The Greatest Mill In The World

 “They will lick dust like a snake, like creatures that crawl on the ground. They will come trembling out of their dens; they will turn in fear to the LORD our God and will be afraid of you.” —Micah 7:17  

       There is a riddle. What is the greatest mill in the world? I feel sure you can never guess it. Let us count over all the mills we know. First of all there is the mill where grain is ground into flour. We call it a flour mill or a grist mill, and we have all seen those great flour mills where harvest fields of wheat are ground up to make flour for bread. It was of the miller of such a mill that the old folks used to sing:

“There was a jolly miller once
Lived on the River Dee;
He worked and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he.

“And this the burden of his song
Forever used to be,
‘I care for nobody, no, not I,
If no one cares for me.’”

He was a rather selfish, independent old miller, I guess. But a flour mill is not the greatest mill in the world.
       Then there were the great steel mills of Pittsburgh that roared and flashed and smoked and sometimes made noises like thunder and sent out flames like lightning. They lined the banks of our great rivers for miles, but even they were not the greatest in the world.
       The greatest mill in the world is quiet, and very still. It never thunders. It never roars. You could pass over it and never notice it. No, it is not a beehive, although that is a great mill, but it is not quiet and still, for bees buzz and fret and fume a great deal. No, it is not an ant hill, but you are getting nearer, “getting hot,” as we say. An ant hill is a great mill, and it is quiet and silent and so busy that if you put a thermometer right into an ant hill you will find there is a rise in temperature on account of the work done in that little mill. Will you give up? You can never guess. Let me tell you.
       Well, the greatest miller in the world is—a worm. Yes, an earthworm, what we call a fish- worm, a common angle-worm. It is the greatest miller in the world and the greatest mill is the soil where the earthworms work and burrow. If the earthworms did not work and keep on ploughing and cultivating the soil this earth of ours would be cold and hard and barren, the soil would become hard and cold as rock. It would be like baked clay, but the earthworms plough and cultivate and make it porous and loose, so that the rain can filter down, and the plants and vegetables can grow and take root. You never thought of that, did you? You never knew these little, insignificant, harmless, horrid worms were so useful. Well, that is just the mistake we often make. We think we must be big, and great to be useful. Not at all. The little things are the most useful.
       In an acre of land, a piece about as big as our church lot, a wise man counted 53,000 earthworms, and in a rich garden there would be over half a million. We are told that these worms pass ten tons an acre through their bodies and have been doing this for millions of years, grinding, ploughing, cultivating the soil and making it fit for things to grow in. You see then that the earthworms are our helpers, and though they are so little and so humble, yet they do very useful and necessary work. It is always so. Little things working together do great things.
       Jesus said much about the value of little things. He said a cup of cold water given in His name was something done for Him. He said that any one who was faithful about little things would be faithful in great things. He praised the poor widow for giving two mites in the Temple offering. He tried to make us understand that the little things are after all the big things. Do you know that St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, one of the most beautiful churches in the world, was built out of sixpences, little English pieces of money like our dimes? How was that? Well, when they decided to build that great and wonderful cathedral they placed a tax of sixpence on every ton of coal used in the land, and out of this tax the beautiful cathedral was built. Little things grow into big things. You do not need to wait until you can do some great and wonderful thing. Some little word or act of love may grow into what will seem some day to be a miracle. Don’t wait for the big things. Do beautiful little things now. Kerr

“If any little word of mine
May make a life the brighter,
If any little song of mine
May make a heart the lighter,
God help me speak that little word,
And take my bit of singing,
And drop it in some lonely vale,
To set the echoes ringing!

“If any little love of mine
May make a life the sweeter,
If any little care of mine
May make a friend’s the fleeter,
If any lift of mine may ease
The burden of another,
God give me love, and care, and strength
To help my toiling brother!”

More about amazing earthworms.

Flowers and Prayers

 “The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” —Genesis 8 : 21

       Flowers speak a language of their own. The red rose speaks of love and the poet sings about it in beautiful words:

“Oh, my love is like a red, red rose.
That’s newly sprung in June.”

The white rose and lily speak of purity, and we talk of one who “bears the white flower of a blameless life.” The carnation reminds us of mother and Mother’s Day, and the four leafed clover we say speaks of “good luck” and the hedge rose with its thorns says, “Beware.” The poppy makes us think of the soldiers who lie sleeping in Flanders Fields between the white crosses row on row:

“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.”

"I am the rose of Sharon, and 
the lily of the valleys." 

       There is an old notion that prayers are like flowers. I have often wondered why prayers and flowers belong together and now I understand. It is because of their beauty, especially the beauty of their perfume, which ascends from both flowers and prayers. There is a fragrance that belongs only to flowers and prayers. The Bible tells us that prayers are sweet to God. In great cathedrals sweet smelling incense is used to suggest that prayer is pleasing to God. Like prayer it ascends. It is fragrant. It is sweet. But I like to think that the sweetness of prayer is more like the fragrance of beautiful flowers.
       And perhaps this is the way to explain a beautiful old story. One night, when the birds were asleep and the moon was behind a thin, silvery cloud, a mother who was watching her little girl lying in her crib fell asleep herself and as she slept she dreamed a dream. She dreamed that she was in heaven and saw all the prayers come in and they came in as flowers come to the home on Easter Day or to the hospital when we are sick. The prayers came up to heaven like flowers and the angels carried them into a beautiful room to arrange them and to sort them. Some were in full bloom and some were only in bud. Sometimes there was a single flower and sometimes there were great clusters of them. Suddenly the angel paused and then picking up a delicate little rosebud, was about to leave the room, now so full of fragrance and loveliness. Holding up the little rosebud the angel said, “This is for the Master'’ and the mother said, “Whence is the rosebud? Who sent it? What is it?” Then the angel smiled and said, “Oh, knowest thou not? This is the first prayer of a little child.” Then the mother awoke and looked into the face of her little girl who had fallen asleep with a prayer upon her lips.
       “The first prayer of a little child.” That I think is the most beautiful prayer of all. Surely it is like a rosebud, in the Master’s hand.
       You know how eagerly we listen to a little child’s first word and how we treasure it. Prayer is just speaking to God, and a little child’s first prayer is the first word spoken to God and He listens for that first prayer just as a mother listens for and loves her child’s first word. Kerr

The Home of The Wheat

 “ And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain”—I Corinthians 15:37

       Did you ever see a field of golden grain out on the western prairie? How wonderful it is! How wide and long the field is! There are acres and acres and miles and miles of waving wheat soon to be cut and then threshed and then ground up into fine white flour. It is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. And how useful, for all these great gardens of wheat are to be turned into bread. Where did the beautiful wheat come from? We know now that wheat is very, very old. We are told that wheat was harvested ten thousand years ago. They grew wheat and ate bread, but not beautiful bread like ours, away back in Egypt and Greece and Babylon. Last year in America there were hundreds of thousands of bushels of what is called Marquis wheat harvested. This is the wonderful spring wheat which grows in Canada and the United States. Now the marvelous thing is that all this mighty harvest of wheat came from a single grain of wheat planted in a garden at Ottawa in Canada by Dr. Charles E. Sanders in 1903. This is the way wheat multiplies, in 1903 one grain and in our time, millions of bushels. How many loaves of bread would a million bushels of fine hard wheat make?
       But where did that one single grain come from? Where is the home of this great bread-making plant? Well, we are told that its home is on Mt. Hermon, and along the Jordan in the Holy Land. For this reason the Middle East was called the “cradle of the cereals.” There it still grows wild and it has been taken and cultivated and developed, and now we have our wheat and our beautiful bread. This is very interesting. Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life, and we have found that out of the same country that gave us Jesus there has come also the bread that feeds our bodies. From the same Holy Land has come the bread for the soul and the bread for the body. And both have come from God our Father, who cares for all His children. Of Jesus, the living bread, we think when we say: Kerr

‘‘Break thou the Bread of Life,
Dear Lord, to me
As Thou didst break the loaves
Beside the sea.”

