise by the things that are under our feet." 
 
 When he was a young man, Abraham Lin- 
 coln became a candidate for the legislature in 
 Illinois and was defeated by a large majority. 
 He failed. He entered business, failed and 
 spent seventeen years of his life paying the 
 debts of a worthless partner. He fell in love 
 with a beautiful young woman to whom he 
 became engaged and when life seemed to smile 
 upon him, she died. He became a candidate 
 for Congress and was badly defeated. He 
 sought an appointment from the Government 
 in connection with the United States Land 
 Office but failed in his effort. 
 
 He became a candidate for the United 
 States Senate and was again completely de- 
 feated and again he faced failure. In 1856 he 
 became a candidate for the Vice-Presidency of 
 the United States and again he experienced 
 failure and defeat, and later Douglas de- 
 feated him in his political campaign in Illinois. 
 
 His life was just one failure after another. 
 He was defeated again and again, but he never 
 gave up. He made every failure a stepping- 
 stone to success. He knew he was right and 
 
WHEN LINCOLN FAILED 91 
 
 he never allowed failure to discourage him, 
 and at last his path led him to the White House, 
 and to the supreme place in the hearts of all 
 the people. 
 
 Lincoln was always true to God, true to 
 the people, true to himself, and because of 
 this he made failure the pathway to success. 
 This is what Tennyson meant when he said : 
 
 "I hold it truth with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones 
 That men ma}' rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 This is why Isaiah, the prophet, in speaking 
 of the coming Saviour, said: 
 
 "He shall not fail 
 Nor be discouraged." 
 
 And we all know how Jesus made failure 
 into success and the cross a stepping-stone to 
 glory. 
 
XXV 
 
 THE SIGHTS OF A GREAT CITY 
 "1 saw the Holy City."— Rev. 21 : 2. 
 
 THE text says, *T saw the Holy City." 
 That is the most wonderful thing I 
 ever heard. I have heard about peo- 
 ple seeing the Alps, and the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, and Yellowstone Park, and Lon- 
 don and Paris, and Niagara and Gibraltar, but 
 I never heard before of any one seeing the 
 Holy City. You know what the Holy City is, 
 do you not ? It is the City where God has his 
 home and where all his dear children expect to 
 be some day. The Holy City is heaven. 
 
 The man who said he saw the Holy City 
 must have been a very good and a very happy 
 man. I am not so sure about his being happy, 
 but I am sure he was good. Do you think a 
 man who was in prison could be happy ? This 
 man's name was John and he was in prison. 
 And in such a strange prison ! He was on an 
 island — a very lonely island out in the sea, 
 where he had only the wild waves for music 
 and the sea gulls for friends. The name of the 
 92 
 
THE SIGHTS OF A GREAT CITY 93 
 
 island was called Patmos, and John was put 
 there by a bad and wicked king, because he 
 loved the Lord Jesus. 
 
 While he was there, all alone, listening to 
 the waves beating against the rocks, he saw 
 the Holy City and he tried to tell us what it 
 was like. I expect he told only half of what 
 he saw, for you know when you see something 
 very beautiful you can't tell other people what 
 it is like, for they too must see it for them- 
 selves. You can't make people see Niagara, 
 or the mountains, or London or New York or 
 Paris or Pekin — they must see it for them- 
 selves. John, however, told us enough about 
 the Holy City to make us very curious. Some 
 day we want to see it for ourselves. 
 
 Once when I was going from Canada to 
 Chicago, the newsboy went through the train 
 crying, "Chicago Street Guide. Tells you all 
 about the streets. It will show you where you 
 want to go and the places you ought to see." 
 Quite a few people bought the little book. I 
 suppose they were strangers and wanted to 
 know how to get about in the great strange 
 city. That was what I did when I first went 
 to Chicago. No one travels in a strange coun- 
 try without a guide or a guide book. With- 
 out a guide book we might lose our way. 
 
 I often wonder if some of us will not be 
 
94 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 lost in the Holy City. God has given us a 
 guide book, but I am afraid some of us have 
 not studied it so that we will be familiar with 
 its strange people and places. It tells us where 
 the City is and how to get a Guide and by 
 what road to travel. It tells us about its streets 
 and its walls and its gates and its glory. It 
 tells us about the language and the customs of 
 the people and the wonderful music of its or- 
 chestra and the singing of its choir. It tells 
 us about the clean white robes and the won- 
 derful Saviour whose beauty turns the night 
 into one long day. If you want to see the City 
 don't forget to study the guide book. 
 
 Of course the guide book is the Bible. Per- 
 haps you know the words of the hymn, — 
 "Holy Bible Faithful Guide." If you know the 
 Bible, then you know Jesus, you know God 
 and you know something about the Holy City. 
 
 You know there are sixty-six books in 
 the Bible and one who loved the Bible has 
 written these verses about these sixty-six 
 books. 
 
 "Sixty-six singers, singing sweet and true. 
 And setting all the world to singing too. 
 
 "Sixty-six soldiers, vigorous and strong. 
 Valiantly attacking cruelty and wrong. 
 
 "Sixty-six judges, learned in the law, 
 Uttering decisions free from fear or flaw. 
 
THE SIGHTS OF A GREAT CITY 95 
 
 "Sixty-six artists — wondrously they paint 
 Kings and sages, common folk, angel, devil, saint. 
 
 "Sixty-six explorers, keen to search and find 
 All the hidden secrets of life and death and mind. 
 
 "Sixty-six masons, marvellously skilled ; 
 One majestic temple they unite to build. 
 
 "Sixty-six farmers, planting holy seed, 
 Happily upspringing in holy thought and deed. 
 
 "Sixty-six teachers, keeping perfect school, 
 Where faith the law is, and love the rule. 
 
 "Sixty-six doctors, knowing well to cure. 
 Masters of a medicine healing swift and sure. 
 
 "Sixty-six sailors, bearing us away 
 To a better country, to a brighter day." 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE PUZZLE GARDEN 
 
 "Gardens and Parks." — Song of Sol. 2 : 5. 
 
 DID you ever hear of a Puzzle Garden? 
 Certainly not! Whoever heard of a 
 puzzle garden? We know all about 
 flower gardens and vegetable gardens and old- 
 fashioned gardens and even about rock gar- 
 dens and sunken gardens where roses and all 
 sorts of beautiful flowers grow, but whoever 
 heard of a puzzle garden! 
 
 Well, I want to tell you about a real puzzle 
 garden, for even if you have never heard of 
 such a thing as a puzzle garden, there is such 
 a thing, only it is not always called a puzzle 
 garden. Sometimes it is called a maze and 
 long, long ago they called it a labyrinth. 
 
 In olden times when the old Greek stories 
 were born, they often spoke of a wonderful 
 labyrinth or maze, or puzzle garden, in the 
 Island of Crete, and you can read in a fairy 
 story book about the strange and terrible puz- 
 zle garden and the awful monster, half man 
 and half beast, that lived there and how The- 
 96 
 
THE PUZZLE GARDEN 97 
 
 seus, the Greek Prince, with the help of Ari- 
 adne and her silken thread, killed the monster. 
 But that is another story. 
 
 I have seen puzzle gardens or mazes made of 
 looking glasses in which you can get lost 
 easily and wander round and round, coming 
 again and again face to face with yourself. 
 If you go to London, to a place called Hamp- 
 ton Court, you will find a real puzzle garden. 
 It too is a maze and in it lots of people get 
 lost. They go in through the gate and follow 
 the path for a little way and then they turn 
 and turn again and turn again and then they 
 go on and turn and turn again and then when 
 they want to get out, they cannot find the gate 
 and they go round and round in the garden, 
 trying to solve the puzzle and get out. 
 
 It is all very interesting and very often little 
 children and even men and women get all 
 "fussed" about it, and become excited and 
 impatient and then the more they try, the more 
 perplexed they become. It is not very large 
 but they get lost in it and cannot find their 
 way out. When they are just ready to give up, 
 they hear a voice saying, ''Right, left, left, 
 right," as they come to each turn in the path, 
 and obeying the voice, they soon find them- 
 selves out in the open and free from the puzzle 
 garden. Then they look up and see a man 
 
98 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 in a tower above the garden who has been 
 watching them all the time and it was his 
 voice that guided them out into freedom. 
 
 I often think that life is just like a puzzle 
 garden. The path winds and winds and many 
 boys and girls lose their way. No boy or girl 
 is safe in the maze of life without a guide. We 
 have many guides. They are always watching 
 us. Our parents, our teachers, our friends 
 guide us. They are always watching and their 
 voices are ever warning us. And we always 
 have one true, sure guide. Jesus is our guide. 
 When we are in danger of losing our way, it 
 is his voice we hear. Like the guide in the 
 tower, he too calls, "Right, left, forward." 
 Following him we find security and freedom. 
 There is a verse of a familiar hymn which 
 says: 
 
 "While life's dark maze I tread. 
 And griefs around me spread. 
 Be Thou my Guide." 
 
 John Bunyan began his story of "The Pil- 
 grim's Progress" by speaking of this world 
 as "the wilderness," and you will remember 
 that Christian often lost his way but was al- 
 ways guided safely back into the path. Jesus 
 is our guide. He sees all. He knows all and 
 if we will hear his voice and follow him we too 
 will come at last to the Palace Beautiful 
 
XXVII 
 IF YOU BECAME PRESIDENT 
 
 "All the presidents." — Daniel 6 : 7, 
 
 EACH new President of the United States 
 takes what is called an "Oath of Office." 
 He makes a solemn promise that he will 
 be true to the laws of the country and uphold 
 the government of the United States. And this 
 is the way he makes his promise, or as we say, 
 takes his "oath." He stands before the Chief 
 Judge of the Supreme Court and having given 
 his assent to the words of the "oath," he kisses 
 the Bible as a pledge that the promise he has 
 made will be to him as sacred as the Bible it- 
 self. 
 
 Suppose you were to become President, what 
 text or passage in the Bible would you choose 
 as the place your lips would touch? That is 
 worth thinking about for there is perhaps some 
 boy not so far away who may some day be 
 made President. I was going to say some boy 
 or girl, for who knows, now that women are 
 managing our politics, whether or not some 
 day we may not have a woman President! 
 99 
 
loo GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 Well, what text would you choose on the great 
 day of your inauguration ? 
 
 In order to help you, let me tell you some of 
 the texts that have been chosen by the men 
 who have been Presidents. 
 
 I will start with President Harding. When 
 he became President on March 4, 192 1, the 
 Bible lay open at the Old Testament and the 
 place was in the Book of Micah. Do you know 
 where to find the Book of Micah ? Is it one of 
 the Major or one of the Minor Prophets? 
 When he kissed the page it was at the eighth 
 verse of chapter six and these are the words : — 
 
 "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do 
 justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
 thy God?" 
 
 It is a wonderful text. Tennyson called it 
 the greatest definition of religion in the world. 
 Before President Harding came President 
 Wilson. He was twice President. The first 
 time he chose Psalm 119:43-48, which be- 
 gins :— 
 
 "And take not the word of truth utterly out of my 
 mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall 
 I keep thy law continually for ever and ever." 
 
 When he became President the second time he 
 took as his guiding message Psalm 46, known 
 as Luther's Psalm, whose great words are fa- 
 miliar to all of us. 
 
 "God is our refuge and strength, 
 A very present help in trouble." 
 
IF YOU BECAME PRESIDENT loi 
 
 Can you tell who preceded Woodrow Wil- 
 son as President ? No ! It was not Roosevelt. 
 Yes! It was William H. Taft, and his mind 
 turaed to the interesting passage that tells 
 that when Solomon was made king and was 
 asked of God what he most of all desired, he 
 said, "Wisdom." You must read that beauti- 
 ful story. And these are the words of Mr. 
 Taft's text as found in i Kings 3:9-11. 
 
