THE SIMPLE LIFE --Haste --Quietness
The True Christian Life is the Safe, Sensible, Simple Life.
THE LESSON--That speed and greed must of necessity end in dire disaster.
It is a splendid thing to teach the boys and girls the lesson that true happiness attends the quiet, yet active life, while the race after vain things brings only bitterness and disappointment.
~~The Talk.~~
[Because of the details in the drawing of the boat, it is advisable, we think, to complete Fig. 64 before beginning the talk.]
"In these days the very air seems filled with the "speed germ."
Automobiles whiz here and there, and many a hen which now tries to cross the country road never gets more than half way. We who live in town have to keep a sharp lookout or we are apt to share the fate of many a valuable Buff Cochin or Plymouth Rock. Trains speed along their glistening rails faster than ever before. Great ships skim across the ocean in days instead of weeks. The aeroplane, which needs neither steel rails nor water to glide upon, darts through s.p.a.ce still more rapidly. Everybody seems to be in a hurry, whether he is or not. We are impatient if the street car is half a minute late, when we are fully aware that we have plenty of time to reach our destination.
"Again, we fret and work because we aren"t getting rich fast enough. We get mad at our neighbor because he buys an automobile and despise him because we can"t figure where he got the money with which to do it. We aren"t satisfied with having $50,000. We want $500,000. And if we should get it, we would be just as dissatisfied and go chasing after a million. What"s the matter with us? Are we crazy? Some women spend $50,000 a year on their clothes, whose mothers dressed better, looked better, felt better and were better on $500 or even a single hundred! In our mad chase after vain things how blind we are to the things of true worth and usefulness!
"Every little while we get a shock that ought to bring us to our senses. When we learn of a terrible railroad wreck, we may expect to find the blame placed on someone for disobeying orders, or for other carelessness, but the true cause in nearly every instance is the cry of the public--of you and me and the other fellow--for speed--more speed--and still more speed!
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 64]
"The greatest marine disaster in the world"s history was the staking of the magnificent White Star line steamship, the t.i.tanic, in April, 1912. [Remove your cover sheet and display Fig. 64.] Larger, faster and more costly than any vessel ever before built, it left its docks with its hundreds of pa.s.sengers and members of the crew--a floating city in itself. Among the pa.s.sengers were many whose names are recorded on the rolls of the world"s greatest scientists, financiers, artists and authors. With eager, happy hearts, they looked forward to the celebration in New York which awaited the arrival of this foremost of the world"s floating palaces. Alas, it was never to be! The story is too horrible for repet.i.tion. The fatal collision with the great iceberg--the heroism, the sacrifice, the loss of hundreds of precious lives as the vessel plunged into the depths of the ocean, are known in all their horror. [Add lines to produce Fig. 65.] The few in the lifeboats, looking toward the sinking vessel, heard the ship"s band playing "Nearer, My G.o.d, to Thee," as the great ship, with its living load sank from sight. Hundreds of broken hearts still mourn the loss of dear ones, and all because the big, loaded ship was forced to run a race with time! Those in charge knew of the presence of the icebergs. They could have saved the loss by changing their route or slackening their speed, but the cry was, "Hurry! Hurry! Break the record!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 65]
"Aren"t we all doing the same thing! The speed mania possesses us. The senseless race for worldly wealth and honor blinds us to the presence of threatened disaster. Let us quickly change our course. Christ our Master, points the way of safety. He has gone that way himself, and he asks each humble follower to take the course which He has so plainly marked out. It is the way of truth and peace. If we take it, we shall avoid every danger of a spiritual crash, which may mean disaster for soul as well as body."
WARMTH AND COLDNESS --Sunday --Rest
A Talk on Sunday Observance and Its Relation to the Christian Life.
THE LESSON--That the things we think and do on the Lord"s day are a true index of our character.
The importance of the matter of Sunday observance must not be underestimated by the teacher whose endeavor it is to mould into true manhood and womanhood the lives of the boys and girls in her care.
~~The Talk.~~
"How many of you boys and girls ever played the game called "Hide the Thimble?" Ah, I thought so--nearly everybody. One person bides the thimble and all the others try to find it; the one who discovers it first gets the chance to hide it the next time. Sometimes, the one who has hidden it a.s.sists the others to find it by saying, "You are warm"
or "You are cold," depending upon the nearness to or the distance from the hidden thimble.
"When we stop to think about it, we find that many things in the world are just like this game. Your life and mine are a great deal like it. Sometimes there is something within us that tells us we are wandering away from G.o.d--that tells us we are _growing cold_. And then, if we heed the warning, we hear the same voice saying we are _growing warmer_, and we know it to be true for we feel the a.s.surance that we are nearer to the Master than before.
"I am going to draw on the paper this morning a thermometer, and with this thermometer we shall make some tests to see just what it means to be warm Christians or cold ones. [Draw the thermometer, Fig. 66, complete, excepting the liquid in the bulb.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 66]
"Now we are ready to make the test, and we are going to do it by finding out how we spend our Sundays. Why? Because if you can know just how a boy or girl or a man or woman spends the Lord"s day, you can tell pretty nearly just what kind of a person that one is in the sight of Jesus Christ.