Of the great harvest wheat fields we think when we say:

“Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour the mill;
And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower,
And the sun and the Father’s will.” 

And so we pray:

“Give us this day,
Our daily bread.”

"Indeed the LORD will give what is good,
And our land will yield it's produce." Psalm 85:12

Living Grain

“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”— John 12:24

Hesed means.

       Did you ever hear the story of the two bags of grain? It is an old Eastern story and is like one of the parables Jesus was fond of telling. Once upon a time an Eastern prince took a long journey and left with his two friends two sacks of corn to be kept till he returned. After a long time he came back and said, “Where is my corn?” The first friend led him to his cellar, and showed him the bag of corn, all soft and rotten and useless. “Where is my corn?” he asked the second, and his friend led him out to the farm and showed him a great field of waving corn, “That is your corn,” he said. Then the prince told the first friend he could have the useless corn in the cellar and to the second he said, “When you reap the harvest give me back one sack and keep all the rest.” Which friend was wise?

       If we would keep grain we must sow it in the fields. Old grain will die after a while.

       Perhaps you have read stories to the effect that grain found in the wrappings of mummies, three or four or five thousand years old, if planted will live again and grow. I have read such stories, with exact dates, and wondered how they could be told over and over again, for I know that old grain found with mummies thousands of years old does not grow.

       One day I asked a friend who knows all about such things. His name is Dr. Coulter and he teaches Botany and other such subjects to the students of the University of Chicago, and writes about flowers and fruits, and wheat and corn.

       He told me this story. Years ago, when the first mummies were found in Egypt—you know what a mummy is—a wise German professor took some of the seeds of grain found in these tombs and planted them in his garden. Every morning he went out to see if the corn had sprouted and each morning he came back into the house shaking his head and saying, “No, there is no sign of life.” Days went by, and he was quite disappointed and ready to admit that old, old grain, thousands of years old, would not grow again.

       The German professor had two boys, two small boys, and there is nothing too hard or too difficult for two small boys. Seeing their father’s disappointment they set to work to cheer his heart, and to cause the old Egyptian grain to grow. So they found some real fresh wheat and sowed it in the garden where their father had sowed the old grain and pretty soon it sprouted and the green blades came up through the ground and the German professor rubbed his hands and laughed and said, “True, the old grain grows again.” Then he sat down and wrote out the story and it was printed in a German paper.

       Little by little, however, the true story leaked out, for the boys told what they had done to a friend of their father. He was disturbed. Would he keep quiet, or would he tell the professor? He decided to tell and so their father had to write to the same paper and deny his first story, and say that old grain, found in the cases of mummies, thousands of years old, does not grow. But the truth has never caught up with the first lie, and it is still told that grain never loses its life.

       But it does. Grain does die. The only way to keep grain living is to sow it, plant it in the field. That is what Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

       Remember, then, the story of the prince and the two sacks of corn. What we keep we lose. What we sow we keep. If we wish to be rich we must sow the seed of good deeds, kind words, and loving thoughts.

       Remember, too, we can only get a living harvest from living grain. We must not trust in the past but in the present. We, indeed, reap from the sowing of our parents and the great and the good of the past, but if others are also to reap a golden harvest we ourselves must sow living seed. Kerr

“Let the dead past bury its dead;

Act, act in the living present;

Heart within, and God o’er head.” 

Camouflage

“What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing.” —Genesis 27: 12

         Camouflage! That is a big word. It is one of the words that war gave us. When I went to France the ship was camouflaged, that is, it was painted so as to hide it when it was on the sea. The guns were camouflaged, that is, they were covered with the branches of trees to make them look like the forest itself. The roads were camouflaged, that is, they were made to look, not like roads, but like the fields, so the enemy would not know.
       There is a wonderful story of camouflage in the Bible. It is the story of Jacob. You remember his mother wanted him to receive the blessing of his old blind father. So she dressed him up to make him feel like Esau. Esau was a hairy man, and she put skins of kids on Jacob’s neck and hands and when he went to seek his father’s blessing Isaac, his father, said, “The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob.” That was camouflage.
       It is a bad thing to try to cheat and deceive and betray. You remember what Alice said to the Duchess in “Alice in Wonderland.” She said, “Oh, I know it’s a vegetable; it doesn’t look like one, but it is.” And the Duchess said, "I quite agree with you. The moral of that is, Be what you seem. ” That is a good motto. “Be what you seem.” There is so much sham and pretense in the world. There are so many imitations of real things. Let us be real and be what we seem to be.
       But there is a good kind of camouflage. The world is full of it. We learned camouflage from nature. The lizard in the grass is not seen because it, too, is green. The snake, too, we miss, because it is just the color of the meadow, or the soil. The spotted leopard in the jungle is perfectly camouflaged. The polar bear in the great white wilderness of the North is also white, as white as snow. And the animals and birds change their color with the seasons, and with the soil. Sometimes the rabbit and the fox are white when winter comes; and the birds hide themselves in color like their own. There is an old tale of a chameleon that when chased by a dog suddenly turned around, opened its great pink mouth, and changed color so quickly that the dog was scared nearly to death and ran for its life. They say that once a chameleon, one of these little animals that change their color so easily, was put on a brown rug and became brown, on a green rug it was green, on a blue rug it was blue, and when put on a Persian rug it died. Of course that is a foolish tale, but animals find safety and security in adapting themselves to the color of their surroundings.
       We, too, live in a difficult and dangerous world. It is not easy to escape all our enemies. Sometimes we have to hide ourselves in some 'safe place'. We read in one of the Psalms that in the time of trouble God will hide us, and one man offers a prayer that God will “hide him under the shadow of his wings.” That is the best place to hide in time of danger.

“Rock of ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in Thee.”