 "Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart 
 to judge thy people, that I may discern between good 
 and bad; for who is able to judge this thy so great 
 a people?" 
 
 We have had the texts of three Presidents 
 and they have been all from the Old Testa- 
 ment. Now we come to Theodore Roosevelt 
 who was twice President, and he chose a text 
 from the New Testament, James i : 22-23. 
 
 "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers, only, 
 deceiving your own selves." 
 
 These words are just like him. He was a 
 doer of the word. 
 
 This story sermon will be all too long if I 
 keep on telling about all the President's texts, 
 but I will mention one or two more. 
 
 Next comes William McKinley who also 
 was twice President and his second text was 
 Proverbs 16:20: — 
 
 "He that handled a matter wisely shall find good? 
 and whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." 
 
I02 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 The next President was Grover Cleveland. 
 His first text was from Psalm 112: 1-6: — 
 
 "Surely he shall not be moved forever: the righteous 
 shall be in everlasting remembrance." 
 
 His second passage was from Psalm 91 : 12- 
 16:— 
 
 "Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore 
 will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he 
 hath known my name." 
 
 I will give only one more, the text of Gen- 
 eral Grant, but sometime again I would like 
 to tell you about Lincoln and Washington. 
 General Grant kissed the Bible at Isaiah 1 1 : 
 2-3:— 
 
 "And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the 
 spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of 
 counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the 
 fear of the Lord." 
 
 This is a great and a beautiful text for a Presi- 
 dent to choose. 
 
 So you see if you are going to be President, 
 one of the first things you must do is to know 
 the Bible. The Bible is the President's Text 
 Book. And now just suppose you were to be- 
 come President — just suppose! What text 
 would you choose? If I were to become Presi- 
 dent, I would choose, . . . well! but I can 
 never be President and so I must leave you to 
 choose. 
 
XXXVIII 
 
 THE BEST PART OF THE STORY 
 
 "He must rise again." — ^John 20:9, 
 
 HE was a newsboy. His name was 
 Thomas Moore. It was a good name 
 and Tom was a good boy. He had 
 not had much of a chance, for he had been 
 knocked about from house to house ever since 
 his mother died and at last he called the News- 
 boys* Home his home. He was happy there 
 and every Sunday he went to the Sunday 
 School held in the gymnasium and liked it. 
 
 He had been selling his papers on Good Fri- 
 day and had done well. The day was spring- 
 like and everybody seemed to be feeling happy 
 and many people were on their way to and 
 from church. He had finished early and had 
 turned his face homeward when a picture in 
 a window caught his eye. It was a picture of 
 Jesus on the cross. He looked at it for a 
 long time and wished he could own it and have 
 it hanging in his room. But the pennies in his 
 pocket would never pay for the price of such 
 a wonderful painting. 
 
 103 
 
104 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 While he was still looking, but just about 
 to go, a smart-looking business man stopped 
 beside him and he too looked at the picture. 
 Tom had seen the man and knew that he was 
 one of the greatest bankers in the city. But 
 that made no difference. He spoke right up 
 and said, "That's a picture of Jesus, Mister." 
 The man nodded and Tom said, "Them men 
 there are soldiers. They are Roman soldiers." 
 The man made no reply and again Tom said, 
 "That place is Calvary. That's the place where 
 they killed him." The man by this time was 
 interested in the little boy and said, "Where 
 did you learn that, son?" and Tom told him 
 how he had learned it in the Newsboys' Sun- 
 day School. 
 
 Now it happened that the man was a Di- 
 rector in the Newsboys' Home, but he did not 
 know about the Sunday School, neither did he 
 care much about it, but for some reason as he 
 went away he was very thoughtful. Perhaps 
 because it was Good Friday, or perhaps be- 
 cause of Tom's interested and eager face. He 
 had not gone very far till he felt a hand on his 
 sleeve, and looking down saw Tom, who said, 
 "Say, Mister. I nearly forgot to tell you the 
 best part of the story." "What is that?" said 
 the man. "That he rose again," said Tom with 
 a wonderful light in his face. 
 
THE BEST PART OF THE STORY 105 
 
 I do not know what happened after that. I 
 like to think that the man bought that wonder- 
 ful picture and hung it in the Newsboys' Home 
 and that he became interested both in Tom and 
 in the Sunday School. I do know, however, 
 that Tom told his story well and that he did 
 not forget the best part. For we would not 
 dare to call the day on which Jesus was cruci- 
 fied Good Friday, if it had not been followed 
 by an Easter Day. The first Easter brought 
 gladness and every Easter Day brings joy, and 
 this is the story of the first Easter : 
 
 "When therefore it was evening, on that day, the 
 first day of the week, and when the doors were shut 
 where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus 
 came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them. 
 Peace be unto you. And when he had said this, he 
 showed unto them his hands and his side. The disci- 
 ples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord." 
 
 Jesus means us to think of Easter in con- 
 nection with the Cross, for Jesus did not die 
 to be laid in a grave. He died to rise again 
 and what happened to Jesus will happen to us 
 if we love him and live for him. One of his 
 great names is "The Resurrection and the 
 Life." 
 
H 
 
 XXIX 
 HEARING AND THEN SEEING 
 
 "He calleth thee."— Makk 10:49. 
 
 E was blind. That was very, very sad. 
 He had never seen the flowers or the 
 birds, or the sky, or his mother's face. 
 He was not only blind but he was poor and that 
 made it still more sad. He was a beggar. His 
 home was in Jericho and there all the people 
 knew him. They called him Bartimaeus, but 
 it was hardly a name, for "Bar" means son, 
 and so his name meant that he was the son of a 
 man named Timasus.' 
 
 One day he was sitting by the side of the 
 road, begging, when Jesus and his disciples 
 were passing along the road on their way to 
 Jerusalem. Now Bartimjeus had heard of 
 Jesus and was told that he had made blind 
 men to see, and when Jesus drew near, Barti- 
 maeus called to him, "Jesus, thou son of David, 
 have mercy on me." The people tried to si- 
 lence him but he only cried the louder, and at 
 last Jesus heard him and called him to him. 
 How did he find Jesus? Did some one lead him 
 106 
 
HEARING AND THEN SEEING 107 
 
 or did he find Jesus himself ? Perhaps he fol- 
 lowed the sound of Jesus' voice, 
 
 I remember being in Toronto one day when 
 there was a great gathering of Boy Scouts. 
 You know what a Boy Scout is. He is very 
 smart and very brave. Well, there were about 
 ten thousand boy scouts in a great park and 
 they were all blind. Not really blind, but they 
 had been all blindfolded. They were playing 
 a game. They were scattered all over the park 
 and then the Scout Master who stood on a lit- 
 tle hill, blew a Avhistle and the boys started to 
 find him. He always stayed at the same place 
 and every now and then he would blow the 
 whistle. It was great fun to watch the boys. 
 A few went straight up to him. Some wan- 
 dered back and forth over the park, running 
 into fences and trees, but all at last found the 
 Scout Master. He was very patient. There 
 was one little fellow who had wandered about 
 so much that he was tired and ready to give 
 up. He was the last to find the Master, but 
 he did find him at last for the whistle seemed 
 to blow louder and louder and faster and faster 
 and I half think the wise Scout Master left his 
 place and took two or three steps towards the 
 little fellow as he came blindfolded up the hill. 
 
 Perhaps Bartimaeus found Jesus in the same 
 way, only Bartimaeus followed the voice. The 
 
io8 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 disciples came to him saying, "He calleth thee," 
 and perhaps Jesus kept on calling and perhaps 
 he too came toward Bartimaeus until the blind 
 man found the Master and received from him 
 the blessed gift of sight. 
 
 If we listen, we too may hear Jesus calling 
 us. We cannot see him, but he calls us and we 
 can hear him. He calls us every time we read 
 the Bible, every time we pray, every time some 
 one in need asks us for help. 
 
XXX 
 
 THE THREE CHOICES 
 
 "I offer thee three things: choose. — 2 Sam. 24:12. 
 
 GOD gave David the choice of three 
 things. It was a choice of seven years 
 of famine, or three months of exile, 
 or three days of plague. What terrible .things 
 to choose ! To choose any one was to make a 
 bad choice. David chose the plague and there 
 died of the plague 70,000 men. 
 
 We are not asked to make such an awful 
 choice. We have always the chance to choose 
 the lovely and the good. You remember the 
 Bible says something like this, — "I have set 
 before you life and death, the blessing and the 
 curse: therefore choose life." You see, we 
 must choose, but the choice is between good 
 and evil, life and death. 
 
 I know another story in a wonderful book 
 about another choice of one of three things. 
 
 It is in a story book which some day you 
 
 must all read. It was written by a great man 
 
 named William Shakespeare and it is just a 
 
 little story inside of a bigger story. The big 
 
 109 
 
no GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 story is called "The Merchant of Venice." I 
 see by your looks that some of you know about 
 it already. 
 
 The little story is about Portia. Portia was 
 a sweet and beautiful young lady whom all the 
 young men of the country wanted to marry. 
 But Portia was wise and was willing to wait. 
 Her old father when he died made a will and 
 promised his fortune to the man who would 
 choose Portia after the plan which he wrote 
 out in his will. It was such a strange odd plan, 
 and this is what it was : — Portia was to put her 
 portrait in one of three jewel caskets and the 
 young man who chose the casket in which she 
 had put the portrait should be Portia's husband. 
 
 The first casket was made of pure gold and 
 had this motto written on it : 
 
 "Who chooseth me shall get 
 What many men desire." 
 
 The second casket was made of silver and had 
 this motto : 
 
 "Who chooseth me shall get 
 As much as he deserves." 
 
 The third casket was made of lead and had 
 this motto : 
 
 "Who chooseth me must give 
 And hazard all he hath." 
 
 It is a very pretty story. The first one to 
 choose was the Prince of Morocco and of 
 
THE THREE CHOICES iii 
 
 course he chose the casket of gold and found it 
 empty. The Duke of Aragon came next and 
 he chose the silver one, but Portia's portrait 
 was not in it The third young man was 
 Bassanio and he was secretly in love with 
 Portia. He read the motto on the casket of 
 lead, — 
 
 **Who chooseth me must give 
 And hazard all he hath." 
 
 And something in his heart told him that It 
 was right to choose the lead, and when it was 
 opened he was overjoyed to find in it the por- 
 trait of Portia. 
 
 These are life's three choices, the casket of 
 gold is wealth, the casket of silver is fame, 
 the casket of lead Is service. The one who 
 chooses either the gold or the silver chooses 
 *'to get" Their motto is "Who chooseth me 
 shall get/' The one who chooses the lead, 
 chooses to give — "Who chooseth me shall 
 give/' 
 
 When Jesus came into the world, he chose 
 to give and he came to give his life. The 
 greatest of all the verses of the Bible says, 
 "God so loved the world that he gave." The 
 secret of a happy life is not to get but to give. 
 
XXXI 
 
 THE LITTLE FOXES 
 "The little foxes."— Soaa of Sol. 2 : 15. 
 
 SOME years ago when living in the heart 
 of the great city of Chicago, I looked out 
 of the window and could hardly be- 
 lieve that my eyes told the truth. What do 
 you think I saw ? No. It was not a cow nor 
 a sheep, nor a flock of pigeons, nor an ele- 
 phant, nor a dog. It was a fox. I had seen 
 foxes in the woods and in the Zoo, but here 
 was a little, small, sly, sneaking, red fox in 
 the heart of the great city. I opened the door 
 quietly and tried to get near it but it never 
 waited even to look at me, for in a moment, 
 like a flash of lightning, it was gone. You 
 wonder where it came from. Well, I will tell 
 you. Near where I lived, there was a Zoo, 
 and somehow or other that little sly, sneaky- 
 fox had slipped out and was taking a daylight 
 stroll up and down the streets and in and out 
 of the back yards of the city of Chicago. 
 
