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

A Child-Like Spirit

 A CHILD-LIKE SPIRIT

Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me,
The changes that will surely come,
I do not fear to see;
I ask Thee for a present mind,
Intent on pleasing thee.

I ask thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And wipe the weeping eyes;
A heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
And seeks for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know:
I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,
I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate;
A work of lowly love to do,
For Him on whom I wait.

I ask Thee for the daily strength
To none that ask denied;
A mind to blend with outward life.
While keeping at Thy side;
Content to fill a little space,
If Thou be glorified.

And if some things I do not ask
In my cup of blessing be,
I'd have my spirit filled the more
With grateful love to Thee, -
More careful not to serve Thee much,
But please Thee perfectly.

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

The Child's Prayer

 THE CHILD'S PRAYER

I am a very little child.
Yet God, who dwells above.
Will hear me, if I rightly pray,
And answer me in love.

Heavenly Father! wilt thou bless
My father and my mother;
And also bless my sister dear;
And bless my baby brother.

Forgive me, if I've been to-day
A very naughty child;
And teach me how I may become
A boy both good and mild.

And keep me out of every ill;
And teach me how to pray,
That I may be a better child
On every coming day.

The Flowers

THE FLOWERS

God might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,
The oak tree and the cedar tree,
Without a flower at all.

He might have made enough, - enough
For every want of ours, -
For luxury, medicine, and food,
And yet have made no flowers.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made,
And dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Upspringing day and night.

In fertile valleys, green and low.
And on the mountains high,
And in the silent wilderness,
Where no one passes by.

Our outward life requires them not,
Then wherefore had they birth?
To minister delight to man,
And beautify the earth.

To comfort man, - to whisper hope,
Whene'er his faith is dim;
For He, who careth for the flowers,
Will surely care for him.
 

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.” 

Never, My Child, Forget To Pray

 NEVER, MY CHILD, FORGET TO PRAY

Never, my child, forget to pray,
Whate'er the business of the day;
If happy dreams have blessed thy sleep,
Or startling fears have made thee weep.

With holy thoughts begin the day,
And ne'er, my child, forget to pray;
Ask Him, by whom the birds are fed,
To give to thee thy daily bread.

If wealth her bounty should bestow,
Praise Him from whom all blessings flow;
If He, who gave, should take away.
Never, my child, forget to pray.

The time will come, when thou wilt miss
A father's and a mother's kiss;
And then, my child, perchance thou'lt see.
Some who, in prayer, ne'er bend the knee;
From such examples turn away,
And ne'er, my child, forget to pray.

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

Little By Little

LITTLE BY LITTLE

One step, and then another,
And the longest walk is ended;
One stitch and then another,
And the largest rent is mended
One brick upon another,
And the highest wall is made;
One flake upon another.
And the deepest snow is laid.

So the little coral workers.
By their slow, but constant, motion,
Have built those pretty islands
In the distant, dark blue ocean;
And the noblest undertakings
Man's wisdom hath conceived,
By oft-repeated efforts
Have been patiently achieved. 

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 Stars Are Coming

 THE STARS ARE COMING

"See, the stars are coming
In the far blue skies;
Mother, look! they brighten;
Are they angels' eyes?"

"No, my child; the lustre
Of the stars is given,
Like the hues of flowers.
By the God of heaven."

"Mother, if I study,
Sure He'll make me know
Why the stars He kindled,
O'er our earth to glow?"

"Child! what God created,
Has a glorious aim;
Thine it is to worship, -
Thine to love His name."

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