But there is one great encouragement, and that is, that although the leaves fall, the tree stands. The leaf perishes, but the tree abides, and year after year, sometimes for centuries, it goes on increasing in stature and in strength, abiding as the giant of the forest. So also, when at last each of us must die, that which we have built shall abide, and what we have received from others and to which we have added our efforts and our labors, others shall receive from us, and they also shall carry on the work in which we have been engaged. So each generation receives and carries on the work of those who have gone before. As the poet has well said,
"Like leaves on trees, the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withered on the ground; Another race the following age supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise; So generations in their course decay So perish these when those have pa.s.sed away."
The tree stands a monument of strength and beauty at the grave of all the dead leaves which lie buried at its feet. So what each boy and girl, each man and woman, shall have accomplished of good or evil, will remain after they have perished and pa.s.sed away, to tell of their lives, and G.o.d will note the result. He who says that not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without His notice, and who tells us that the very hairs of our heads are all numbered, He will note our deeds, and He will be our reward.
If I were speaking now to older people I might call attention to the fact that the autumn leaves are more beautiful than the summer leaves.
And so boys and girls, it seems to me, and it has always thus seemed to me, that there is something more beautiful in manhood and womanhood, during the later years of life, than during the earlier years. Always honor and respect the aged whose heads are gray, whose features are venerable and whose characters are Christ-like.
QUESTIONS.--Are the leaves alike on all trees? In what ways are the leaves like the tree on which they grew? Are Sunday-school scholars much like the school that they attend? Are grown people greatly influenced by the pastor who preaches to them, and the people with whom they are a.s.sociated? Of what are great trees the result?
How do leaves accomplish this? When a leaf drops from the tree, what has already started? What do fading and dropping leaves represent? Does the tree abide when the leaves fall? When we die do the great influences which we have helped forward remain to bless the world? Who still notes our deeds when we pa.s.s away? Which are more beautiful, summer or autumn leaves? What periods of life are they like?
THE TURTLE.
MEN LIKE AND YET UNLIKE THE ANIMALS.
SUGGESTION:--While it is not at all necessary to present any special objects, it will add to the interest if the parent has a turtle sh.e.l.l or even the sh.e.l.ls of oysters, clams or abalone, which are somewhat the same in principle, the outside cover of the animal const.i.tuting both its home and defence, although differing from the turtle in other respects.
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: I want to show you to-day how in some respect we are like the animals, and how in other respects we are very unlike them.
To ill.u.s.trate what I desire to say I have brought this small turtle sh.e.l.l. From the way that some boys treat flies and bugs, and birds, cats and dogs and all kinds of animals you would suppose that many boys and some girls think that animals have no feeling. Boys who have never suffered any bodily pain themselves, oftentimes act as though they thought that animals could not suffer pain, but in this they are greatly mistaken. Animals can and do suffer pain, the same as people suffer pain, and in order to defend them against their enemies G.o.d has provided these creatures of His hand with some means of protecting themselves.
The birds can fly away. Some animals, like foxes, have holes in the ground where they can hide. Others, like the squirrel, hide in the hollow trees. Bees can sting. Some cattle have horns for defence, and some others, which are not as capable of defending themselves against the stronger animals, G.o.d has marvellously provided with two stomachs.
The cow goes out in the field and crops off the gra.s.s rapidly and can then go to a place of shelter and lie down, and there, protected from the attack of wild beasts, chew what she has gathered. This is known in the country as chewing the cud. The same is true with sheep; they also bite off the gra.s.s and swallow it quickly. It pa.s.ses into a first stomach and then they can lie down in some quiet place and chew the cud; or in other words chew that which they have hastily bitten off in the fields.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Turtle.]
Now the turtle cannot escape from his enemies because he cannot run very rapidly, and so G.o.d has covered him with a coat of mail and given him a helmet, a hard, bony covering for the head and this large bony covering for his body, which we can very properly call his house. When danger approaches, the turtle quickly draws his head and his feet into this large sh.e.l.l, and is quite safe from the attack of his enemies. Whatever animal might desire to eat the turtle is prevented on account of this hard outer sh.e.l.l. On this lower part you will notice how the turtle can draw the front portion up more closely, and thus the more securely shut himself within his house. So you see how G.o.d has provided all the animals with a means of protection and defense, first, to protect their lives, and secondly, to save them from pain and suffering.
While G.o.d has thus successfully protected them against other animals, they are not protected against the superior intelligence and ingenuity of man. The birds can fly faster than the man can run, but man can shoot the bird with an arrow or with a rifle. So with all the other animals.
Now G.o.d has made it right for us to kill animals for food, but it is very wrong for us to destroy animals for the simple pleasure of taking life, and it is also very wicked to inflict pain unnecessarily upon any of the animals.