 After it had gone I began to think about it 
 and how sly and cunning it looked, and I re- 
 112 
 
THE LITTLE FOXES 113 
 
 membered how the Bible speaks about the 
 little foxes that sneaked into the vineyards and 
 destroyed the vines when they were young and 
 tender. And I recalled how Jesus spoke of 
 Herod the King as a "fox," because of his sly, 
 tricky and deceitful ways. 
 
 Well, we are not troubled with foxes now, 
 and if we want to see one, we must go to the 
 Zoo where they are quiet and harmless and so 
 tame that the children can almost touch them. 
 
 Foxes are always sly and tricky and not 
 all foxes are in Zoos or out in the woods. 
 There are many little foxes which have odd 
 queer names and ways and get into children's 
 gardens and destroy the vines upon which 
 grow the fruit of love and faith and good- 
 ness. 
 
 Let me tell you the names of some of these 
 little foxes that hurt the lives of little chil- 
 dren. There is the little fox we call "Bad 
 Temper." It is a snarly, sulky, nasty little 
 fox. It hurts the happiness of other children 
 and casts a cloud over the sky in our own 
 homes. And then there is the little fox called 
 "Deceit." It is a sly, sneaky little fox. It 
 tries not to be seen. It hides itself, but it is 
 m.ean and selfish and unkind. "Lying" is an- 
 other fox. I think it is the worst of all. There 
 is nothing that will destroy and ruin a boy or 
 
114 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 a girl quicker than untruthfulness. Whatever 
 happens, tell the truth. Great men have died 
 rather than tell a lie. Learn these words by 
 heart. 
 
 "Dare to be true. 
 Nothing can need a lie. 
 The fault that needs it most 
 Grows two thereby." 
 
 There are many other little foxes — a wHoIe 
 pack of them, — "Cheating" is the name of 
 one, and "Cowardice" the name of another. 
 There is one particularly sly fox called "Irrev- 
 erence" that destroys not only boys and girls 
 but men and women. You can name a dozen 
 more yourself. So you must be on the watch, 
 and if you succeed In keeping out the little fox 
 called "Lying," that destroys the vine of truth, 
 I have good hopes that the other little foxes 
 will not have much chance in your garden^ 
 
XXXII 
 
 A LITTLE BABY AND A GRASS- 
 HOPPER 
 
 "And the grasshopper." — EccL. 12:5. 
 
 HE was chasing a grasshopper and he 
 found a baby. That is queer. Yes, it 
 is queer, but it is true. I do not know 
 the boy's name who chased the grasshopper, 
 but I do know the name of the baby. It hap- 
 pened many, many years, more than three hun- 
 dred years ago, and this is the story. 
 
 A' little lad was coming home from school 
 along a country road. It was summer time 
 and I expect he was barefooted and bare 
 headed and happy hearted. He chased the 
 birds and the butterflies and at last started 
 after a grasshopper. My, how it did jump! 
 You know grasshoppers are nearly all legs. 
 But the boy was quick and as it jumped quicker 
 and quicker he ran faster and faster. To 
 escape him, it leaped over the fence and over 
 the fence he followed. But he did not follow 
 far, for there lying close to the fence was a 
 heap of clothes and out of the clothes peered 
 
ii6 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 a little baby's face. It did not cry. It just 
 looked and looked at the boy as much as to say, 
 "Why have you been so long coming?" No 
 one ever knew where the baby came from or 
 to whom it belonged, but when the boy saw it, 
 right then it belonged to him and he gathered 
 it up in his arms and took it home to his 
 mother. 
 
 The little child was, of course, nameless. 
 No one knew where it had come from, but the 
 little barefoot boy's mother became the mother 
 of the little fence-corner baby. The baby was 
 a boy and grew into a great and a good man. 
 He became rich and powerful and served his 
 country so well that he was knighted and he is 
 known in history by the honorable name of Sir 
 Thomas Gresham. 
 
 The little boy had chased a grasshopper and 
 the grasshopper led him to where the little baby 
 lay in the fence corner. Once, long ago, God 
 led the shepherds by a star to where the child 
 Jesus lay in the manger at Bethlehem. God 
 can use a star or a grasshopper to guide men 
 and children in the way of his will. 
 
 If you ever go to London, right in the 
 heart of that great city you will see a large 
 building called the Royal Exchange. It is one 
 of the most important buildings in the world. 
 It was built in honor of Sir Thomas Gresham. 
 
A BABY AND A GRASSHOPPER 117 
 
 and if you will look up to the very top of the 
 building you will see not a rooster or a cross, 
 but a grasshopper, and that grasshopper still 
 tells the story of how a grasshopper, guided by 
 God, guided a little boy to a little lost child. 
 
 There is a story in the Bible about a little 
 baby boy who was found in a basket by the 
 riverside and a princess found him and he grew 
 up in the palace and became a wise and good 
 and great man. Do you know his name? God 
 has a wonderful way of caring for little chil- 
 dren. God needed this little baby boy and so 
 he cared for him and gave him a home, for he 
 had a great work to do in the world. And 
 God needs you. He has some work for you 
 to do. No one can do it but you yourself. 
 Do you know what it is? I do not know. 
 Perhaps you yourself do not know. But God 
 knows and some day you will understand. 
 
XXXIII 
 
 THE APOSTLE WHO LOVED 
 CHILDREN 
 
 "Love one another." — i John 4 : 7. 
 
 THE text is one which the little children 
 learn in the Beginners' Department 
 of the Sunday School. How short and 
 beautiful it is. "Love one another." Even 
 though it is a short text, it is a very big one, 
 and I know of none so wonderful unless it be 
 another that is very much like it, — "God is 
 love." 
 
 And the strange thing about it is that both 
 of these wonderful texts were written by the 
 same man. Yet it is not strange, either, for 
 as I said, they are closely related, belonging 
 almost to the same family. 
 
 This little text was given to us by a very 
 old man. His name was John, and he lived 
 till he was nearly, if not quite, a hundred years 
 old. When he was a young man, he met Jesus 
 and loved him, and .followed him and served 
 him as his disciple through a long, good life. 
 People knew him as the man whom Jesus 
 118 
 
THE APOSTLE WHO LOVED 119 
 
 loved, and there is no more beautiful name than 
 that. We are told that when he was very old, 
 so old that he could not preach any more and 
 could hardly walk or see or talk, the people 
 who loved him and loved to see him, would 
 often lead or carry him to the church and lift 
 him into the pulpit so that he could speak to 
 them and they could see him, for you know 
 the sight of a dear, good old minister is much 
 better than a sermon. 
 
 When he was in the pulpit, he would look 
 around the church and then lift his hands over 
 the people who loved him, in order +0 give 
 them his blessing, and he always spoke the 
 words, "Little children, love one another." 
 Every Sunday he spoke these same words and 
 he never would say anything else. He was an 
 old man and all the men and the women and 
 the boys and the girls were just little children 
 to him. "Is that all ?" they would say. "Yes," 
 he answered, "that is all. Love one another 
 for love is of God, and if you love God and 
 love one another, you have done everything 
 that God wants you to do." 
 
 Well, I might preach all morning to you 
 about this great text. But I have only time to 
 tell you one little story about it. Some time 
 ago in Pennsylvania, there was a terrible acci- 
 dent. A great dam that kept back miles of 
 
I20 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 water broke, and the terrible flood came down 
 upon the little town that nestled in the valley 
 below the dam. A great many people were 
 drowned, among them a lot of dear little chil- 
 dren. Many people were homeless and many 
 lost all they had. A sweet little girl, who lived 
 far away, out in the West, heard her father 
 and mother talking about the children who had 
 lost their homes and their playthings, and she 
 began to think. So one day she sent a letter 
 to that little town where the homeless little 
 children were, and when it was opened, what 
 do you think was in it ? I wonder if you could 
 guess? A lot of paper dolls ! Yes, paper dolls 
 cut out just like the ones you have at home. 
 And a letter! Yes, a little letter without any 
 name, and this is what it said : "From a little 
 girl to any other little girl who has lost her 
 dolls." 
 
 That was a little girl's way of showing her 
 love. She sent what was to her the dearest 
 thing she had — her paper dolls. When she 
 grows up and becomes a girl, she will give 
 something dififerent and when she becomes a 
 woman she will give something still more help- 
 ful. Love always gives. It gives service and 
 joy and peace, and above all it gives Jesus and 
 the Gospel to all those who do not know him. 
 
XXXIV 
 THE LITTLE ANCHOR 
 
 ^Aa anchor of the soul." — Heb. 6 : 19. 
 
 YOU know what an anchor is. It is a 
 great steel beam with two hooks which 
 is let down into the water out of the 
 ship and takes hold of something at the bottom 
 of the sea, and holds the ship from drifting. 
 This man says that he had an anchor for his 
 soul which held him in the storm. Sailors, you 
 know, give their anchors names, and this man 
 gave his anchor a name. He called it "Hope." 
 It was hidden away, as all anchors are, where 
 you can't see them. "Within the veil," he calls 
 it. It was anchored not in the sea, where you 
 can't tell whether it is in sand or on rock or 
 stone, but in heaven, and he knew it held his 
 soul. That is the beautiful way he says his 
 hope in Jesus held him safe. 
 
 Some years ago a captain on one of the Eng- 
 lish vessels sailing in the ^gean Sea, near 
 Turkey, was caught in a storm. He was off 
 a little island that had only an open harbour? 
 that is, no real harbour, but only a place near 
 121 
 
122 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 the shore, but still in the sea, across which the 
 wind could sweep. He let down the anchor, 
 but the wind blew so fiercely that it began to 
 drag. It could not get hold of the sea bottom. 
 It could get no grip on the sandy soil and 
 was of no help to hold the ship. Another 
 anchor was let down, but it too refused to 
 take hold. Little by little the ship was drift- 
 ing nearer the shore and soon it would be 
 stranded. There was only one little anchor 
 left and they felt sure it would be of no use. 
 But they let it down into the dark waters and 
 what was their surprise to find the chain 
 tighten. Soon the ship was held fast and by 
 the help of the little anchor outrode the storm. 
 When they lifted the anchors, the big ones 
 came up easily, for they had never caught on 
 the bottom, but the little one refused to come 
 up. They worked for a long time, and at last 
 up it came. It came very reluctantly and was 
 very heavy. It was clinging to something. 
 Something came up with it. What do you 
 think it was ? A rock ? No,. A big fish ? No. 
 A whale? No. A clam shell? No. It was 
 another anchor. The little anchor had caught 
 in the ring of the anchor of a great "man of 
 war" that had been lost there years before; 
 and that was why the little anchor held so 
 firmly. The great anchor of the warship had 
 
THE LITTLE ANCHOR 123 
 
 found a piece of rock and had gripped it so 
 tightly that when they tried to raise it, it re- 
 fused to come up and so they had left it in the 
 sea. Perhaps the "man of war" was in a hurry 
 on account of some battle in which it was inter- 
 ested and cut the cable without trying hard to 
 raise the anchor. Anyway, the little anchor 
 caught hold of the rings of the big anchor 
 and there it clung fast. 
 