       During the war I remember going out one dark moonless night up to the front line trenches. The road came to an end in the woods. There in the side of a hill in a little camouflaged chapel we found some of our American soldiers. It was a little shrine which they had built, covered with branches of trees and so camouflaged it could not be seen. There they felt secure as in the presence of God. No enemy can find us, if we hide ourselves with God. Martin Luther used to say, “If any one should come and knock at my heart and say, 'Who lives here?’ I would say, ‘Not Martin Luther, but Jesus Christ lives here for Martin Luther’s life is hid with Christ in God.” Kerr 

"I can only image" by MercyMe

The Test

 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” —Psalm 139: 23

       The other day I went with a friend through the great Carnegie steel mills where men were busy at the fires and furnaces and forges making steel and turning it out into rails and beams and rods and great sheets of steel. It was very interesting and very noisy.
       But the most interesting thing to me was not the fire, nor the forge, nor the furnace, but what I saw in a little quiet room fitted up with strange cold looking machines, each run by two young men. This was what they called the testing room.
       From every furnace a sample of steel was taken. A piece about as long as my arm or less, and as wide and thick as my four fingers. This piece of steel was gripped at each end by one of these machines and pulled or stretched, just as you would stretch a piece of rubber. You could see the steel as it was drawn becoming thinner and thinner until suddenly it snapped. Each of these little pieces of pure steel stood the test up to about 56,000 pounds pressure, and then it broke. The men then knew where to put the great pieces of steel to which the piece that had been tested belonged. If it stood a high pressure they put the steel into railroad trains and automobiles where safety was required and if it stood only a low pressure they used it for something less worthy.
       We, too, are tested. We are tested out in the great world, at home, at school, everywhere we are being tested and tried and if we prove worthy we are given a place of honor and usefulness. The Bible tells us over and over again that God tests and tries us:

“The righteous God trieth the hearts.”
“Search me, O God, and know my heart:
Try me, and know my thoughts.”
“When he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.”
“Thou, O God, hast tried us as silver is tried.”

       Shortly after the time of Jesus there lived a great and good man by the name of John Chrysostom. He was called “the golden-mouthed” preacher. He was a great man and a great preacher of the Gospel. The Roman Emperor ordered him to give up his Christian faith or he would be exiled. Chrysostom replied, “Thou canst not, for the world is my Father s house; thou canst not banish me.” Then said the emperor, “I will slay thee.” Chrysostom replied, “Nay, but thou canst not, for my life is hid with Christ in God.” “I will take away thy treasure,” said the emperor. “Nay,” said Chrysostom, “but thou canst not, for I have none that thou knowest of. My treasure is in heaven.” “Then,” said the emperor, “I will drive thee from thy friends and thou shalt have no friends left.” “Nay,” said this brave man, who was being tested and tried, “thou canst not, for I have a Friend from whom thou canst not separate me. I defy thee. There is nothing thou canst do to hurt me.”
       What a brave man he was, and how nobly he stood the test, and like Job came forth as gold. Let us make this text our prayer:

“Search me
O God
And know my heart;
Try me
And know my thoughts.
And see if there be any wicked way in me
And lead me in the way everlasting.”

"Search me, Oh God" hymn

The Unseen Comrade

“He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Daniel 3: 25

Fervor Cross.

       Once upon a time there lived in the far away land of Babylon a great king. His name was Nebuchadnezzar. What a terrible name for a man and it must have been more terrible for a boy. He was a great, strong king, and he loved his own way. One day he set up in Babylon a great image or idol of gold, and ordered every one to worship it. Great plans were made. It was arranged that at a certain time when the people heard the sound of “the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer” that everybody should fall down and worship the great idol of gold. If any should refuse to worship he would be cast into a burning, fiery furnace.
       When the music sounded all the people fell upon their faces. Did I say all the people? I was wrong. There were three young men who refused to bow before the idol. They were Hebrew young men with names as strange as the name of Nebuchadnezzar: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They worshipped the living and true God, and Him only, and they refused to worship anything made of gold. So they were taken and bound and cast into the furnace of fire. The soldiers thought they would immediately perish, but when they looked again into the furnace they saw them walking unharmed in the midst of the fire, and the strangest of all strange things they saw. They saw not three men but four. They came running to the king. The king himself went to the furnace and looking in said, “Lo I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” God Himself had entered into the fiery furnace and kept His loyal servants safe from harm.
       That is an old, old story. But I can tell you a new, new story just like it. It happened not very long ago. A man with another strange name—his name was Shackleton—set out in a great strong ship called the “Endurance” to find his way to the South Pole. His ship was crushed to splinters in the ice and he and his companions nearly lost their lives. Leaving the wrecked ship they made their way across ice and snow and sea to South Georgia Island, and there Shackleton and two of his companions, Worsley and Crean, made their way across the Island, a perilous march of thirty-six hours, over ice mountains, down dangerous chasms, and once they let themselves over a thirty-foot waterfall by a rope and finally came to the whaling station. For a year and a half they had been in the lonely ice world and the first to meet these three strange looking men were two little boys belonging to the station, who fled from them in terror.
       When they had been warmed and washed and clothed, after their long and lonely journey, Sir Ernest Shackleton said to his companions, “It seemed to me often that we were four, not three.” His companion Worsley said later, “Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.” And Crean confessed that he, too, had felt the presence of the great unseen Companion.
       So you see whether it is in the fire, or in the ice fields, God cares for those who trust Him, and always with us is our unseen Comrade, who says:

“Fear not
For I have redeemed thee;
I have called thee by thy name,
Thou art mine.
When thou passest
Through the waters
I will be with thee:
And through the rivers
They shall not overflow thee;
When thou walkest through the fire,
Thou shalt not be burned;
Neither shall the flame
Kindle upon thee,
For I am Jehovah thy God
The Holy One of Israel;
Thy Savior.”

The Larks - Shadrack, again, again, again

The Making of the World

First Reading.

 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

       Today we are told how God made this earth that we live on. Sunday is the earth's birthday, for on the first day of the week the Creation began.
       The world was all one mass - dark, empty, and shapeless - till God made the light by His Word, and said that the light was good. Without light we could not live: even the very  trees and flowers would die. When we have been in the dark how glad we are to see light come back, even if it be only one grey line beginning in the sky ! This shows how blessed is this gift. It was good, too, that we should have quite a dark night for rest and stillness.
       The second great change enclosed the earth in an outer ball of air, which we call the sky or firmament. That is the deep blue into which we look up and up. The water risers up from the earth and makes the clouds that take such strange shapes, sometimes dark and full of rain to water the earth, sometimes shining white, or pink and golden with morning or evening light.
       The third great change was, that water filled the deep hollows of the earth, while the hills rose up dry above them, with rivers and streams running down their slopes into the deep seas below. God did not leave the land bare and stony: He clothed it with green fresh plants and herbs, with leaves and flowers, and trees to give us their fruit or their wood, and filled even the sea with plants formed to live under water.
        Next, God allowed the rays of the sun to gladden the earth, and let it see the moon lighted up by the sun, as well as the stars far beyond our firmament. We count the months by the changes in the moon; and our earth's journey round the sun marks our years and seasons. We all rejoice in a bright sunny day, though the sun is too bright and glorious for us to bear to gaze at him; and how lovely the moon looks, either as a young crescent, or a beautiful full moon!
       The waters began to be full of live things, that swam, or crept, or flew: fishes, and birds, and insects. By that time this world was nearly as we see it, and a beautiful home for us to live in. Then God made the four-footed beasts - sheep and cows, horses, dogs, cats, elephants, lions - all that we use or admire ; and, last of all, when He had made this earth a happy, healthy place. He planted the Garden of Eden, and put in it the first man and woman, the best of all that He had made; for though their bodies were of dust, like those of the beasts, yet their souls came from the Breath of God. They could think, speak, pray, and heed what is unseen as well as what is seen.
       There are many many lessons to be learnt from this wonderful story. Let us try to take home one of them. Let us ask our Father that the ground below, the light above, the sky and sea, the sun and moon, the trees and flowers, the birds and beasts, and His holy day of rest, may remind us that they came from Him, and that we may be very thankful to Him for having given us such good things. 