I want to tell you about a boy who was once strolling through the fields with his sister. They found a nest of rabbits. The sister was charmed with the beautiful nest itself and with its living occupants, but the boy teased them, mimicking their squeaks and their struggles. In vain his sister plead with him not to hurt these pretty little creatures, but the wicked boy flung them up into the air one by one and shouted when each fell dead upon the stones. Ten years after the sister sat weeping again by that boy"s side. He was in chains, sentenced to be hanged for shooting a farmer who was hunting in a neighbor"s field. They were waiting for the awful procession to knock at the cell door. "Sister," he said, "do you remember the nest of rabbits ten years ago; how you begged and prayed, and how I ridiculed? I verily believe that from that day G.o.d forsook me, and left me to follow my own inclinations. If I had yielded to your tears then, you and I would not be weeping these bitter tears now."
You see how it is that boys who have no regard for the suffering, or the preservation of the life of animals are likely to inflict pain and even to take the lives of people.
But I want to call your attention to another respect in which we are like the animals, or perhaps, more correctly, in which the animals are like us. The forms of most all animals have some resemblance to each other, and all are somewhat in form like man. If you take the bird, his wings correspond to our arms, his legs and feet are somewhat like ours, only his toes are longer, and the nails are slightly different in form.
If you will take the horse you will see that his neck is longer than ours, that his front legs correspond to our arms, and if you take your fingers and press them together you will see how, if you were to study the anatomy of the horse"s foot carefully, it resembles the bones in our hands, and the bony foot of the horse corresponds to the nails on the ends of our fingers, only that in the case of the horse the nails are all in one, forming the hoof, to which the blacksmith nails the shoe. The horse"s hoof, however, is not solid as you might think, but only a sh.e.l.l, the same as the nails on the ends of our fingers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Birds.]
Now if you were to take the turtle that lives in this sh.e.l.l or house you would find that he also has four legs, the front legs corresponding to our arms, and his hind legs corresponding to our legs and feet. On the end of each of his feet he has nails, the same as you and I have at the extremities of our hands and feet. But I am sure you would say that the turtle was very much unlike us, in that he has such a hard sh.e.l.l of a house which he carries about with him. But if you will feel of your hands you will discover that you have bones inside of your hands. So you have bones in your arms and all through your body. These bones of your body are covered with flesh, so our bones are _inside_ of us. But with this turtle almost all of his bones are made into one bone, and that is on the _outside_ of his body.
Our muscles, with which we move our hands and feet and different portions of our body, are attached to the bones which are inside of us.
His muscles are attached to the bone which is on the outside of him. So you see that we are like him, in that both of us have bones, only his are on the outside while ours are on the inside.
His bone or sh.e.l.l is a covering and a defense. Our bones, on the inside of us, are so constructed as to enable us to defend ourselves also. G.o.d has given the turtle a house, but He has given us the knowledge and the skill, so that we can construct our own house. We are created with capacity to till the earth and to subdue the wild beasts of the forest, and with our superior intelligence to be king over all the other creatures which G.o.d has created.
Now, there are several lessons which we may learn from what I have said.
G.o.d has protected all animals against their foes. He has not fully protected the animals against us, but He expects us to use our intelligence and our better nature, to be thoughtful and careful not to inflict pain even upon the worm or insect which crawls upon the ground beneath our feet.
While our bodies are somewhat like the bodies of birds and beasts, in our moral nature we are not like the animals, but like G.o.d. We were made in the moral likeness and image of G.o.d. We have intelligence and G.o.d has made us to know right from wrong. The animals have no conscience. Cattle do not recognize any wrong when they break out of their owner"s pasture and break into a neighbor"s cornfield. We do not say that cattle have sinned, because they know nothing of ownership. They do not know what is right and what is wrong, and, therefore, are not accountable beings. In our intellectual, moral and spiritual nature we are superior to everything else that G.o.d has created. We have a moral nature. We know what is right and what is wrong, and, therefore, we are accountable beings. G.o.d has made us free to follow our own purpose and, therefore, we are to be held accountable. G.o.d has created us not for a few days of life upon the earth, but He has made us immortal, and if we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and accept Him as our Saviour and love and serve Him upon the earth, our condition in the next world will be one of great blessing and happiness.
G.o.d has given the turtle a house. He has given us intelligence and all the materials and left us to construct the house in which we are to live upon this earth. But in heaven He has built our house for us. Jesus said: "In My Father"s house are many mansions." The German translation has it, "In My Father"s house are many homes." "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."
Death may be a misfortune to a poor turtle, but not to a Christian man or woman, or a Christian boy or girl. Death is only the blessed Saviour coming to take us unto Himself.
QUESTIONS.--Do animals feel pain? Has G.o.d provided for their protection? Does the turtle have bones?
Are your bones on the outside or the inside of your body? Where are the turtle"s bones princ.i.p.ally? How does the turtle protect himself?