 And now, you see what a sermon there is 
 in that story. The poorest sort of preacher 
 could preach a sermon from that story. If a 
 very little anchor can slip into the great strong 
 grasp of a great "man of war" anchor, all the 
 great anchor's strength will be given to the 
 little anchor. And if a little child's faith slips 
 into the great strong keeping of God, all God's 
 love and strength and goodness will hold that 
 little soul safe. And if a little child will slip 
 his hand into the great strong hand of Jesus, 
 the strong hand of Jesus will hold him fast. 
 
XXXV 
 
 THE PRINCE WITH MANY NAMES 
 
 "His name shall be called Wonderful."— Is a. g: 6. 
 
 HOW many names may one person have ? 
 I have three names. And each one 
 means something to me and to my 
 family. How many names have you ? I knew 
 a minister who had four names and his first 
 three names were Jeremiah Prophet Elijah. 
 He was a very good man and there was some- 
 thing of both Jeremiah and the Prophet Elijah 
 about him. 
 
 When I come to think about it, there is no 
 one who has so many names as Jesus. There 
 is a verse of an old hymn which has in it noth- 
 ing but the names of Jesus. 
 
 "Jesus! my Shepherd, Brother, Friend, 
 My Prophet, Priest and King, 
 My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, 
 Accept the praise I bring." 
 
 We call him Jesus and Christ and Lord and 
 Master and Saviour and many, many other 
 names. 
 
 Even back in the Old Testament, when they; 
 124 
 
PRINCE WITH MANY NAMES 125 
 
 were looking forward to his coming, Isaiah, 
 the prophet, spoke of him as a Prince whose 
 "name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
 Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of 
 Peace." What wonderful names! 
 
 I have read that in one of the Catholic coun- 
 tries of Europe there is an old covered bridge 
 and at different parts of the bridge there are 
 twelve symbols or images of Jesus, and before 
 the one that means most to them, people wait 
 and worship. The shepherd driving his sheep 
 !waits before Jesus the Shepherd, the farmer 
 yraits before Jesus the Sower; the sick wait 
 before Jesus the Physician; the sailor before 
 Jesus the Pilot; the students bow before Jesus 
 the Teacher. Each finds something in Jesus 
 that he needs. 
 
 There is an old story which comes to us out 
 of the past, to the effect that when the Wise 
 Men came to the manger at Bethlehem, they 
 waited before entering. The first to go in was 
 an old man, and he found in the stable an old 
 man. The second of the Wise Men was 
 middle aged and when he entered he found 
 there a man his own age. The third Wise 
 Man was young and when he entered, he found 
 a young prophet of his own age. Each had 
 found the Saviour who answered to his own 
 need. The story goes on to say that when 
 
126 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 they all entered together they found the Child 
 Jesus. Of course the story is not true, but it 
 has a meaning. It means that Jesus meets our 
 need and that he has a name that suits each 
 one of us. 
 
 There once lived in America a man of great 
 eloquence, by the name of Ingersoll, He was 
 not a Christian. But some one once asked him 
 what he thought of Jesus and this is what he 
 said: "His name shall be called Wonderful, 
 because no man ever dared to point his finger 
 at the character of Christ and find any fault 
 with him. Every time I see a rock, I remem- 
 ber that he is the Rock of Ages. I walk out 
 under the stars, I remember that he is the Star 
 of eternal day. When I come into one of 
 God's temples, I remember that he Is the Chief 
 Corner Stone. When I walk the streets I re- 
 member that he is the Way and the Truth and 
 the Life. When I see the birds in the air, I 
 remember that he said, 'Not one sparrow will 
 fall.* The flowers tell me that he is the Rose of 
 Sharon, the Lily of the Valley. Wherever I 
 go and wherever I look, in every land and in 
 every city, the name of Jesus is Wonderful." 
 
 There is no one in all the world with so 
 many beautiful and wonderful names as Jesus. 
 
XXXVI 
 ASKING THE BLESSING 
 
 "In everything give thanks."— 2 Thes. 5 : 18. 
 
 SOMETIMES the little children of mis- 
 sion lands are our teachers. It does not 
 take them any longer than little children 
 in America or in England to read and pray and 
 work. 
 
 I was reading a story about a kindergarten 
 in Japan. You know wherever the missionary 
 goes the church goes and wherever the church 
 goes, the school goes and wherever the school 
 goes, the kindergarten goes, and there the dear 
 little children of other lands soon learn to love 
 Jesus. 
 
 Well, in this kindergarten every day at 
 noon a little lunch was served. Children like 
 to eat. I know a kindergarten connected with 
 one of our missions where the children get half 
 a pint of milk every morning at eleven o'clock. 
 In this Japanese kindergarten when lunch was 
 ready and all the children were seated com- 
 fortably on the floor, they would close theif 
 eyes and say a little prayer like this: 
 127 
 
128 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 "Bless this food which now we take 
 And make us good for Jesus' sake." 
 
 And then they would open their eyes and begin 
 to tall^ and laugh and eat all at once, for they 
 are just like other children. 
 
 One evening at her home, one of the little 
 kindergarten girls bowed her head over her 
 bowl of rice and said : 
 
 "Bless this food which now we take 
 And make us good for Jesus' sake." 
 
 "What are you doing ?" asked her surprised 
 father who loved her very, very much, "I'm 
 thanking God for this rice," said his little 
 daughter. "But your mother cooked the rice 
 and prepared it for you," said the father. 
 "Why do you not thank her?" "Yes, father," 
 said the little girl, "I do thank mother for 
 cooking it, but she did not make the rice. God 
 made the rice and I am thanking him." 
 
 Now that was right, but it sounded strange 
 to the father, and after thinking over it for 
 some days, he went to the kindergarten and 
 asked the missionary lady there what it all 
 meant. And she told him. She told him about 
 God's love and care and he, too, came to know 
 Jesus and now in his home when the rice is 
 served, all the family bow their heads and 
 every one, father, mother and children all to- 
 gether say: 
 
ASKING THE BLESSING 129' 
 
 "Bless this food which now we take 
 And make us good for Jesus' sake." 
 
 I was telling this story to a little boy and 
 what do you think he said ? He said that the 
 little Japanese girl did not say her blessing 
 right. He thought she should have said: 
 
 "God is great and God is good 
 So we thank him for our food. 
 In Jesus' name. Amen." 
 
 I told him that his blessing was just as good 
 as the little Japanese girl's, and that her bless- 
 ing was just as good as his. So he was satis- 
 fied. And then I told him of other blessings 
 that people say all together. At breakfast they 
 say: 
 
 ''Father, we thank Thee for the night 
 
 And for the pleasant morning light, 
 For rest and food and loving care 
 And all that makes the day so fair." 
 
 And in the evening, they say: 
 
 "Lord Jesus, be our holy guest, 
 Our morning joy, our evening rest, 
 And with our daily food impart 
 Thy love and peace to every heart." 
 
 As long as we thank God for our food, the 
 words we use do not much matter, but I 
 wonder how many homes in our country have 
 a better blessing than this new Christian hom<» 
 in far Japan? 
 
XXXVII 
 THE OLDEST THING IN THE WORLD 
 
 "Love is of God." — i Jno. 4 : 7. 
 
 WHAT is the oldest thing in the world? 
 When we talk about something be- 
 ing very old, we say it is as old as 
 Methuselah. How old was Methuselah? He 
 was the oldest man that ever lived and the 
 Bible tells us that when he died he was nine 
 hundred and sixty-nine years, nearly a thou- 
 sand years old. But there are many things 
 older than a thousand years. Trees are some- 
 times older than that and a piece of coal is 
 thousands of years older. The Bible is older 
 than a thousand years, so are the mountains, 
 and the sea and the sky and the Atlantic 
 Ocean. There must be something older than 
 any of these things. Can you guess what it is ? 
 The other day, just before Christmas, I went 
 into a big store to see if I could see the oldest 
 thing in the world. Yes! I went to the toy 
 room and watched the children. I watched the 
 boys with the mechanical toys and the airships 
 and submarines, the wireless and the block sig- 
 130 
 
OLDEST THING IN THE WORLD 131 
 
 nal systems and the walking elephants, and yet 
 I was not sure that I saw the oldest thing in 
 the world. Then I watched the girls. There 
 was one little lady of six or seven summers and 
 she was holding a doll that had real eye- 
 lashes, and folded her hands and went to sleep, 
 and after I had watched her for a little while, 
 I knew that I had found the oldest thing in the 
 world. 
 
 Can you guess? No! It is not curiosity. 
 No ! It is not play. It is love. The love of a 
 little girl for her doll is older than mountains 
 or trees, or rocks or oceans. Love is the oldest 
 thing in the world for God, who lived before 
 mountains or oceans, or trees, or dolls, is love, 
 and love is of God, 
 
 Let me tell you how old love is. The other 
 day some men were digging in an old land 
 called Egypt and they found the body of a 
 little girl. It had been wrapped in spices and 
 linen so carefully that it had not been de- 
 stroyed and when they unwrapped the linen, 
 what do you think they found ? A little doll. 
 The little girl thousands of years ago had loved 
 her doll just as the children to-day. and thou- 
 sands of years after, men found the doll still 
 in her arms. 
 
 And if you go back and back and back, be- 
 fore the world was made, and before the 
 
132 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 angels, you will find love, for you will find 
 God and God is love. The Bible tells us quite 
 plainly that our love is born of God's love. It 
 tells us that "we love because he first loved 
 us." Our love for birds and flowers and little 
 children, and for father and mother, brother 
 and sister, and for God himself, is but the 
 fruit of his great love for us. When Nansen, 
 the great explorer, was in the Arctic Sea, he let 
 out all his sounding line and it failed to touch 
 the bottom. He wrote the date and the length 
 of the line in his journal and then the words, 
 "deeper than that." So it is with the love of 
 God. No one has ever found its limit. It 
 is deeper than the sea. It is as deep as our 
 deepest need and his love so redeems us that 
 we love others because of his love for us. 
 Whenever you see a little girl playing with a 
 doll, remember that love is not only the great- 
 est thing in the world but also the oldest thing 
 in the world. 
 
XXXVIII 
 THE VALUE OF A BISHOP 
 "What is man?'— Psalm 8:4. 
 
 THERE was once a very interesting man 
 who was bishop of New Jersey. His 
 name was Bishop Doane. A bishop, 
 you know, is a minister who takes care not 
 only of one church, but of a great number of 
 churches. He was a very wise bishop and 
 never allowed things to get the best of him. 
 He always got the best of things. He made 
 his home at Burlington and travelled over the 
 country, but liked his own home best. 
 
 One Saturday he was in New York collect- 
 ing money for St. Mary's College, in which 
 he was much interested. When about to leave 
 his hotel to catch the train, a man called to 
 give him some money for the college. He 
 had no time to lose, neither did he wish to lose 
 the money, but he decided to let the train go. 
 He was glad to get the money but he was sorry 
 to lose the train. When he got to the station, 
 the last train for Burlington was gone. 
 
 What could he do? Next day was Sunday 
 133 
 
134 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 and he had to preach at the dedication of a new 
 church, and the last train had gone. He re- 
 turned to the ticket agent and said, "Is there 
 no other train?" The agent replied, "There 
 is no other passenger train. The only other 
 train is a freight train which will leave in an 
 hour." "Then sell me a ticket for the freight 
 train," said the bishop, for he was not ashamed 
 to ride on a freight. He could ride in the 
 caboose. Do you know what that is? Or he 
 could ride with the engineer, or on top of the 
 train with the brakeman. He did not care 
 where he rode, if he only got home for Sunday 
 morning. But the agent shook his head, say- 
 ing the freight carried freight only and not 
 passengers. "Then," said the bishop, "send me 
 as freight." That was an odd thing to say, 
 but the agent did not know what to say in re- 
 ply, and so the dignified bishop stepped on the 
 scales and was weighed. I do not know how 
 much he weighed but he paid for himself at so 
 much a pound and after paying the charges, 
 which were much less than a ticket, he was put 
 on board the freight train and shipped as 
 freight to Burlington and next morning he 
 preached and was none the worse for his 
 strange ride. 
 