QUESTIONS.

1. Who made the world? 
2. Which Commandment tells you about God's making the world? 
3. What is there in the sky that God made? 
4. What is there on the earth? 
5. What do you see around you that He made? 
6. Can we make birds, or beasts, or flowers? 
7. Or could we make them live? 
8. Who makes them and us live? 
9. Where does all our food come from? 
10. Who gave us com? 
11. What must we ask God to do for us? 
12. What must we thank Him for? 
13. Do not you think it would be pleasant to whisper to yourself, when you see a pretty flower, or a beautiful sky, or when the sun shines bright and warm,
14. Thank God for being so good to me?

Second Reading.

''And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul.''  Genesis 2: 7

       In the Bible God tells us that He made the world, and everything in it: land and water, and grass, flowers and trees, insects, birds and beasts, and last of all He made the first man and woman. The man was made by God out of the dust of the ground, and then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and gave him a living soul. And the woman was made by God out of the man's side. They were called Adam and Eve, and they were to be the first father and mother of everyone who was to be born into the world.

       The good God gave them a beautiful home. It was a garden, with a clear river of water flowing through it, and all kinds of delicious fruit-trees and beautiful flowers growing in it. Nothing could hurt or vex them there. They did not know what pain was, they were never tired, and all they had to do was to dress the garden and to keep it. They had no faults, and never did wrong; and God Himself came near totalk with them.

       That was the way they lived, always good and always happy, whilst they obeyed what God had told them. In the midst of the garden grew two trees: one was the Tree of Life, and the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. God told them that if they ate the fruit of this Tree of Knowledge they would die. We do not know what those trees were like, but sometime or other I hope we shall see the Tree of Life, for it is growing in heaven, close by the river that flows by the Throne of God ; and when we see it, and taste of it, we shall live for ever, and be happier even than Adam and Eve were. We shall never be as happy as they were while we are living in this world; but if we will try to obey God, and live holy lives. He will take us to heaven, and that will be still better than the Garden of Eden.

QUESTIONS.

1. What did God make? 
2. Whom did He make?
3. What was the man made of? 
4. What was the woman made of? 
5. What did God breathe into them? 
6. What did He give them? 
7. Why were they better than the beasts? 
8. What was the man's name? 
9. What was the woman's name? 
10. Of whom were they the father and mother? 
11. Where did they live? 
12. What had they to do there? 
13. What grew there? 14. 
14. What were the two chief trees that grew there?
15. Which were they not to touch? 
16. Where is the Tree of Life now?
17. When do we hope to see it? 
18. What is a still happier place than the Garden of Eden?

Third Reading

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Job 38:11

       What glorious and wonderful things God has made! Did you ever see the sea ? There it is - a great vast space, all water, looking green near us, but blue further off - always heaving up and down. The waves rise, and then ripple along, and burst with a white edge of bubbles of foam. And, if you live near the sea, you know how, at certain times in the day, one wave after another begins to break a little higher on the beach; eight waves seem to run up the same distance, then the ninth comes much further, then eight more come like that, then another. A great space that had been left dry gets covered up with water again, and where you were walking just now is quite deep "water. What is this called? The tide. Well, what will the tide do in proper time. Will it come rolling in over the beach, sand, pebbles, and rocks, and wash us all away and drown us all, and cover up the land? No ; presently each will turn. Each wave will be a little less high than the last, till it will have gone back again and left the beach uncovered as before. Why does the tide do this ? It is because God so wonderfully contrived this earth and sea, that the waters should rise and go back. He made the sand the bound of the sea, and said, ''Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." So, you know, we sing in the Psalm every Sunday:

''The sea is His, and He made it :
And His hands prepared the dry land."

QUESTIONS.

1. Which day was the sea and land made? 
2. What curious thing does the sea do every day? 
3. What do you call the coming in and going back of the sea? 
4. Why does the tide always stop in its proper place?
5. What did God make the bounderies of the sea? 
6. What did He say to it ? 
7. What verse praises God for making the sea?

The text was written by Charlotte M. Yonge.

The Almond Tree

''The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied." Jeremiah 1:11

        Some of you are fond of making puns - too fond, your friends sometimes think, and they threaten to turn you out of the room if you make another. Did you know that there are puns in the Bible ? There are - several of them - and our text to-day is one.
       God was speaking to the young prophet Jeremiah and calling him to his life-work, and to encourage him in that work God said to the prophet, " What are you looking at just now ? " "A branch of an almond tree," answered Jeremiah. Now it so happens that in Hebrew the almond tree is sometimes called the " hastener " or the " awakener " because, first of all the trees, it rushes into bloom. In January and February, when other trees are still asleep, it bursts into blossom, and the Hebrews look upon it as we do on our snowdrop. They think of it as the harbinger, the herald of the spring, and they call it by this poetic name, the  ''hastener," the tree that hastens to meet the spring. So, "A branch of the hastener," said Jeremiah, and God replied, "Right, Jeremiah, a branch of the hastener! So shall I hasten to do what I have promised."
       The " hastener " is one of the most beautiful and most prized trees in Israel. We know almonds mostly as delicious white oblongs which we love to munch along with raisins, or as sweets coated with sugar; but the people of the Middle East know the almond from its very beginning, and they eat the fruit at a much earlier stage than we do.
       The almond tree is really a cousin of the peach and the apricot. Like the peach it bears its flowers before its leaves. These flowers are white at the tips but shade off to pale pink at the base of the petals, and an almond tree covered with blossoms is one of the glories of the land of Palestine. Immediately the flowers drop off the fruit begins to form and the leaves to appear; and by March the tree is green. The young fruit is enclosed in a downy green pod which is crisp like a cucumber and has a refreshing acid taste. During April and May it is sold in the streets, and the children, especially, love to buy it. After the fruit is ripe its green cover shrinks to a brown leathery envelope, the kernel hardens, and then you have the ripe almond, the almond that you see in the green- grocer's window. You pop it into boiling water, the brown covering slips off, and lo! the blanched almond we all delight in.
       The Jews make sugar almonds as we do, and they also beat the kernels with sugar into a paste not unlike our marzipan or almond icing. You remember how Jacob told his sons to take with them into Egypt as a present to their unrecognized brother Joseph "a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and  almonds." They did not grow almonds in Egypt, so the present would be greatly appreciated. Of course Jacob's almonds would be plain, not sugared almonds, as there was no sugar in his day.
       The almond is mentioned several times in the Bible. Aaron's miraculous rod that budded, blossomed, and yielded fruit all in one night was an almond branch. Perhaps it is in memory of this rod that the Jews still carry to their synagogues or churches, on festival days, branches of almond blossom. The flowers of the almond, too, were used as models for the ornaments of the seven-branched golden candlestick of the Tabernacle.
       Now, you can forget all I have told you about the almond, if you promise to remember one thing - and that is its Hebrew name. It is as the " hastener " I want you to remember it, for it is as the "hastener" that it brings a message to us.
       The almond hastens to respond to the sunshine and the call of spring. It meets them half-way. I want you to copy it. I want you, through life, to meet things and people half-way. I want you to be ready to respond. I want you to meet joy and gladness half-way. I want you to be keen and eager to greet all that is good or beautiful. I want you to be enthusiastic and not ashamed to show it.
       You know there are some people in this world whom we describe as "wooden." And a very good description it is! There is no hastening blossom on their trees.
       There is no answering smile on their faces when you smile to them. They might learn a lesson from the very dogs on the street. When one dog meets another it greets it by wagging its tail, and the second dog wags back a kindly answer. Don't be a "wooden" person. Copy the almond tree and give smile for smile, kindliness for kindliness, love for love.
       And when you are hastening to respond to human love, don't forget to respond to God's love. It has
come more than half-way to meet you. It has indeed been with you and around you from the day you came into the world. How are you going to meet it ? Are you going to answer it? Are you going to return God's love with love? Hastings