Tell the story of the bad boy and the little rabbits. Are the forms of animals similar to the form of our bodies? To what part of our body do the wings of the bird and the front legs of a horse or cow correspond? Do animals have a moral nature and a conscience? Are they accountable to G.o.d for their conduct? Are we?
GRa.s.sHOPPER AND ANT.
NEGLIGENCE AND INDUSTRY.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Royal Exchange, London.]
THE largest city of the world is across the ocean, in England. In the busiest part of London is a very large building, called the Royal Exchange. On the top of the pinnacle, or tower, of this large stone building is a large gra.s.shopper, and the English people have this legend in reference to it: It is related that some three hundred and seventy-five years ago, a woman, whose purposes we cannot know, might have been seen hurrying along a country lane, some distance outside of the city. Hastening along she came to a gate leading into a field, and looking in every direction to be sure that no one was near, she took off her shawl and wrapped it carefully around a little baby which she had concealed under her arm, and laid it gently by the side of a hedge. And then turning back to the lane, she soon disappeared in the distance. An hour or two later a little girl and a rollicking, frolicking boy, possibly returning from school, were crossing the field. It was in the later days of summer, when b.u.t.terflies and gra.s.shoppers abounded. As this light-hearted boy was whistling along his way, a large gra.s.shopper bounded across his path, and, true to the instincts of childhood, the boy started in pursuit of the gra.s.shopper. The chase was only begun when the gra.s.shopper crossed the fence and landed in a grain field, which in England is called a corn field. Stooping to catch his prize, the boy discovered near by what proved to be a bright little baby, fast asleep in its mother"s shawl. Joyful with the prize which they had found, the boy took it up in his arms, and hastened to his mother, who, although a farmer"s wife, with many cares and several children, resolved to adopt the little stranger as her own.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Gra.s.shopper.]
Years pa.s.sed on, and the infant boy grew to be a man of industry and economy, and finally became one of the richest and most influential men in the city of London. Queen Elizabeth, who was then upon the throne, often consulted him, and in after years, as an expression of grat.i.tude to the great city in which he had acc.u.mulated his wealth, and for the royal favor which had been shown him, he built the Bourse, or what is called the Royal Exchange, and in recognition of the kind Providence which had used the gra.s.shopper to lead the steps of the boy to where the baby was lying in the fields, Sir Thomas Gresham, for that was his name, placed this large gra.s.shopper in stone, upon the topmost pinnacle of this Royal Exchange. While I cannot vouch for the historical accuracy of this legend, yet it beautifully ill.u.s.trates the truth that G.o.d often uses an humble insect for the accomplishment of His great providences.
Now, I want to tell you something about the gra.s.shopper, and also about the ant.
The gra.s.shopper is very much like that cla.s.s of boys who want to have a good time, play and frolic from day to day, but never go to school or work, but live for the play and pleasure to be enjoyed each day as it pa.s.ses. The gra.s.shopper jumps from place to place across the field, eating his food wherever he can find it, and then spends his days and weeks in idleness. He never stops to think that the summer will soon pa.s.s away, the fields will then be barren, the cold autumn will come, when the fields will be left desolate and covered with snow. So finally when the autumn comes, he has no food laid up for the winter, but dies of poverty and hunger. This little poem which I read in the schoolbooks, when I was a boy, will tell the whole story:
SONG OF THE GRa.s.sHOPPER.
I saw a brown old gra.s.shopper, And he sat upon a stone, While ever and anon he chirped In a sad and mournful tone: And many an anxious, troubled look He cast around the naked plain; Where now was but a stubble field, Once waved the golden grain.
What ails thee, old brown gra.s.shopper?
His voice was low and faint, As in the language of his race He made this dire complaint: "O! in the long bright summer time I treasured up no store, Now the last full sheaf is garnered, And the harvest days are o"er."
What didst thou, brown old gra.s.shopper, When the summer days were long?
"I danced on the fragrant clover tops, With many a merry song; O! we were a blithesome company, And a joyous life we led; But with the flowers and summer hours, My gay companions fled: Old age and poverty are come, The autumn wind is chill, It whistles through my tattered coat, And my voice is cracked and shrill.
In a damp and gloomy cavern Beneath this cold, gray stone, I must lay me down and perish-- I must perish all alone.
Alas! that in life"s golden time I treasured up no store, For now the sheaves are gathered in, And the harvest days are o"er."
He ceased his melancholy wail, And a tear was in his eye, As he slowly slid from the cold gray stone, And laid him down to die.
And then I thought, t"were well if all In pleasure"s idle throng, Had seen that old brown gra.s.shopper And heard his dying song: For life"s bright, glowing summer Is hasting to its close, And winter"s night is coming-- The night of long repose.
O! garner then in reaping time, A rich, unfailing store, Ere the summer hours are past and gone, And the harvest days are o"er!