 Well, we like the bishop all the better for his 
 humour and his good sense and above all for 
 
THE VALUE OF A BISHOP 135 
 
 his pluck and perseverance. But after all, no 
 man, much less a bishop, can be classed as 
 freight. We cannot be weighed and valued 
 by the pound. Jesus once asked this interest- 
 ing question: "How much better is a man 
 than a sheep?" He did not try to answer his 
 own question because a man and a sheep can- 
 not be valued in the same way. The Psalmist, 
 looking up at the stars in the sky, said, ''When 
 I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
 the moon and stars which thou hast ordained, 
 what is man?" And then he replied, "Thou 
 hast made him but little lower than God and 
 crownest him with glory and honour." So you 
 see, men, women and little boys and girls can- 
 not be classed as freight because they are chil- 
 dren of God. They are immortal souls and 
 one little child is worth more than all the 
 world. If you placed the life of a little child 
 on one side of the scales, and all the gold in 
 the world on the other scale, the little child 
 would outweigh in value all the gold in all the 
 world. Do you remember what Jesus said, 
 "What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his own life?" We are 
 worth so much to God that he gave Jesus, his 
 only beloved Son. to die upon the cross for us. 
 A little child is worth more to God than the 
 sun, and the moon, and all the stars together. 
 
XXXIX 
 PLAYING THE GAME 
 
 "Boys and girls playing." — Zech. 8: 5. 
 
 DURING the Great War, the Y. M. C. 
 A. huts in France were very interest- 
 ing. There were American and Brit- 
 ish and French Y. M. C. A. huts and each one 
 had its own pretty decorations. In the French 
 huts one would see beautiful French war 
 posters and in the American huts American 
 posters. In the British, among the British war 
 posters, there was always one printed sign 
 which all who entered could see. It was in 
 every British hut. It was printed like this: 
 
 Live clean. 
 Talk clean. 
 Fight clean. 
 Play the game. 
 
 Every British soldier was expected to live 
 in the army and so to fight as a soldier that 
 when the war was over he could say that he 
 had lived clean, talked clean, fought clean, 
 and that he had played the game. It is a good 
 motto and it can be used in peace as in war. 
 136 
 
PLAYING THE GAME 137 
 
 Live clean. The soldier was expected to 
 keep himself fit. He was to avoid eating, 
 drinking, or doing anything that would make 
 him unfit for service. It was his duty to keep 
 his mind pure and his body pure and his con- 
 duct pure. The Bible tells us that our bodies 
 are the temples of God's Holy Spirit, Let us 
 make his dwelling place clean and pure. 
 
 Talk clean. To talk clean is to speak kindly, 
 and to tell the truth. When a boy uses bad 
 language or profane words, or tells a lie, he 
 has forgotten to talk clean. When the people 
 heard Jesus they were surprised at the 
 "gracious words" which he spoke. 
 
 Fight clean. The German soldier did not 
 fight clean. He was cruel and unfair. He 
 fought helpless women and little children. He 
 sent them adrift in open boats upon the stormy 
 sea. The American and the British soldier 
 fought clean. Now that the war is over there 
 are still many things which we must fight. We 
 can fight evil and sin and poverty and igno- 
 rance and in peace as in war we are to fight 
 even evil with clean hands and pure hearts. 
 
 Play the game. The best thing about a game 
 is not winning it but playing it fair. A good 
 player is as good a loser as he is a winner, 
 and all our games are meant to teach us to 
 play fair, to keep sweet, to lose cheerfully and 
 
138 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 to praise whoever wins. Life is the greatest 
 game of all and we live best when we keep 
 sweet and true and kind even when things go 
 wrong. The boy who plays the game sings 
 this song: 
 
 "It is easy enough to be merry 
 When things go along with a song 
 But the boy worth while is the boy who smiles 
 When everything goes dead wrong." 
 
 Perhaps you can print the words of this motto 
 and hang it in your room where you can see 
 it every day. 
 
 Live clean. 
 Talk clean. 
 Fight clean. 
 Play the game. 
 
XL 
 
 IN VERDUN 
 "Things that cannot be shaken." — Heb. 12:28. 
 
 EVERY one who knows about the Great 
 War knows about Verdun. Verdun 
 lay between France and Germany and 
 against that city and fortress all the power 
 of the German Army and all the skill of the 
 German staff were gathered so that the Crown 
 Prince might gain a great victory, and having 
 taken Verdun open the gates for Germany to 
 enter France. 
 
 One of the longest and bloodiest battles of 
 the war was fought at Verdun. Around the 
 hills of Verdun, I saw thousands and thou- 
 sands of graves, but the French courage never 
 faltered. They said, "They shall not pass," 
 and for months the French held the city until 
 Germany was driven back defeated. 
 
 But Verdun was ruined. It had been under 
 shell-fire for weeks, had been set on fire by 
 incendiary bullets and had burned for days 
 until only ruin was left. When I entered it in 
 the sprino^ days of 1918, it was a deserted city. 
 Only a few French soldiers kept guard. The 
 streets were desolate. Not one house was 
 139 
 
I40 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 standing unharmed. Stores and shops, 
 churches and monuments were ruins. The 
 French officer who was responsible for our 
 being there, quietly led us to the top of the hill 
 to the great old cathedral which had stood since 
 the eleventh century. The roof was gone, the 
 windows destroyed. The day before a Ger- 
 man shell had ploughed its way through the 
 roof of the chancel and buried itself in the 
 marble floor. It was a scene of utter ruin. 
 No priest was there. Only a French soldier 
 kept his silent vigil. I remember the hands of 
 the clock in the half-ruined tower pointed to 
 ten minutes to three. There seemed to be noth- 
 ing left that had not been touched by bomb 
 or shell. There was, however, one thing that 
 was not harmed. It had escaped. The great 
 high altar that rested on four beautifully pol- 
 ished porphyry pillars was untouched by fire 
 or shell. It had come through the war, un- 
 harmed. I have often wondered since about 
 that high altar. The altar you know stands 
 for religion, for worship, for prayer and serv- 
 ice and God. It has always seemed to me that 
 the high altar in the old ruined cathedral o£ 
 Verdun preached a sermon to all who saw it 
 standing there unharmed. 
 
 And this is the sermon : There are many 
 things that caix be destroyed. Cathedrals and 
 
IN VERDUN 141 
 
 palaces, castles and towers, towns and cities 
 can be destroyed. Kings and nations, railroads 
 and ships, farms and vineyards can be de- 
 stroyed, but there are some things that cannot 
 be harmed. There are some things that can- 
 not be shaken. 
 
 The love of God cannot be either shaken or 
 destroyed. The war destroyed more than we 
 can tell. It destroyed houses and lands and 
 kings and emperors. It destroyed our faith 
 in men whom we once trusted, but it did not 
 destroy our faith in the love of God. Through 
 all the pain and the cruelty of the war we 
 knew that God's best word to us is the word 
 of the cross, which tells us that God is love. 
 
 The Word of God cannot be shaken or de- 
 stroyed. Heaven and earth may pass away, 
 but God's Word can never pass away. When 
 Henry M. Stanley set out to find David Liv- 
 ingstone, he carried with him one hundred 
 and eighty books. After he had travelled 
 three hundred miles into the interior, he left 
 some of the books behind. They were too 
 heavy. As he journeyed further and further 
 inland, his books became less and less and at 
 last he had only one book left. It was the 
 Bible. The Bible is the only book that lasts. 
 It lasts because it is the Word of God. It is 
 one of the things that cannot be shaken. 
 
XLI 
 
 'A FRENCH PATRIOT 
 "/* is more blessed to give." — Acts 20:35. 
 
 DURING the Great War every one 
 learned to love and admire France.: 
 She was so strong, so heroic, so brave, 
 I remember standing in the quiet cemetery of 
 the little village of Mailly, and counting one 
 hundred and twenty-seven new-made graves. 
 Each grave was marked with a white cross and 
 on some of the crosses was the French word, 
 "petite," which means little and is used as a 
 pet name for one who is loved. Many of those 
 who had died in the war were just boys, 
 "petite" soldiers, and yet they were brave like 
 heroes for the land they loved. 
 
 Near the same little village I heard a story 
 of a French lad who had died in battle early 
 in the war. He had run away from home and 
 entered the army, and in his first battle he 
 was killed. In one of his pockets they found 
 a piece of paper neatly folded. He had writ- 
 ten it himself and called it "My Creed." You 
 know what a creed is. We repeat the Apostles* 
 142 
 
A FRENCH PATRIOT 143 
 
 Creed, which begins, "I beHeve in God the 
 Father Almighty." Well, the French boy's 
 creed was shorter than the Apostles' Creed. 
 It was very short. It contained only one 
 sentence and this was what it said, "I give my 
 body to the ground, my soul to God, my heart 
 to France." I do not know where he got it. 
 Perhaps he made it himself, but when he died 
 they found this creed in the pocket of his uni- 
 form. There was no doubt about what he lived 
 for and died for. 
 
 It is a good thing to have a creed, to be- 
 lieve in something for which we are ready to 
 die. It is a good thing to know the Apostles' 
 Creed and to believe in the things which are 
 contained in its great words. I like the creed 
 of the little French boy very much. It is all 
 about giving. It is short and real and I wonder 
 if we could not change it a little so as to suit 
 not war but peace and not France only, but 
 our own land. Suppose we say, "I give my 
 body to the work, my soul to God, my heart 
 to my home and to my country." This short 
 creed contains three things. It contains the 
 thought of work. No one can have a good, 
 true life without work. An idler Is worse than 
 a thief. Jesus said, "My Father worketh and 
 I work." It contains the thought of God, and 
 no life can be right that forgets God. The first 
 
144 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 sentence of the Bible says, "In the beginning 
 God," and that should be the motto of every 
 life. It contains also the thought of love, — 
 love of home and love of country, and no one 
 can have a complete life who lives and thinks 
 only for himself. These three great words 
 make life sweet and true : Work, God, Love. 
 There is a great painting called "The 
 Angelus." Perhaps you have seen copies of 
 it. It is a picture of a young man and a young 
 woman out in the field where they have been 
 working, bowing reverently in prayer as they 
 listen to the church bell. There, too, we have 
 these three great words. The picture tells 
 about work, about love, and above all about 
 God. Let us remember the words : — 
 
 "I give 
 My body to the work, 
 My soul to God, 
 My heart to my home 
 And to my country." 
 
XLII 
 
 THE LITTLE COMPANION 
 "The Shadow of Peter." — Acts S : 15. 
 
 1HAVE a friend who is the pastor of a 
 great church in the city of Baltimore, 
 and he has a little boy called Ernest. He 
 is a bright little fellow and plays by himself 
 a great deal. He is not the little boy who 
 wished he were "two little puppies so that he 
 could play together." He has learned to play 
 by himself and gets along very well. He plays 
 with trains and blocks and engines and balls 
 and has a nursery where he has things all his 
 own way. Boys like to have things their own 
 way. They are very much like girls in that. 
 One morning when the sun was shining in 
 through the nursery w^here Ernest was play- 
 ing by himself, his father, who was in his study 
 in a room nearby, heard him running round 
 and round the room, knocking things over and 
 making a terrible fuss. He paid no attention 
 however until the lad began to cry, and then he 
 hurried to the nursery. Ernest was standing 
 in the middle of the room crying as if his 
 145 
 
146 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 heart would break. When he saw his father 
 he stopped crying and pointing to the wall said, 
 "There he is. He won't leave me. He has 
 been following me all over. Tell him to go 
 away. I hate him." His father did not know 
 what was the matter and thought the boy was 
 sick. "Who is it?" he asked, and pointing to 
 the wall again the boy said, "There he is. He 
 won't go away." 
 