The Speech of A Child

“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I surely do not know how to speak, for I am only a child!” Jeremiah 1:6

       These words were spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. God had called him to carry His message to the people of Judah, and Jeremiah felt he was not fit for the task. It was a very sad message he had to take. He had to tell his fellow-countrymen that unless they turned away from their wicked ways they would bring their country to ruin. It was a very terrible message, a very solemn one, and a very unpopular one, and Jeremiah felt quite unable to carry it. He loved his country dearly, and it hurt him dreadfully to have to foretell its doom. Besides, he was very young - little more than a lad. So when God asked him to go he replied, " I cannot speak: for I am a child."
       Now I wonder if you have ever felt like Jeremiah ? Not that you have a sad message to carry, but you want to do some good in the world, you want to help somebody, and you feel that you can do so little because you are just a child. So you say sadly, "I cannot speak: for I am a child." Do you know that you are making a great mistake? A child can do a great deal more than he imagines - if only he is willing.

1.) If you cannot speak you can smile, and a smile sometimes works miracles in driving away gloom, in dispersing the clouds of worry or even of angry and bitter thoughts that sometimes darken the minds of other people.
       There was a man once who sat thinking black thoughts. He was planning to do a very wicked deed. His little child ran into the room. It was too wee even to speak, but it just toddled up to his chair, laid its chubby hands on his knees, and laughed up into his face. And the black thoughts vanished from the man's mind. They could not live beside that baby smile. He rose up a new man and he stayed a new man from that day forward.

2.) And if you cannot speak you can be. What do we mean by that? Just by being a child, true and pure and good, you may work wonders in the world.
       In one of the towns on the Continent they hold every year on the 28th of July a Feast of Cherries. On that day the town is thronged from morning to night with children dressed in white and waving branches of cherry trees, and when night falls they feast on the cherries which they have been carrying during the day. If you asked any of the inhabitants why that feast was held they would tell you this story.

       In the year 1432 the town was laid siege to. The general commanding the besieging army demanded the instant surrender of the town and refused to make terms with the inhabitants. He would not even consent to sparing their lives should they surrender. For a week the people held out, but their provisions ran down and they were starving. Then one man had an idea. He suggested that all the children in the town between the ages of seven and fourteen should be dressed in white and sent into the tent of the general to plead for their own lives and the lives of the inhabitants. It was decided to carry out this plan, and there must have been many sad hearts among the fathers and mothers that night.
       Next morning the gates of the city were opened and a long procession of children streamed out and made their way into the camp of the enemy. They found the general's tent and fell on their knees begging for mercy. Although the general was a fierce, cruel man he was so touched by their innocence and their courage, and so moved to compassion by their pale, pinched faces that he granted their request. Then he ordered food and fruit to be brought, and finally gave the command that each child should be presented with a cherry branch from the gardens near and sent back into the city to carry the good news.
       So the children by their innocence and helplessness accomplished what the grown-ups could not do, and every year, as the anniversary of the brave deed returns, the town still keeps its Feast of Cherries.

3.) Lastly, if you cannot speak you can do. To very few is given the gift of eloquence, but we can all speak by our lives. And, boys and girls, that is going to count much more than any gift of tongues. By a little deed of unselfishness here, by a little bit of self-denial there, by being loving and kind and thoughtful for others you can do much more than if you had "the tongues of men and of angels."
       Do you know how God answered Jeremiah? He said, "Say not, I am a child: for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak." Then He touched the prophet's mouth as a sign that He had given him the gift of eloquence.
       If you will let God touch your lives, then they will speak eloquently for Him, and all that they say will be beautiful and good. Hastings

What The Bells Say...

 “The gold bells and the pomegranates are to alternate around the hem of the robe." Exodus. 28: 34

       More than tow hundred years ago a sailing , ship far out on the sea, a hundred miles from shore, heard the sound of church bells. It was Sunday morning and the bells were ringing, calling people to church. They seemed to say:

“Come when I call,
Both great and small.”

       At first those upon the vessel thought it was only fancy, for they were far from shore. There was only one place on the ship where the bells could be heard and that was before the bulging main sail, and there the sound of the church bells could be clearly heard, calling, calling, to worship and prayer.
       Months passed and the vessel one day sailed into the port of San Salvador and on inquiry the sailors learned that at the exact time when the bells were heard upon the ship far out at sea, the church bells of the cathedral were ringing. It was a great mystery to the sailors, but it is easy for us to understand. In our day when we know how easily the air carries the voice over land and sea we can understand how the sound of the bells could be caught by the bulging sail.
       What a pleasing sound it is to hear the call of the “church going bell. In old England where every village church has a bell you will find each of them has a motto graven in the metal. Some of these mottoes are interesting. Here is one that says:

Boarder
Bells

“Come away,

Make no delay.”

        Another says:

“Come and pray,
Hear and obey.”

      Sometimes the bell is vain and the motto reads:

“I am a pretty bell,
That you all may see.”  

       And sometimes the bell is modest and sensitive and sometimes they tell the praises of those who made them:

“Our merry bell is mainly due
To Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Carew.”

       Here is a complaining and grumbling motto:

“Our tone would have been made deeper
If contributions had been greater.”