"G.o.d gave us this one day for our greatest good. He wants us to use it as a day which shall make us strong and well, bright and happy. If we use it any other way, we are sure to make one of the greatest mistakes of our lives. So certain is G.o.d that we must have a day of rest and upbuilding once in each seven days that he made a law concerning it. It is one of the Ten Commandments, which says that we must "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." G.o.d knows best. When He establishes a law, _it must not be broken or the one who breaks it will suffer_. If the child touches fire with his hand, after being warned by his mother not to do it, his suffering is the result of doing what the mother forbade. When G.o.d tells us to keep His day holy, every one of us who disobeys that command must suffer. Let us see how it works. Bishop Vincent says: "Sunday is ill-spent if it sends us back to our weekly work irritated, weary and reluctant"--and Sunday will never do that for us unless we misuse the day which G.o.d has given us. If we spend the day in worrying about our everyday affairs, if we spend it in chasing around after senseless amus.e.m.e.nts which weary the body without enlightening the heart and the mind, if we allow ourselves to follow paths which lead away from truth and right, then we will show up Monday morning irritated, weary and reluctant and our Sunday observance temperature is low indeed. [With red chalk, fill the bulb and a portion of the thermometer tube, completing Fig. 66.]
"But Bishop Vincent also says, "Sunday is well spent if it sends us back refreshed in body, mind and spirit to take up our duties with new inspiration of hope, patience and courage." And we can all do this; and, as we do it, we shall find a growing delight in it. If we have been wasting our Sundays--spending them in such a way that when Monday morning comes we look back upon the Sabbath with regret--let us begin right now to form habits which shall make Sunday a delight--the brightest, the most restful, the most interesting, the most refreshing of all times. And let us be thankful that a day of this kind can come to us so often. It is then that our Sunday observance temperature will rise to its highest point. [With red chalk add lines to complete Fig. 67.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 67]
"Dr. Lyman Abbott, like many others points out the folly of attending church services in the morning and then pa.s.sing the remainder of the day in noisy or wearisome celebration. He calls it a "weekly composite of Thanksgiving and Fourth of July,"--Thanksgiving in the quiet of the morning, and Fourth of July in the noisy afternoon.
"Such an observance of the day is displeasing to G.o.d who gave us the day for our greatest good and not to be wasted in idleness and folly.
"Keeping the Lord"s day holy doesn"t deprive us of activity, but it changes the course of our action from paths of wastefulness to fields of the greatest good. There are many things to do on Sunday, and in the doing of some of them right at your hands, you will have discovered the best way for you to get the most out of one of G.o.d"s greatest gifts to his children."
THE DESERT and the MOUNTAIN --Decision Day --Conversion
A Decision Day Ill.u.s.tration From the Far West--"Living Water."
THE LESSON--That as the desert cannot become productive until it receives the waters of irrigation, so the arid soul, if it is to become fruitful, must receive the water of life.
While this ill.u.s.tration is especially applicable to the service of Decision Day, it is recommended for any occasion where there is opportunity to speak of conversion or a returning to Christ.
~~The Talk.~~
"A gentleman, a little past middle life, was traveling from the east in a luxurious pa.s.senger train crossing one of the far western states. As he gazed from the car window, his face wore an expression of interest, which developed into one of wonder and excitement.
""Can it be," he exclaimed, addressing the man who sat with him, "that I am pa.s.sing through the very same country which I saw but a few short years ago? It seems impossible!"
"Now, why did it seem impossible? Let us find out. It appears that when the man traveled the state before, he looked out of the car windows upon a scene of barrenness and desolation. [As you speak, draw Fig. 68 with brown crayon. Be sure to leave the mountain peaks white, but, in order to secure an impressive pastel effect use the broad side of your brown and your yellow crayons lightly over the entire area of desert and mountain side.] The earth was dry and parched, and in all directions, as far as the eye could see, grew only the sage brush--the mark of the desert. There was no life, excepting an occasional coyote, and the reflected heat and light made travel almost unbearable. The monotonous earth was composed of the leveled deposits of the mountains which the sun had baked for centuries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 68]
[As you continue, change the scene by covering the brown with green. Draw the foliage of the trees with green and the trunks with brown. Life may be added by touching the trees with the red and the yellow and the orange to indicate the fruit. The thought is to transform the desert into a place of fruitfulness. This completes Fig. 69.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 69]
"But now, all was changed as if by a magic touch. In place of the sage brush and the broad wastes of baking earth, the man beheld here great orchards, with hundreds of fruit trees, laden with glistening apples, oranges and pears, and wide fields were covered with bounteous crops of grain. The once arid wilderness was now the fertile dwelling place of many happy families.
"What had wrought this great change? Nothing but the hand and mind of man, guided by the maker of the universe, who seems to have stored rich treasures everywhere for those who will reach out for them. It happened in this way:
"One day, a certain man beheld the snow-capped mountains--cold and forbidding--and then he turned his gaze to the earth--parched and dead. He knew that if he could only unite the waters of the snow-capped mountains with the dead earth below them, "the desert would blossom as the rose." Before this thing happened, two-thirds of the entire area of the United States was a desert waste. But the waters were brought down, and the great transformation followed.
Gradually, the arid waste is disappearing and the forces of irrigation are expanding; and the vast western country is unfolding to the millions who are spreading over its newly-discovered areas of wealth.
"Let us turn quickly to the application. There are, in every community, many human deserts--men and women, boys and girls, whose unproductive lives need the waters of life to make them blossom and bring forth fruit in His kingdom. Perhaps they have beheld Him only as a cold, forbidding mountain peak, and if this is true, they should catch the spirit of the Psalmist who cried, "My soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is."