 What do you think it was ? Well, it was the 
 little boy's own shadow. He had never before 
 seen his shadow, and in the bright room it 
 seemed to him like another boy following him 
 round and round, teasing him, going where he 
 went, stopping when he stopped, pointing his 
 finger at him when he pointed his finger, and 
 stamping his foot and getting angry when he 
 stamped his foot. That is the way a shadow 
 acts. 
 
 "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, 
 
 And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. 
 
 He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head ; 
 
 And I see him jump before me, when I jump into 
 
 my bed. 
 
 "He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play. 
 
 And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way. 
 
 He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see; 
 
 I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow 
 
 sticks to me !" 
 
 Ernest had a wise and good father, who 
 took him on his knee and told him that what 
 
THE LITTLE COMPANION 147 
 
 he saw was just himself. It was just a pic- 
 ture of himself made by the sunlight. It did 
 just what he did and went where he did. And 
 then he told him that it was just like a little 
 companion and was his best friend. When he 
 played it would play with him and when he 
 was naughty his little companion would be 
 naughty too. 
 
 Whether we can see our shadow or not, one 
 thing is sure and that is, you and I must live 
 with ourselves. We must keep company with 
 ourselves. It is wise, therefore, to see that this 
 companion, who is always with us, is true and 
 pure and strong. And there is another thing 
 that is also sure and that is, each one of us 
 casts a shadow which either helps or hinders 
 some one else. The shadow of Peter brought 
 healing and comfort to those who were in 
 need. In the Bible we often read about God's 
 shadow and how it protects and helps us. God 
 calls us to take refuge under his shadow. "He 
 that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most 
 High shall abide under the shadow of the Al- 
 mighty." In one of the Psalms there is offered 
 this beautiful prayer, "Be merciful unto me, 
 O God, be merciful unto me; For my soul 
 taketh refuge in Thee: yea, in the shadow of 
 Thy wings will I take refuge." Jesus, him- 
 self. Is spoken of as "the shadow of a mighty 
 
148 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 rock." Jesus' shadow is just Jesus himself, 
 and our shadow is a picture of ourselves cast 
 by sunlight and reveals us just as we are. If 
 we are true and strong and Christlike, so will 
 the shadows we cast be true and strong and 
 Christlike. 
 
 There is one thing we always should re- 
 member about shadows. Where there is no 
 sunshine there can be no shadow. The clearer 
 and stronger the light, the deeper and clearer 
 the shadow. Shadows speak of reflected light. 
 When we stand in God's sunlight, then the 
 shadows we cast will be strong and clear. 
 We are told that after the disciples had spoken 
 for Jesus, in Jerusalem, their enemies knew 
 by their words and their high courage, that 
 they "had been with Jesus." 
 
XLIII 
 
 GREATER THAN ALEXANDER 
 "Behold my hands." — Luke 24 : 39. 
 
 EVERY boy and girl has heard of Alex- 
 ander the Great. He was a great 
 soldier. It is said of him that he con- 
 quered the whole world, and wept because 
 there was no other world to conquer. 
 
 He had many friends and each one tried 
 to do more than any one else to honour him. 
 The greatest architect of that day planned to 
 carve out of the great mountain near the royal 
 city a statue of Alexander. He planned to 
 carve Mount Athos, which is over six thousand 
 feet high, into a statue of the king. The left 
 hand of this great statue was to hold a real 
 city of ten thousand people, and the right 
 hand was to hold a beautiful inland lake which 
 would receive the waters of the mountain and 
 then pour them out into the sea. Of course 
 his plan was never worked out. Perhaps it 
 could not be worked out. It was too big, too 
 difficult, too odd. But the very plan showed 
 what the architect thought of Alexander. 
 149 
 
ISO GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 But Jesus is mightier than Alexander. No 
 statue carved out of the world's highest moun- 
 tain could show forth his power. He who was 
 once a little child has become the world's great- 
 est conqueror. He holds in his hand all the 
 kingdoms of this world. The sea is his and 
 he made it. All power is given unto him in 
 heaven and in earth. The Christ Child has 
 become the King. He holds the world in the 
 hollow of his hand and all things are his. 
 
 Does Jesus hold you in his hand? Do you 
 belong to him ? Martin Luther once said, "If 
 any one knocks at the door of my heart and 
 says, 'Who lives there ?' I will answer, 'J^sus 
 Christ lives here, not Martin Luther.' " Can 
 you say that? Do you belong to him? Does 
 he hold your little life in his strong hand? 
 One of the old writers once said : "The needle's 
 point in the seaman's compass never stands 
 still, but quivers and shakes till it comes right 
 against the North Pole. The Wise Men of the 
 East never stood still till they were right 
 against the star which appeared unto them, and 
 the star itself never stood still till it came right 
 against that other Star which shone more 
 brightly in the manger than the sun did in the 
 firmament ; and Noah's dove could find no rest 
 for the sole of her foot all the while she was 
 fluttering over the flood, till she returned to the 
 
GREATER THAN ALEXANDER 151 
 
 ark with an olive branch in her mouth. So the 
 heart of every true Christian can find no rest 
 till Christ puts forth his hand and receives her 
 to himself." 
 
 There is a hymn we sometimes sing about 
 Jesus holding our weak hand in his strong 
 hand : — 
 
 "Hold Thou my hand ; so weak I am, and helpless, 
 I dare not take one step without Thy aid ; 
 Hold Thou my hand ; for then, O loving Saviour, 
 No dread of ill shall malce my soul afraid. 
 
 "Hold Thou my hand; and closer, closer draw me 
 To Thy dear self — my hope, my joy, my all; 
 Hold Thou my hand, lest haply I should wander. 
 And, missing Thee, my trembling feet should fall. 
 
 "Hold Thou my hand; the way is dark before me 
 Without the sunlight of Thy face divine; 
 But when by faith I catch its radiant glory. 
 What heights of joy, what rapturous songs are 
 mine !" 
 
XLIV 
 
 THE ICE THAT MADE FIRE 
 "Fire came down from God." — Rev. 20 : 9. 
 
 THE Bible is full of stories about fire. 
 God guided the children of Israel 
 through the wilderness by a pillar of 
 fire. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit 
 came like tongues of fire. The New Testa- 
 ment speaks of God as a consuming fire and 
 our Hymnal gives us the words: 
 
 "Come as the fire ; and purge our hearts, 
 
 Like sacrificial flame : 
 Let our whole soul an offering be 
 To our Redeemer's Name." 
 
 In another of our beautiful hymns we ask God 
 to 
 
 "Kindle a flame of sacred love 
 In these cold hearts of 6urs." 
 
 You know how hard it is to kindle a fire with 
 cold fuel, and we wonder how God's great love 
 can kindle into a flame in our cold worldly 
 hearts. But it can, and it does. 
 
 I was reading a wonderful story about Sir 
 153 
 
THE ICE THAT MADE FIRE 153 
 
 John Franklin. You know he was one of the 
 first men who tried to discover the North Pole 
 and to find a passage through the Arctic Ocean. 
 The story of his noble life and tragic death is 
 one of the most heroic stories in history. He 
 perished up in the frozen north with his com- 
 panions, and years after his bones were found 
 and beside the bones some books and one of 
 the books was the Bible. 
 
 What a cold, cold world it was! But Sir 
 John Franklin was a wise man and he knew 
 a great deal about the sea, and the stars, and 
 the ice, and the great sun, and one day he took 
 a piece of cold, clear ice and cut it into the form 
 of a lens. 
 
 You know what a lens is. A lens is usually 
 made of glass. The glass in a pair of spec- 
 tacles is a lens. The glass in a microscope or a 
 telescope or in a camera is a lens. It is shaped 
 so that the rays of the sun are gathered up by 
 it into one spot. Well, Sir John Franklin, far 
 up in the frozen north, made a lens not out of 
 glass, but out of cold, hard ice and then he 
 held it to the sun and the rays of the sun were 
 gathered up by the lens of ice into one spot, 
 so that after awhile when a piece of paper 
 was held over that spot it became so hot that 
 the paper began to burn and from the paper a 
 fire was lisrhted. Is not that wonderful! Of 
 
154 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 course if you try to do it, your ice will melt 
 before your paper will burn. 
 
 But that is not as wonderful as something 
 else I know about. It is not as wonderful as 
 the warm love of God coming into my cold 
 heart and making it burn with love for him. 
 That is a more wonderful thing. Do you re- 
 member the story of the young man who went 
 up to the temple with a cold heart to a cold 
 service, and while the service was going on, 
 suddenly God came to him and touched his lips 
 with a coal of fire, and said, "Lo, this hath 
 touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken 
 away and thy sin purged." And then his heart 
 took fire and when God called for helpers he 
 cried out, "Here am I, send me," God is like 
 fire. He cleanses and purifies. He warms 
 and comforts. 
 
XLV 
 I NEVER KNEW HIS NAME 
 
 "The deaf ear." — Matt. 11:5. 
 
 1HAVE heard boys sometimes discussing 
 among themselves whether they would 
 rather be deaf or blind. It is an odd ques- 
 tion. Of course we are very glad we do not 
 need to choose and can go on enjoying the 
 sights and the sounds of God's beautiful world. 
 
 There is something, however, worse than 
 being either deaf or blind. You say that is 
 impossible. What can be worse than being 
 blind or deaf ? W^ell, I can easily answer that 
 by saying it is worse to be both blind and deaf 
 at the same time. 
 
 And that was the way with Helen Keller. 
 You have heard about Helen Keller. She was 
 born both deaf and blind and yet she so over- 
 came both her deafness and her blindness that 
 she not only entered Harvard University, but 
 completed her course and graduated with the 
 praise and good-will of thousands of her 
 friends in all parts of the world. The deaf, 
 155 
 
156 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 you know, learn to read by signs, and the blind 
 learn to read by touch, but how could one both 
 deaf and blind learn anything at all, much less 
 learn to read ? Well, Helen Keller had a wise 
 and patient and kind teacher who held her hand 
 and little by little, by the touch of her hand, 
 taught her a few things and then more and 
 more until her mind became awake. It was 
 like spelling out messages by signals. After 
 the signals were mastered, everything else be- 
 came easy. 
 
 After years of patient work and study her 
 teacher decided that Helen should be told 
 something about God. What could she know 
 about God? She had never seen his name or 
 heard it. She had never heard a hymn or a 
 sermon, or seen a church. What would you 
 know about God if you had lived all your 
 childhood in a dark, silent room. 
 
 One day there came to her home a great, 
 good man by the name of Phillips Brooks. 
 He was a bishop and was kind and wise and 
 gentle. And Phillips Brooks sat down beside 
 Helen Keller and her teacher, and the teacher 
 told Helen by means of signs on her hands 
 what Bishop Brooks said about God, and his 
 great love for us, how he made the world and 
 cares for us as his own dear children. When 
 
I NEVER KNEW HIS NAME 157 
 
 he had finished his first lesson she looked up 
 with her sightless eyes and said, *'0h, Mr. 
 Brooks, I knew all that before, but I never 
 knew his name." Was that not wonderful? 
 
 How did she know about God? Who had 
 told her? As far as her friends and her 
 teacher knew, no one had ever said anything 
 to her about God. Yet she knew about God, 
 but did not know his name. How do you ac- 
 count for that? 
 
