QUESTIONS.--How will a plastic face look when you squeeze it on the head and on the chin? When persons are serious or angry, are their faces lengthened? When people laugh what happens to their faces? Suppose one were to be cross and ugly constantly what would occur? If a person were to laugh constantly, what would be the effect upon their face? Can you tell a minister when you see him? If you put pictures in a bottle do they shine through? Do thoughts in the heart shine through the face? Can you repeat that couplet which begins: "Handsome is--"? If we think Christ"s thoughts constantly do we become more like Christ?
If we think bad thoughts do we become unlike Him?
What book is it which says: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he"?
[Ill.u.s.tration]
SEEDS.
THOUGHTS, WORDS, DEEDS--THEIR LIFE AND PERPETUITY.
SUGGESTION:--Seeds, or grain and fruit of any kind can be used for ill.u.s.tration.
MY YOUNG FRIENDS: I have here to-day quite a variety of seeds. Some of them are very small, and some, as you see, are quite large. The seeds of each cla.s.s have in them a principle of life, which makes them differ from sand, or small stones of similar size, because if I plant these seeds in the ground they will grow.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Different Kinds of Seeds.]
When you take different kinds of seeds, there is one thing that is very interesting about them. It is the different kinds of coverings in which they grow. For instance, if you take a chestnut, it grows in a burr with sharp th.o.r.n.y points; others are folded as though rolled up very tightly in leaves, as you will find in the hazel nut or filbert. Some seeds grow in rows, like beans and peas in a pod. Some grow in a very soft bed, like cotton seeds. Some grow imbedded in a downy substance which blows all around, carrying the seed with it, like the thistle, and the light fuzz of the dandelion. Sometimes the seed is buried in the inside of fruit, as in the case of apples, pears, peaches, plums, and various other kinds of fruit. Sometimes it is buried beneath the beautiful leaves of the flower. So you see there is great variety.
Now, these seeds may represent words. There are a great many varieties of words. All words have the principle of life in them, because they express thought; and these thoughts when received into our minds develop into action. Therefore we say that words have a principle of life in them, and it is important that we should be careful not to permit bad words to have a place in our minds. Very often you will see boys and girls reading worthless papers which they think will do them no injury.
But the fact is, that these boys are influenced in all their living by that which they read in these papers. It might be very light and trifling, but it tends to corrupt the mind, to give the boy false ideas of life, and it gives him such opinions as are not real, and therefore very injurious to any one. It is much better that a boy"s valuable time should be spent in reading good books and good papers, and securing such information as will be of value and a.s.sistance to him all through life.
For the life of every boy and of every girl is a very great struggle, and no boy or girl can afford to waste time in the beginning. If they are ever to amount to anything in this world, it is important that they should begin very early in life.
I want to call your attention to another characteristic of these seeds.
And that is when a single seed is planted, it grows up and produces a very great number of other seeds. If you plant a seed of wheat, it will produce 30, 60, or sometimes 100 other seeds. If you plant one sunflower seed it might produce as many as 4,000 seeds. If you plant one single thistle seed, it has been known to produce as high as 24,000 seeds in a single summer. If you were to plant only one grain of corn and let it grow until it is ripe, and then plant the seeds again which grew on these few ears of corn, and thus continue to re-plant again and again, we are told by those who have calculated it very carefully, that in only five short years the amount of corn that could be grown as the result of the planting of the one single seed would be sufficient to plant a hill of corn, with three grains in every square yard of all the dry land on all the earth. In ten years the product would be sufficient to plant not only this entire world, both land and sea, but all the planets, or worlds which circle around our sun, and some of them are even a thousand times larger than our own globe. So you see that there is wonderful multiplying power in the different kinds of grain which you plant.
So it is with the thoughts and the words which we have in our minds.
Good thoughts enter into good acts, and these acts influence others just as though the same thought was sown into their minds, and then it springs up into their lives and influences them. Just so when we have read a book, whether the book is good or bad, its influence goes on reproducing itself, over and over again in our lives, every time in a multiplied form. Suppose with your money you send some Bibles to the heathen, and as a result a single person is converted. Immediately that person would influence other heathen people whom he would meet, and so, one after the other, these heathen would be influenced as the result of what you have done. This good influence would go on repeating itself over and over again, as long as the world shall stand, and only in eternity would the wonderful results of what you have done be fully known. So it is with all that we say and all that we do; it goes on repeating and multiplying itself over and over again.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Pyramids.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Egyptian Mummies.]