       What strange messages for church bells! Some of them are vain, some foolish, some selfish. A church bell should send out one clear note. It should say, like the bells of Bath,

“Let Christ be known around,
And loved where’er we sound.
Then shall true joys abound.
Before Him lowly fall,
Where’er we lift our call
And praise Him Lord of all ”

       There is one bell, a very little bell, that rings sometimes very quietly and sometimes sounds a loud alarm and we can never get away from its sound. Do you know its name? Yes, it is Conscience. Sometimes it rings a merry, merry tune, and sometimes it sounds a warning. The teacher examining a Sunday School said, “Who can tell me what Conscience is?” One of the big boys said, “It is too big a word for me.” Then the teacher said, “Did you ever feel anything inside you that said, ‘Do this.' ‘Shun that.' ‘You ought to have done this.' ‘You should not have said that’?” “Oh, yes,” said George, “that is Jesus ringing a bell in our hearts.” And George was right. Better than the call of the church bell in the steeple is the call of Conscience which is the voice of Jesus, guiding us in ways of pleasantness and in paths of peace. Kerr

The Greatest Cradle in The World

 “The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.'' Psalm: 95: 5

       Cradles are out of fashion in these days. Babies are no longer in need of cradles. They need, not cradles, but cold dark silent rooms, perfectly good old fashioned beds, and to be left entirely alone to think and to meditate and not to cry.
       Somehow I like the old way. I know it's not the best way, but still it is best for song and story and when you come to think of it, nature too, likes a cradle and has no idea of giving up to our new-fangled modern notions.
       What is a beautiful valley lying between hills and mountains but a cradle, soft and green, in which sleep fields of golden grain and pretty villages, and what are the trees of the forests and the streets but cradles, rocked by the wind. You remember the lullaby song:

“Rock-a-bye baby
In the tree top,
When the bough bends
The cradle will rock.”

       But the greatest cradle in the whole wide world is the sea. The deep, dark, boundless sea is the  greatest cradle in the world. The very first bed God ever made was the sea and there the first life was cradled. What a cradle it is! How great it is! It rocks from East to West, from shore to shore, and ships and islands and continents sleep in it. You know what the old song says:

“Rocked in the cradle of the deep
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord! hast power to save.
I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall;
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.”

       How cold it is! The icy waters of the far North and of the far South slip down into its depths. How deep it is! You could never reach down into it with your arms. The highest mountain in the world could lie down in it and be lost from sight. How heavy is its covering! I suppose that is because it is so cold. Do you know if you were to lie down at the bottom of this great cradle you would have to carry about 250 tons of watery bed covers. Think of that!
       Away down at the bottom of the deep, cold cradle of the sea, it is dark and still. There is no noise there, no light ever gets down into that quiet chamber. Occasionally a little animal with a little phosphorescent light passes by to see that all is well and then everything is dark and silent again.
       And yet down there in that great cradle of the sea little animals live and thrive, fed by the sea dust that filters down from above, for the sea is God’s cradle and even there God cares for His creatures. In one of the Psalms we read:

“If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,
And thy right hand shall hold me."
If He cares for the fish of the deep, deep sea, will
He not care for us?

       There is no place in all the world where God cannot come to His children. When a great hero of the sea was caught in a terrible storm and all the crew was in a panic of fear, He calmly said, “We are as near God on the sea as on the land.” How true! And, after all, the greatest cradle in the world is not the trees of the forest, or the great deep silent sea, but the arms of our Heavenly Father. Where in the Bible will you find it said that “The Eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”? Kerr

Planet Earth is a cradle for God's people.

A Dead World

“Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?”  Song of Solomon 6:10

       The other day I was visiting a little friend who had been ill for fourteen long months, through two winters and one summer. He had gone to bed near Christmas and had been a little invalid all that year, and through the next Christmas. His name is Frederick. He has a sister just his own age to the very day, and her name is Florence. Florence went to school and learned to write and add and subtract and do other queer things. Frederick stayed in bed, kept very quiet and read. He was only seven, but he read all sorts of books, and when he could not read others read to him, his nurse, his father, or his mother, or Billy or Betty, and he came to know a lot of history and science and fairy tales.
       One day when I was telling him about the big world outside, and the coming of spring with its buds and leaves and flowers he chuckled and said, “Some day this world will be just like the moon.''What do you think of that? What did he mean? I thought perhaps he had been reading Robert Louis Stevenson who said that:

“The moon has a face like the clock in the hall
It shines on thieves on the garden wall.”

       Then I thought perhaps it was Mother Goose he was thinking of:

“The man in the moon
Came tumbling down
And asked the way to Norwich.

He went by the south
And burnt his mouth
With supping cold pease-porridge.”

        I soon knew, however, that he was not thinking about fancies and fairies, but about facts, and I said, “Why do you think so?” “Well,” said he in a wise sort of way, “don’t you know the moon is dead and some day this world will be dead just like the moon.” Of course I knew that. Everybody knows that. The moon is dead. Nothing lives in the moon. Nothing ever happens there. No storms, no lightning, no noise, no dust, no twilight, no blue sky, nothing happens in the moon. There is no life, no air there, and the sky is as black as ink. It has no weather. It is a dead world.
       No wonder “the man in the moon has a crick in his back. Whee! Whim! Ain’t you sorry for him?” Perhaps this is why people have always thought the moon harmed people and made them go out of their heads, as we say. Do you remember the Psalm that says, “The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night?” You can have a moonstroke, as well as a sunstroke. All dead things are bad, and a dead world like the moon may have a bad influence on people, especially on young people who stay out late at night. 
       I said, “Yes, the moon is dead, a dead, dead world, but how beautiful it is and how wonderful it is at night. How is that? If it is dead how is it so full of light?” And I repeated the verse:

“Moon, so round and yellow,
Looking from on high,
How I love to see you
Shining in the sky.
Oft and oft I wonder,
When I see you there,
How they get to light you,
Hanging in the air.”

        Then Frederick turned over and said with a laugh, “Don’t you know? Why, it’s the sun that makes the moon beautiful. The moon is dead, but the sun shines on it, and makes it shine.” And then I thought that we, too, are something like the moon, sort of dead and dull and useless, until Jesus, the great sun of our life, shines upon us and lights up our lives. The only way for us to be bright and useful is to have Jesus shine upon us. If we stay near Him we will be like Him.
       Frederick is well now and lives out in a real live world and some day when I see him I am going to preach this story-sermon to him and then read and explain to him this sermon-story in rhyme:

“A Persian fable says: One day
A wanderer found a lump of clay
So redolent of sweet perfume,
Its odors scented all the room.
‘What art thou?’ was his quick demand;
‘Art thou some gem from the Samarkand,
Or Spikenard in this rude disguise,
Or other costly merchandise?’
‘Nay! I am but a lump of clay
‘Then whence this wondrous sweetness—say?’
‘Friend, if the secret I disclose,
I have been dwelling with the rose!”