 Well, God has many ways in which he can 
 speak to us. He does not need to speak in 
 English or French or Latin. He can speak to 
 our hearts by his Spirit. We can feel him 
 and love him and know him because he re- 
 veals himself to us by his own Holy Spirit in 
 his own secret and wonderful way. When 
 Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he 
 did not know him. He said, "Who art thou. 
 Lord," and a voice said, "I am Jesus." When 
 God appeared to Moses in the wilderness, 
 Moses heard no voice and saw no form, he 
 only saw a flaming, burning bush, and then 
 when he drew near God spoke to him and re- 
 vealed himself to him. God is always nearer 
 than we think. In him we live and move and 
 have our being. He speaks in his own way 
 to all his children. 
 
158 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 "Speak to him for he hears 
 And spirit with spirit may meet, 
 Closer is he than breathing 
 Nearer than hands or feet." 
 
 There is no one who has not heard God's voice 
 for his Spirit abides in all his children. 
 
XLVI 
 THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW 
 
 "Neither slumber nor sleep." — Ps. 121 : 4. 
 
 EVERY boy and girl knows about Rob- 
 ert Louis Stevenson's "A Child's 
 Garden of Verses," which has so many 
 pictures little children love. He was a great 
 story teller and everybody loves a story teller. 
 It was he who wrote about "The Land of 
 Nod," that strange country which children 
 visit in their sleep and in their dreams. 
 
 "From breakfast on through all the day 
 At home among my friends I stay, 
 But every night I go abroad 
 Afar into the land of Nod. 
 
 "All by myself I have to go. 
 With none to tell me what to do — 
 All alone beside the streams 
 And up the mountain sides of dreams. 
 
 "The strangest things are there for me, 
 Both things to eat and things to see, 
 And many frightening sights abroad 
 Till morning in the land of Nod. 
 
 "Try as I like to find the way, 
 I never can get back by day, 
 Nor can remember plain and clear 
 The curious music that I hear." 
 
 159 
 
i6o GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 But Robert Louis Stevenson, when he was 
 a little boy did not always visit the land of 
 Nod when dark came down upon the land. 
 Sometimes all night long he stayed in the Land 
 of Wide-Awake, for he was a delicate little 
 lad and often ill and sometimes all through 
 the night his old Scotch nurse kept watch with 
 him waiting for the dawn to come in. 
 
 He used to say that it was his old nurse 
 that made him a poet and a writer, for in the 
 night she would tell him such wonderful stories 
 and set his mind on fire. He tells us that often 
 in the night when he could not sleep she would 
 wrap him in a blanket and carry him to the 
 window and they would look out over the 
 great sleeping city of Edinburgh and she 
 would point to the lighted windows here and 
 there and tell him that perhaps there were 
 other little boys who were ill and could not 
 sleep, and she would show him the stars and 
 tell him they too were God's lighted windows 
 and that God never slept, but kept watch over 
 all the dear little children who, like himself, 
 were watching for the day-dawn. Then they 
 would look out into the dark, for a long time, 
 without speaking, and Robert Louis Stevenson 
 would think about those other little sleepless 
 boys who perhaps did not have a kind nurse 
 and as happy a home as he did, and after a 
 
THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW i6j 
 
 little his eyes would begin to close and before 
 he knew he had fallen asleep and was tucked 
 away in bed. 
 
 I often think of those lighted windows in 
 the night. They are always there. If some 
 night you look out, you, too, will see them 
 and they tell us that there are other people, 
 who watch and wait, who suffer and are sick 
 and that God watches and cares for all. And 
 Robert Louis Stevenson knew God, and among 
 the Psalms which his old nurse taught him to 
 say by heart and which he never forgot, was 
 Psalm 121, which says: — 
 
 "He that keepeth thee 
 Will not slumber ; 
 Behold he that keepeth Israel 
 Will neither slumber nor sleep. 
 The Lord is thy Keeper." 
 
XLVII 
 AN EASTER STORY-SERMON 
 
 "With fear and great joy." — Matt. 28:8. 
 
 IT happened in Spain. At least they say 
 it happened there, for this story is very 
 strange and yet it is very old. You may 
 call it a fairy story, and I will not quarrel with 
 you about it, for it is old and pretty and in a 
 real sense true. Wise people would call it 
 a legend. 
 
 Well, it happened in Spain, near the old city 
 of Toledo. It was in the time of the wild 
 people who are called Moors. They came over 
 from Africa and sent fear and terror through 
 the country, for they were cruel and brave 
 and put to death thousands of innocent people 
 and destroyed beautiful churches and cities. 
 
 Near the old city of Toledo there was a 
 beautiful cathedral church where old men acted 
 as monks and priests. They were quiet and 
 kind, and as the dark came on they loved to 
 sing the old hymns and chants of the church. 
 Their cathedral was built among the trees of 
 the woods near the city and people would come 
 from all parts of the country and in the evening 
 listen to the chanting of the old monks. 
 162 
 
AN EASTER STORY-SERMON 163 
 
 It was, as I said, in the days of the Moors, 
 and the monks heard with fear in their hearts 
 that these wild men were coming nearer and 
 nearer their cathedral. One day they heard 
 that they had captured the old city of Toledo 
 and were marching out into the forest to de- 
 stroy and ruin the old convent church. At last 
 the gleaming spears of the Moors were seen 
 through the underbrush. The old monks, how- 
 ever, did not run. They went into their places 
 in the choir and began to sing, "Glory to God 
 in the Highest." And then what do you think 
 happened ? You could never guess. No. The 
 Moors did not run away. They came right on 
 to kill and to destroy. But when they came to 
 the cathedral, lo! it had disappeared. They 
 looked and looked, but they could see nothing 
 and all they could hear was a little bird singing 
 in the branches. The foundations and the 
 towers, the organ and the singers had all sunk 
 beneath the ground or gone up into the sky, 
 no one could tell where. Is not that a strange 
 story ? 
 
 But that is not the strangest part of the 
 story. The best part of this strange story is 
 that fifty years after, a lonely traveller was 
 passing through the forest where the cathedral 
 once stood. It was near evening and suddenly 
 he stopped and listened, for he thought he 
 
i64 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 heard the sound of vesper bells and the words 
 of the evening song. He did hear them, but 
 he could see nothing, only a heap of moss- 
 covered stones with a rude wooden cross. 
 There, in the still, still forest the lonely traveller 
 heard heavenly music and bowed his head and 
 worshipped. You say, "Of course the story is 
 not true." Well, you can have your own way 
 about that, but I know a better story that is like 
 it and yet is true. 
 
 It is the story of Jesus. You know that 
 story. The time came when wild, bad men 
 came to him to destroy him. They found him 
 out in the garden where he was saying his 
 evening prayer. They dragged him before the 
 judge and then took him out to Calvary and 
 nailed him to the cross. They pierced his side 
 with a spear and then laid his body away in a 
 rocky cave. They thought that was the end. 
 He had disappeared and they thought he had 
 gone forever. But a few days later they heard 
 his friends singing, and when asked why they 
 were so glad, they said, "Jesus is risen." And 
 he had. And every Easter Day as we pass 
 the cross and the new tomb we hear millions 
 of voices and they are all singing : 
 
 "Christ the Lord is risen to-day. 
 Sons of men and angels say : 
 Raise your joys and triumphs high; 
 Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply." 
 
XLVIII 
 THE UNKNOWN PRINCE 
 
 *7 stand at the door." — Rev. 5 : 20. 
 
 THIS is a story about a prince. He is a 
 king now, but he was just a boy when 
 this story happened. He was very fond 
 of the sea and among all the things he loved 
 and liked, he loved and liked a sail boat best 
 of all. 
 
 So one summer he and his brother spent 
 the long days sailing in and around the beauti- 
 ful bays of Scotland. They sailed far north 
 and spent much time in the Moray Forth, a 
 beautiful bay near Inverness, in the north of 
 Scotland. 
 
 One morning they landed at Inverness and 
 agreed to spend the day tramping among the 
 heather hills of the Highlands. If you have 
 ever been there you know how wild and lonely 
 those heather hills are and you will not be 
 surprised when I tell you that they lost their 
 way and could not find the path back to their 
 boat. They wandered on and on until dark- 
 ness shut them in and they were ready to lie 
 165 
 
i66 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 down and spend the night in the heather hills. 
 It was near midnight, but they saw a light and 
 their hearts rejoiced. They made their way 
 to the light and found a little house, and at 
 the closed door they knocked loud and long. 
 Instead of the door being opened, an angry 
 voice bade them be off and away or the dog 
 would be let out upon them. So they left that 
 unfriendly house, but found shelter in a little 
 cottage not far removed, for they had come 
 at last, unknown to them, to the edge of a 
 village. 
 
 Next morning the story of the young men 
 was told from house to house and with the 
 story, the names of the young men were 
 whispered and people looked wonderingly at 
 each other. What was the story and what 
 were the people whispering about? What do 
 you think? Well, it was this, — that one of the 
 young men who had lost his way was Prince 
 George, now George V, King of England, and 
 the other was his brother, the Duke of Clar- 
 ence, and that they had knocked at Mr. So-and- 
 So's door in the night and had been ordered 
 away and threatened with having the dog set 
 on them. What do you think of that? And 
 what would Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So think 
 when they heard that they had refused to ad- 
 mit their future king? 
 
THE UNKNOWN PRINCE 167 
 
 But are we better than they ? We, too, have 
 a Prince who is also a King and he, too, has 
 knocked at our door. He has knocked not 
 once, but often. He has not lost his way, but 
 has come of his own purpose to our very door. 
 He says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and 
 knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the 
 door, I will come in to him." What will you 
 do? Will you let him in? Or will you tell 
 him to go somewhere else? We sing: — 
 
 "0 Jesus, thou art standing 
 
 Outside the fast closed door; 
 In lowly patience waiting 
 To pass the threshold o'er." 
 
 Why should we keep him standing outside the 
 door? Why not open the door and say: — 
 
 "Dear Saviour, enter, enter, 
 And leave us never more." 
 
XLIX 
 
 I— VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 
 "The Ants.— Pviov. 30 : 25. 
 
 THE other day out in the field I dis- 
 covered something, and stooping down 
 to pick a httle violet which seemed to 
 be the first one of the spring time, something 
 happened. I had picked the little flower and 
 was ready to look for another when suddenly 
 something darted out from beneath my feet 
 and scampered off into the bushes. What do 
 you think it was? It was a little baby rabbit, 
 not larger than a little baby's hand, and it had 
 been lying there in its nest just the colour of the 
 ground, and while it had seen me all the while, 
 I had not noticed it, and if it had kept quiet, 
 I would have passed on and never known of 
 its little secret nest. I think a little nest in a 
 field, or in a tree, is one of the most interesting 
 things in the world. 
 
 I want to show you just such a little nest. 
 
 It is not in a tree, nor in a field, but in a book. 
 
 It is hidden away in this book which we call 
 
 the Bible, and it has been there for years and 
 
 168 
 
VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 109 
 
 years and years. In that little nest four little 
 animals have been sleeping for centuries and 
 have only been disturbed by preachers, like 
 myself, who occasionally stumble upon them. 
 They are such strange little animals. They are 
 not brothers nor sisters, nor cousins, nor forty- 
 second cousins. They are not relatives at all, 
 and yet they have been in this nest together for 
 years. They do not look alike, but they are all 
 very little and very wise, I will tell you about 
 them, 
 
 I am going to put my hand into the nest and 
 take one out — just one. How quick it is! It 
 runs over my fingers and up my sleeve and 
 round my neck and down my arm, and there 
 it is now, in the hollow of my hand. Let 
 us look at it. It is a little creature, all joints 
 and all nerves. It has six legs and two little 
 hands, but it has no wings. It has the tiniest 
 eyes you ever saw, and the most wonderful 
 brain for its size in the world. I suppose you 
 know what it is. It is an ant. What a wise 
 little thing it is ! It knows how to work, and 
 it knows how to play, and it is clean. It never 
 has dirty hands, nor a dirty face. It knows 
 how to bury the dead, and it knows how to 
 punish the wrongdoer, and it knows how to 
 be kind to the helpless. It belongs to a little 
 society called "The first aid to the injured." 
 
lyo GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 It lives in a home and belongs to a great family. 
 It has a king and a queen, princes and 
 princesses, servants and slaves, friends and 
 neighbours. Do you not think it is very wise 
 even though it is very little? 
 