Now, there is another interesting feature of these seeds to which I want to call your attention. And that is that the life in the seed may continue for a very long time, even hundreds of years. Over in Egypt, centuries ago, they built large pyramids, and when a king died, instead of burying his body in the ground, they embalmed it with spices and dried it, so that it would not decay. Then they wrapped it up in cloths, and with these cloths and bandages they sometimes wrapped wheat or some other kind of grain. Some of these mummies, for so they are called, which have been buried possibly twenty-five hundred years, have been found; and when the wheat has been taken out of the hands of these mummies and planted in the ground, under favorable conditions, it has grown just the same as the wheat which was harvested from the fields only last summer. The life which was in the seed had not been destroyed by the many hundreds of years which have pa.s.sed since it was placed in the hand of the mummy.
Some years ago there was a very interesting case of this kind in England. At Dorchester they were digging down some thirty feet below the surface, and at that depth they came upon the remains of the body of a man, with which there had been buried some coins. By the date upon the coins, they knew that this body had been buried at least seventeen hundred years. In the stomach was found quite a large quant.i.ty of raspberry seeds. The man had doubtless eaten a large number of raspberries, and then might have been accidentally killed very soon afterward, so that the seeds were not injured by the gastric juices of the stomach. These seeds were taken to the Horticultural Garden, and there they were planted. What do you think! After seventeen hundred years and more, these seeds grew, and in a short time there was an abundant fruitage of raspberries, just the same as though the seeds had been gathered from raspberries which grew only the year before. Although hidden and seemingly dead, yet these seeds retained their life for seventeen hundred years or more.
In this same way there is a deathless power in the words which we speak, even though they are spoken hastily and without thought upon our part.
Our words have in them the element of a life which is well-nigh endless.
You may yourself remember some unkind words which were spoken to you months and months ago. The boy or girl who spoke them may have forgotten all about them, but you still remember them, and they cause you pain every time you think of them. Or it may be that some kind person has spoken tenderly and affectionately to you. The person himself may have been so accustomed to speaking kindly that he forgot entirely what he had said, but his kind words still live in your memory. There is a beautiful hymn written some years ago, which begins: "Kind words can never die."
About fifty years ago there were some boys in a school yard playing marbles. Two other boys were playing tag. One of the boys who were playing tag chanced to run across the ring in which the boys were playing marbles. One of these boys was accustomed to speaking ugly words and doing very hasty and cruel things. He sprang to his feet and kicked the boy who had run across the ring, wounding him in the right knee. The injury was of such a nature that the bones of that leg below the knee never grew any more, and as a result, for over forty years that boy has had to walk on crutches. You see how permanent the result of this injury has been; and the results of unkind words may be just as injurious and no less permanent than the unreasonable and wicked thing which this boy did in his anger.
You may sometimes be discouraged because the kind words which you speak and the kind deeds which you do seem to fail of a good result. But you can be a.s.sured that even though you grow to old age and your body were to be laid away in the grave, yet sometime, in the lives of those who come after you, the good you have done will surely bear its fruitage of blessing.
QUESTIONS.--Are there many different kinds of seeds? Do apple trees ever grow from peach seeds?
Do good thoughts grow from bad words, or bad thoughts from good words? Do seeds have a principle of life in them? Do words and thoughts have a principle of life? How many centuries have seeds been known to retain their life? Have the teachings of the Bible retained their life for many hundreds of years? Into what do good thoughts turn? (Acts). Into what do good acts turn?
(Character). Can any boy or girl afford to use their time in reading worthless books or papers?
Do words and deeds have the element of unending life in them? Is it a dangerous thing to get angry? What did one of the boys who were playing marbles do to the boy who ran across the ring? As the result, how many years has the injured boy walked with crutches? Will the good that we do be as permanent as the evil that we might do?
SOWING.
THE SPRING TIME OF LIFE.
SUGGESTION:--The object used is a bag or sack, or a pillow slip would answer the same purpose, hung about the neck as a farmer uses it when sowing seed. While this is not essential, it can be used if desired.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS: Spring is the most pleasant season of the year; the snow has melted, the cold weather has pa.s.sed away, and now the warm, pleasant days have come. The trees are all in blossom, the fields look beautiful, and the air is full of sweetness. If you go into the country at this season of the year you will find the farmers plowing their fields, and some are sowing grain. The spring wheat has already been sown, the oat fields will soon begin to look green, and in the course of a few weeks the farmers will be planting their corn.
It must have been at a corresponding period of the year in the East, when Jesus spoke those beautiful words which are found in the 13th chapter of St. Matthew, contained in the parable of the sower who went out to sow. A great mult.i.tude of people had gathered to hear the words which fell from the lips of Jesus. They could no longer gain admission into the house, and so Jesus went down by the sea, or the large lake, and getting into a boat he pushed out just a little way from the sh.o.r.e, so all the people standing along the sh.o.r.e could see and hear Him, and then He began to preach to them. Just back of them on the plain was a farmer who was more intent upon sowing his field than upon listening to the words of the Saviour. As Jesus saw him pacing to and fro across the field, scattering the grain in the furrows, Jesus very likely pointed to the man, calling the attention of the mult.i.tude to what he was doing, and said to the people, "Behold a sower went forth to sow," and then called the attention of the people to the character of the soil in the different places where the seed fell.