        Perhaps that verse of poetry is rather hard for little children to understand, but its meaning is very simple. It means that just as a piece of clay which has no sweetness in itself may become fragrant by being in the same place with a rose, so we too may become sweet and lovely by living in the presence of Jesus. The sweetness of the rose sweetens the clay, and the love and beauty of our Lord make us kind and sweet also. I am sure Frederick will understand both the story and the sermon. Kerr

Dust

 “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Genesis. 3:19

       The Bible tells us very plainly that our bodies are made of dust. God made man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life. We do not like to think we are made out of dust. We like to think we are made out of sunshine and rainbows, and if there is any dust about us, it must be golden star dust.
       I heard once of a dear old Scotchwoman who had always refused to have her picture taken. Many old ladies, you know, are stubborn, especially Scotch old ladies. Her family, however, urged her to have her photograph taken so they could send it to one of her sons who lived in America, and she consented. When the first proof was received she looked at it long and silently and then without a word set out for the studio. “Is that me?” she said to the photographer. “Yes, madam,” he said. “And is it like me?” she added. “Yes, madam, it is a speaking likeness.” Then said the old Scotch woman, “Well, if that's so, it’s a humbling sight.”
       We laugh at the dear old lady, for we know she was wrong, for there is nothing lovelier in the world than just a fine, sweet, thought-ennobled face of a mother or a grandmother.
       And what a wonderful thing dust is! It is alive with mystery before which wise men dream and wonder. To a wise man who knows, “the very dust is dear.” It is a living thing, and out of it the world has been made, and scientists tell us that we owe our beautiful sunsets and our refreshing rain to the dust that floats in the upper air.
       We are apt to think the only value dust has is to make work, but it is not so. Dust is useful. A great scientist once wrote a book which he called “The Wonderful Century.” The Wonderful Century was of course the nineteenth century which includes all the years between 1800 and 1900. In this book he wrote about some of the marvelous things discovered during those years and one of the chapters is about Dust, and among other things he said, “It is doubtful whether we could even live without dust. To the presence of dust we owe the clouds, the mists, the rains.” If it were not for the dust instead of soft showers and refreshing rains we would have water spouts and terrible torrents. It all seems strange, but true things are often strange, and sometimes little things are really big things.
       A great man by the name of John Ruskin once took a handful of mud from the road of a great city. It was just a handful of dirty dust moistened with water. This wise man then divided the mud into four parts, clay, soot, sand, and water. Then he told the people who were listening to him that if the clay were left alone for thousands or millions of years it would, under certain conditions, become a beautiful sapphire. The sand, he said, in the same strange way would be changed into a precious opal. The soot, the blackest of things, would in time become a brilliant diamond and the water could easily be changed into a pearly dewdrop or a snow crystal.
       God can change the meanest thing into a priceless gem, and He can so transform us that we can become like Him. We are made of the dust of the field but we are also made in the image of God.

“Life is real; life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal!
‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest
Was not spoken of the soul.”

       The Apostle John said: “Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is.” Kerr

The Wings of the Sun

"But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves." Malachi 4:2

Jesus Is Light of The World.

        Have you ever heard about the wings of the sun? You know about the wings of a bird, and the wings of a house, and the wings of an army, but perhaps you do not know about the wings of the sun. If you will look up at the sun you will see bright beams of light extending out from the side of the sun, just as the wings of a house extend from the side of the house. These are the wings of the sun. We call them sunbeams. The prophet says that there is healing in the sunbeams, just as there is in the medicine that the doctor leaves us when we are sick. People are just beginning to know what a wonderful healer the sunshine is for those who are ill.

       If you take a plant and put it down in the cellar where there is no light and leave it there for a few days, that plant will become sick and die. It must have the sunshine if it is to live and grow, and it is the same way with people.

       Most of the hospitals have a great room where the sun can shine all day, and there the people are taken who are getting well, so that the sun can shine on them and help them in their recovery.

       A doctor in one of the hospitals said not very long ago, "There are some rooms here where people seem to get well sooner than in others, and they are always the rooms where the sun shines the most." This is what the prophet meant when he said that the sun has healing in its wings.

       But he was really telling us about Jesus. He calls Him the Sun of Righteousness and says that there is healing in His wings, just as there is in the great sun that shines up there in the sky.

       There are some sicknesses that only Jesus can heal. You know there are diseases of the body, and there are diseases of the mind, and there are diseases of the soul. Sin is the great sickness of the soul. We are all troubled with this disease, and there is no cure in the world for it but Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness.

       Suppose one of you were sick, and were to go to your doctor and he were to say to you, "What you want is sunlight. Just stay out in the sun and air all that you can and you will be well." Wouldn't you go out into the sunlight? Of course you would.

       Now God, the great doctor of the soul, comes to us and says, ''Your soul is sick. It is sin that ails you. What you need is the sunlight of Jesus. If you will come into that sunlight you will be well."

       There was once a man named Peter. He was a rough, cursing fellow who had not led a very good life.

       Doctors tell us that disease germs grow best in the dark. If you want to kill bad germs, open the windows and let the sunshine come in. This man Peter had been living in the darkness, and the germs of sin and evil had grown in his life till he was a great sinner. But one day Jesus passed along and called Peter to follow Him. He went, and the sunlight of Jesus destroyed the evil, and made him well so that he became one of the greatest saints of all time.

       There was another man named Saul. He went everywhere, trying to do all the evil that he could, till one day, as he was on the way to a city called Damascus, there began to shine upon him a light from heaven. It shone right down into his wicked soul, as the sun shines into the face of the sick man in the hospital, and he began to be a better man, and this man Saul became the great Apostle Paul.

       When I was a small boy I used to go out in the summer and pick blackberries. There was a clump of blackberry bushes back of the barn, and they were the biggest and finest berries around anywhere. It didn't take long to fill a little pail full of them. But when I tasted one they were sour and bitter. The trouble was that there were some big trees there, that kept the sun from shining on those blackberry vines, and the fruit was always sour. But one year men came and cut down the trees and then the berries became sweet and good.

       That is the reason so many lives are bitter and sour and sinful. There is something that is keeping the sun from shining on them, the Sun of Righteousness.

The Building of a Lighthouse

"You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt. They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.’ But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you! One of them will chase a thousand of you. Five of them will make all of you flee. You will be left like a lonely flagpole on a hill or a tattered banner on a distant mountaintop.” Isaiah 30: 16.17

       Isaiah is talking here about a lighthouse. They had lighthouses, or something very like them, in the time of the prophet twenty-five hundred years ago. One of the most famous lighthouses of history was built three hundred years before Jesus came to earth at the mouth of the River Nile, along the Mediterranean Sea. The historians ought to know, and they tell us that this lighthouse was one of the seven wonders of the world, and that it cost over two millions of dollars to build.
       In these days we have a great many lighthouses along the coast. They are put there to guide the ships at night. We have two at the entrance to the Virginia capes. You have many of you seen the one at Cape Henry. There are really two there. One was erected over two hundred years ago, during the presidency of General Washington. After it had been used for over a century it was worn out and the government built a new one, which every night sends its great beam of light far out over the waves.
       There are many things about lighthouses that remind us of boys and girls.

"Arise, shine; for your light has come,
And the glory of the LORD has
risen upon you." Isaiah 60:1

       First, the foundation must be very strong. It never would do to build the lighthouse on the sand. The first storm that came along would wash the sand out from beneath it and then where would the lighthouse be? It must be built on the rock or on strong piles that will not move.

       The Eddystone light, on the coast of England, is one of the most famous in the world. They built three lighthouses and they were all washed away by the storms. And then the engineers came and they went down below the sand and anchored the building to the solid rock, and it has never been shaken.

      When we are building our characters it is very important that they should be fastened to the rock. We must be careful about the foundation. Paul said, "Other foundation can no man lay other than that is laid, even Jesus Christ" He is the best foundation that any young man or woman can have for character. If the life is built on Him and anchored to Him there will not be much danger of the character failing when the times of storm and trial come.