 It is called wise because of one thing. It 
 prepares its food in the summer time for the 
 long winter months. "The ants are a people 
 not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the 
 summer." It knows how to look ahead. A 
 wise man once watched a little ant, and it 
 worked from six in the morning till ten at 
 night, sixteen long hours, and it never thought 
 once of striking for shorter hours, and it 
 carried one hundred and eighty-seven seeds 
 and laid them away for the long, dark days 
 of the winter. That is why we say that it is 
 very little but very wise. 
 
 Now, boys and girls can be wise in that way 
 also. There is just one summer to every 
 winter; just one dawn to every day; just one 
 childhood to every life, and just one life to 
 every eternity. To get ready for life is to be 
 wise like the ant. When Queen Victoria was 
 a little girl, just eight years old, her teacher 
 slipped into her little book a piece of paper 
 which told her that some day she would be 
 the Queen of England. She looked at it and 
 thought for a long while and then she said, 
 
VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 171 
 
 "I am nearer to the throne than I think. I 
 will try to get ready and I will be good." She 
 was good, and she did get ready and became 
 the greatest and best of queens. We are all 
 nearer the throne than we think, for we are 
 the children of God, who is the King of Kings. 
 And here is a little prayer you may use 
 to ask God to help you be good: 
 
 "I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus, 
 Trusting only thee : 
 Trusting thee for full salvation 
 Great and free. 
 
 "I am trusting thee to guide me. 
 Thou alone shalt lead, 
 Every day and hour supplying 
 All my need. 
 
 "I am trusting thee for power. 
 
 Thine can never fail: 
 Words which thou thyself shalt give me 
 Must prevail. 
 
 "I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus; 
 
 Never let me fall ; 
 I am trusting thee for ever, 
 And for all." 
 
II— VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 
 "The Conies." — Prov. 30:26. 
 
 AS the ant, about which I was speaking 
 in the last story runs off, I put my hand 
 into the Httle nest again and touch a 
 little bit of an animal that feels like a baby 
 rabbit. It is timid and trembles when I touch 
 it. I will hold it in my hand and tell you 
 what it looks like. It is a small greyish-brown 
 little creature with soft fur. It has a little 
 dash of white under its neck and just the name 
 of a tail. It has sharp white teeth and the 
 prettiest of manicured finger nails. It has 
 fourteen toes. If you want to know how many 
 it has on each of its feet, look at the feet 
 of your little kitten when you go home. It is 
 very shy and bashful and you can scarcely get 
 a look at it unless you are very smart. It is 
 called a Coney and it lives in the rocks. I 
 suppose its real name is Hyra. The Bible says 
 it belongs to the "feeble folk," but because they 
 make their houses in the rocks, they are not 
 easily hurt or caught. 
 
 172 
 
VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 173 
 
 That is why they are wise. They are weak, 
 timid little things, but they have strong houses 
 built in the clefts of the solid cliffs. If you 
 lived in the East and wanted to see one, you 
 would have to look smart. You would have 
 to go out in the evening and climb up the rock 
 and lie still and watch. By and by you would 
 see a little head, then you wouldn't see it, then 
 you would see it and then you wouldn't see it, 
 and then again if you kept quiet, out it would 
 come. Then another and another would come, 
 and they would eat and nibble away just like 
 rabbits, but if you make a noise, they are gone 
 in a minute and a whole army of American 
 soldiers could never reach them. They make 
 their houses in the rocks, and so they are wise 
 and safe. 
 
 Are we as wise as the conies? Our safety 
 too depends greatly upon where we build. 
 Jesus tells us to build our house upon 
 the rock where the storm and the tem- 
 pest cannot hurt or harm. I have heard 
 of a boy who started to school and he 
 was going to be a lawyer and become very 
 clever and very great. The teacher said to 
 him, "Well, my lad, after you have finished 
 your studies, what will you do then?" "Oh, I 
 will go to college then." said the boy, and 
 "What then ?" said the teacher. "Then I will 
 
174 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 be a lawyer and wear fine clothes and make 
 fine speeches and talk to the Judge and be a 
 great man." "And what then?" said the 
 teacher. "Then I will be a Judge and decide 
 great cases and people will honour me for being 
 a wise man." "And what then?" said the 
 teacher, and the boy said, "Then I will be very 
 happy and live in a fine house." "And what 
 then?" said the teacher, and the boy said, 
 "Then I suppose I will die like all the rest." 
 "And what then?" but the boy could not an- 
 swer. He had never thought of that, and it is 
 said that after that, he began to think and be- 
 came a Christian. He found the rock and 
 then he was safe. 
 
 "On Christ the solid rock I stand 
 All other ground is sinking sand." 
 
LI 
 
 III— VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 
 "The Locusts." — Prov. 30 : 27. 
 
 1PUT my hand into the nest again and try- 
 to catch another of the four little animals 
 that have been sleeping there for centu- 
 ries. My, but it is hard to catch ! It kicks and 
 jumps and hops and steps about so lively that 
 one has to take both hands to catch it. Well, 
 here it is! It's the most ticklish thing I ever 
 had in my hand. It is like a jumping jack. 
 It seems to be all legs, and to have long legs 
 too. It has long, thin, gauzy wings. It has 
 a little square head and sharp jaw. I won- 
 der if you can guess what it is. Well, I guess 
 it's a grasshopper. The Bible calls it a locust. 
 The interesting thing about this little locust 
 or grasshopper is that it is a soldier. It has 
 no weapons but its teeth and legs and wings, 
 but it is a soldier. It belongs to the infantry, 
 and also to the aviation corps. It can march 
 and it can fly. This is what the Bible says 
 about it, — "The locusts have no king, yet go 
 they forth all of them by companies." If you 
 175 
 
1/6 GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 will turn to another book, it will tell you what 
 wonderful soldiers these little creatures are. 
 "They shall run like mighty men; they shall 
 climb the wall like men of war and they shall 
 march every one on his way ; and they shall not 
 break their ranks: Neither shall one thrust 
 another; they shall walk every one in his path; 
 and when they fall upon the sword, they shall 
 not be wounded. They shall run to and fro 
 in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they 
 shall climb up upon the houses, they shall enter 
 in at the windows like a thief. The earth 
 shall quake before them; the heavens shall 
 tremble : the sun and the moon shall be dark, 
 and the stars shall withdraw their shining." 
 (Joel 2:7-10.) What a wonderful soldier 
 this little locust is ! 
 
 And so this little creature teaches boys and 
 girls to keep step, to march in the ranks, to 
 walk side by side with one another. Some- 
 times we like to get out of step and to do what 
 we please and go our own way, but ii we 
 are to succeed we must keep in step. One day 
 a proud mother was watching the soldiers 
 marching, and her own boy was among them, 
 and afterwards she said, "What fine lads they 
 are and my boy was the only one that was in 
 step." Of course he was out of step, but all 
 good soldiers keep step. 
 
VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 177 
 
 These little locusts had no king yet they kept 
 step and conquered cities and countries. They 
 climbed over walls and houses and made the 
 whole land where they came their own. They 
 were soldiers, however, of famine and distress. 
 They were not soldiers of peace and plenty. 
 We too are soldiers — soldiers of peace, and we 
 have a King and a Leader, and what an army 
 he has ! The best part of his army is the great 
 regiment of little children who make the best 
 soldiers for they follow wherever he leads, and 
 this is the song they sing: — 
 
 "Onward, then, ye people. 
 
 Join our happy throng, _ 
 Blend with ours your voices 
 
 In the triumph-song; 
 Glory, laud, and honour 
 
 Unto Christ the King: 
 This through countless ages 
 
 Men and angels sing. 
 
 "Onward, Christian soldiers. 
 
 Marching as to war. 
 With the cross of Jesus 
 Going on before." 
 
LII 
 
 IV— VERY tITTLE BUT VERY WISE 
 
 "The lizard." — Prov. 30:28. 
 
 THE fourth little animal in this Bible 
 nest has been very patient but at last 
 we must wake it up and learn its les- 
 son. I do not know whether to take it in my 
 hand or not. Perhaps I ought to put on a pair 
 of gloves before I pick it up. Some people 
 think it is poisonous. I hardly think so and 
 I'll run the risk of holding it in my hand. 
 
 I scarcely know what it is. No one seems 
 to know exactly what it is, for its name oc- 
 curs only once in all the Bible, and you can't 
 tell what a thing is if you only hear the name 
 once. Sometimes it is called a spider, and a 
 spider is not a very nice thing to hold in one's 
 hand, and sometimes it is called a lizard, — a 
 little soft-fleshed, delicate, spotted little thing, 
 and this is what the Revised Version of the 
 Bible says about it. "The lizard taketh hold 
 with her hands, yet is she in kings* palaces." 
 
 There is one thing that this little animal can 
 do. It can climb. It is very little, but it can 
 178 
 
VERY LITTLE BUT VERY WISE 179 
 
 climb high. It can climb over walls that are 
 as smooth as the floor, and over ceilings that 
 are as smooth as glass, right up into the very 
 palace of the King, and into the Queen's cham- 
 ber. 
 
 If there is one thing a boy can do — and some 
 girls too, it is to climb. Boys and girls are al- 
 ways climbing, climbing out of their clothes 
 and out of their shoes, and out of their high 
 chairs, and out of their toys and their classes 
 and their schools, and their colleges, up into 
 life, into manhood and womanhood. We 
 would not like them if they did not climb. We 
 want boys and girls to grow, to grow tall and 
 strong and good and beautiful, I can imagine 
 th?t every time Mary looked at Jesus she 
 V ould say, *'JViy, how fast he grows," and when 
 Lake began to write the life of Jesus he soon 
 discovered that he never stayed still but was 
 always growing and so he wrote, "And Jesus 
 grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with 
 God and men," He climbed out of childhood 
 and boyhood into manhood and power and into 
 favour with God and men. A' great writer has 
 said, "No child, no boy, no lad, no young man 
 in all Galilee was In such universal favour, was 
 so popular, and so universally beloved for 
 thirty years as was Jesus of Nazareth," I 
 like to think this was so, and that as the years 
 
i8o GOSPEL STORY-SERMONS 
 
 went by, Jesus grew in loveliness and favour 
 until everybody was his friend and he became 
 the favourite playmate of all his friends. 
 
 God means us to climb and he is always say- 
 ing, "Come up higher." Away over in the 
 mountains of Switzerland there is a little gran- 
 ite tombstone, high up in the mountains, and 
 on it there is the name of the mountain guide 
 who died as he was climbing the snow-capped 
 mountains, and on that little stone, there are 
 carved the words, "He died climbing." I think 
 that is a very good motto for any one. God 
 means us to climb. To climb out of our weak- 
 ness into his strength, out of our sinfulness into 
 his love, and at last out of life into his Eternity. 
 Like the lizard, we too can climb into the very 
 palace of the King. 
 
 Printed in the United State? of America 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 01089 8551 
 
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