In the country the farmers use a sack or bag. After having tied the opposite ends together, they hang this over their neck and shoulder, and with the right hand left free, they march up and down the field, sowing the grain. This sowing is not so common any more, because farmers now often plant their grain fields with a machine called a drill.
With this sack suspended about the neck, in this way, the farmer reaches in and takes out a small handful of seed, and then swinging his hand, throws the seed over a considerable portion of the ground. Thus he walks from one end of the field to the other, sowing the seed, until he has the entire field sown and ready for the men who follow with the harrow to cover up the grain.
Well, boys and girls, this is the spring-time of life with you. These are the pleasant days and years of your life. You have very little care.
Yet it is, nevertheless, the spring-time. You are now making preparations which will tell what is to be the harvest in the later years of your lives. As the farmer goes out and plows the field, so by discipline and by counsel, and by instruction are your parents preparing your minds and hearts that in after years you may enjoy a harvest of great blessing.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Behold a Sower went Forth to Sow]
In the spring-time of life, when young persons are to do the sowing, they need much careful counsel and instruction. I suppose that there are many boys and girls who, if they were to go into the country, could not tell the difference between wheat and barley, or oats and rye. Some might not even be able to distinguish between oats and buckwheat. If the farmer were to send you out to sow, you would, most likely, sow the wrong kind of grain. In the same manner, it is important that you should be directed by your parents, because they can distinguish between right and wrong. They know what you should do, and what you should not do.
Therefore it is important that they should direct you in the spring-time, lest you should sow the wrong kind of grain. And you know the Bible says: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wheat and Tares.]
It is not only difficult for those who have never seen something of life in the country, to distinguish between the different kinds of grain which the farmer sows, but even after the grain begins to grow, it is sometimes difficult, even for those who are familiar with country life, to distinguish between the true and the false. In that same thirteenth chapter of the gospel by St. Matthew, to which I referred in the beginning, Jesus tells of a farmer who sowed his field with wheat, and while he slept an enemy came and sowed tares. Of course he could not discover this until the grain began to grow. When it began to get ripe, then for the first could he distinguish between the stalks of the wheat and the stalks of the tares. By doing this wicked thing the enemy gave the farmer a great deal of trouble. Just so it is with you when you have tried to do right, Satan comes and puts evil thoughts and wicked purposes into your mind, and then if you permit these to grow up, you will find that they will give you a great deal of trouble. It is important that only the good seed should be sown in the field of your heart, and in the field of your mind, so that you may have a fruitage that shall be wholly good.
Sometimes you see boys and girls who are doing things which you would like to do, but your mother and father tell you that you should not. You may not be pleased because you are restrained from doing what you would like to do. I well remember how my father, when I was a boy, oftentimes used to restrain me from doing what I saw other boys doing. I used to think, at that time, that he was not considerate, and possibly not kind to me. But now that I have grown older, and have seen the results which have come to those boys, some of whom have gone astray, and others who have turned out badly in life, I see how wise my father was. Although I did not feel at the time that he was doing that which was for my good; now I see it all very plainly.
In closing, let me say to you, do as Isaiah suggested, "Sow by the side of all waters." That is, be very diligent, that day by day you may do some kind act, which will hereafter spring up into a fruitage of very great good. The Bible enjoins upon both young and old to be very diligent in this work, for it says, "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good."
(Eccl. xi: 6.)
When you go to school during the week, and to Sunday-school and church service on Sunday, and when being instructed and taught at home, remember that all the instruction you are receiving is like the seed that falls upon the waiting soil in the early spring-time from the hand of an intelligent farmer. In the parable which Jesus spake, He tells how that some of the seed fell by the wayside, some among thorns and some upon stony ground, while others fell upon good ground. While the seed was the same kind in all instances, it was only that which fell upon the good ground which brought forth a fruitage of thirty, sixty and an hundred fold. If the fruitage of your life in the harvest of the after-years is to be abundant in good and blessing, it can only be because you receive the instruction of your parents, your teachers and your pastor into a good and honest heart. Others may sow faithfully, but after all the result must depend upon you.
QUESTIONS.--Which is the most pleasant season of the year? Why? What is the farmer"s special work in the spring-time? Why is the farmer careful to sow good grain? What period of life is best represented by spring? If the farmer failed to sow in the spring, would he have a harvest in the autumn? How does he know what kind of grain he will reap at harvest time? Does wheat ever produce oats? Or clover seed produce wheat? What happened while the farmer slept? Who sowed the tares in his field? Who sows the tares in our minds? What do we call these tares? Should they be removed or permitted to grow? Should we be thankful to our parents for preventing tares from being sown? In what kind of soil did the grain grow to a fruitage of thirty, sixty and an hundred fold?
[Ill.u.s.tration]
REAPING.