       Next they are very careful about the kind of material they put into the lighthouses. The big tower at Cape Henry is made of steel, and every piece is riveted carefully to the piece next to it. The whole structure must be of the very best material. If there were one poor piece of steel in it the whole building might fall some night when the wind was blowing a gale along the coast.

       Every day we are busy building our characters, and sometimes we are tempted to put in bad habits and easy, lazy ways. If we do, the character we are erecting will never stand the tests of life that are coming.

       But there is something else that is even more important. What is the lighthouse for? It is there to give light. There are ships out there on the sea every night in danger of running on the rocks or the shoals. The light is there to show them how to avoid the dangers.

       In the same way our characters are being built, not for our own glory or our own pleasure, but to give light to the people that are about us. We are to live so that they will want to do better and be better. If we are selfish, and do not let the light of life shine, they may become bewildered and lost, like the ship along a coast where there is no lighthouse.

       There was a man once who was being taken over a lighthouse by the man who kept it. While they were looking at the light the man said to the keeper, "Suppose some night you should forget to light it?" He answered, "Sir, that is impossible. I could not forget it. If there were no light tonight, in a few days I would hear from the North and the South and everywhere, that there were ships that went astray tonight. I dare not forget it."

       So we must not forget our lights. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Rocks and Shoals

 "The wicked have set their traps for me, but I will not turn from your commandments." Psalm 119:110

A ship tossed in the storm, needs a chart.

       Every ship that sails on the ocean has in the captain's room a chart. You have all seen maps of this state, and you know by looking at the map where every city and river and mountain is. A chart is a map of the ocean. There are dangers down underneath the smooth waters which the captain's eye cannot see. They are all marked carefully on the chart, and if he sails the ship by the chart he will escape them.

       Sometimes just a little below the water are great sharp rocks, and if the captain were to forget to look at that map of the sea he would run into one of those hidden rocks and the ship would sink.

       There are shoals also for which he must be on the lookout. A shoal is a very shallow place in the sea. If the ship runs on a shoal it sticks fast, and has a hard time to get off, and sometimes is broken to pieces by the waves before they can save it.

       On the captain's chart every lighthouse and light-ship and buoy, and every rock and shoal is carefully marked, for the safety of the people who travel on the ships.

       Life is very much like a ship, sailing out to sea. We need a chart to point out the safe places and to show us how to avoid the dangers. God has given us a book to be our chart. It is the Bible.

       Let me tell you some of the people whom you know who ran on the rocks because they did not watch the chart carefully enough. The first boy in the Bible was named Cain. His was the very first ship that ever put out to sea from a home in this world. But do you know he let his ship run into a rock called " bad temper," and before he knew it he had killed his brother. A great many good ships have been wrecked on that rock. We must look out for it by watching the Bible carefully.

       Another was Absalom. He was King David's favorite son. The Bible says, "Honor thy father and thy mother." But Absalom was one of those boys who knew more than anybody else. He wasn't going to bother about that old chart. He knew where to go himself. And one day, crash! He ran into the rock of " disobedience" and  that was the end of him. It would never have happened if he had watched the chart.

       Over in the New Testament is Ananias. He was a business man. He was so busy making money that he thought that he didn't have time to look at the chart to see where he was going, and all at once he ran into that rock called "lie" and he went down and was never seen again.

       But rocks are not the only dangers we have to look out for. There are the shoals. One of the very worst shoals is laziness. I knew a man who had plenty of ability and a fine education. He might have been a great man. He started out well, but he never went far. One day he just stopped working and there he stayed the rest of his life. Do you know what was the trouble ? He ran on the shoal of laziness, and there he stuck fast. If he had read the book of Proverbs, he would have known enough to have steered away from that dangerous shallow place.

       There is one more dangerous shoal that I must tell you about. Once there was a man named Demas. He thought it would be a great thing to be a missionary like Paul and love and help other people. He started out like a fine ship going on a long, happy voyage. Then he began to think how much it was going to cost him; all the good things he would have to give up, and the pleasure he would miss if he went with Paul. So he stopped and did not go. He stuck fast on the shoal of selfishness. We must be careful and not be caught on this shoal.

       Often a ship is in danger. There is fog on the ocean, or it is near rocks or shoals. At such a time the captain never leaves the pilot-house for a second. He keeps his eye on the chart and the compass every moment. There are many dangerous rocks and shoals which we must avoid. If we will keep near to the Bible and follow its directions, we will not fear what may be before us.

The Lord God Is Like The Sun

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." Psalm 84:11

       The Bible tells us that God is like the sun. “The Lord God is a sun.” If you take the Hymnal, and look among the hymns you love you will find the thought repeated, again and again, “Sun of my soul, thou Savior dear,” “As the sun doth daily rise,” “Sun of our life, thy quickening ray,” “Great sun of righteousness, arise.” The sun is so full of light, so bright, so warm, so beautiful, it is little wonder the sun reminds us of God.
       How far away the sun is! Once I saw an automobile travel 100 miles an hour. It was out at Indianapolis on the great speedway. No! I was not at the races. I was at the General Assembly. Now, if you can imagine that automobile, not going around in a circle but traveling straight on and on, going day and night, every day, Saturday afternoons and Sundays, going on and on, 100 miles an hour for more than 100 years, it would arrive at last at the sun.
       How great is the sun! It would take more than a hundred worlds as big as ours to make one sun. And how great is God. He made the sun and all the stars. There is nothing in the world so great as God. “To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.’’
       How bright the sun is! It scatters the night and chases away the darkness. How bright and beautiful God is! In him is light. The sun sends out great flames of light reaching 500,000 miles high, and the light of the sun warms this cold world of ours. They tell us there are “spots” in the sun, great dark spots, thousands of miles across, but there is no shadow of darkness about God.

“Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn;
Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn;
Our rainbow arch, Thy mercy’s sign;
All, save the clouds of sin, are Thine.”

       How near the sun is! We think it is far away, millions of miles away, and yet the sun is here, at our side, shining, among the flowers, in our homes, in the faces of little children, in the eyes of those we love. The sun is so near you can almost hold it in your hand and look at it. We know the sun. We know what it is. We know what is in it. We know there is iron and copper and zinc and soda and magnesia in the sun. How do we know that? Because the sun comes right down and kisses the flowers and the faces of little children, and wise men take a sunbeam and make it tell them it's wonderful secrets. How near God is and how good He is. He comes to us in Jesus, the light of the world, and Jesus tells us all we know about God.

“Great Sun of Righteousness, arise;
Bless the dark world with heavenly light:
Thy gospel makes the simple wise,
Thy laws are pure, Thy judgments right.”

There shall coma a star out of Abraham.
Jacob's many sons descended
from Abraham.

       The Bible tells us that Abraham' s descendants would number like the stars in Genesis "Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram (or Abraham) was seventy-five years old when he left Haran." Genesis 12 : 1-4

"Son Shine" Crafts and Activities:

• Be a Good Example
• The Bible is My Light, spinner craft
• God is my light fall Bible craft
• Jesus said "I Am..." the light of the world lighthouse craft for object lesson.
• Light of the World Paper Candle Craft
• "Let it Shine!'' light themed Sunday school crafts 
• Let Your Light Shine Oil Lamps
• Clay oil lamp craft