Habits

 “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read... ”— Luke 4:16

       A habit, you know, is something you wear. A riding habit is what you wear when you ride a beautiful horse. It is something that exactly fits you, that belongs to you, and becomes you.
       A little girl in trying to tell what habit is said it is your second self. And she was right. You can’t get away from your habits any more than you can get away from yourself. Just think about it. If you take away the first letter you still have “a bit” left. If you take away the second letter there is still a “bit” left. If you take away the third letter you still have “it.” Our habits are ourselves.
       A good boy has good habits and a bad boy has bad habits. And our habits are made when we are very young. Our brains when we are little children are just like fluffy snow. You know how soft and smooth new fallen snow is. Then you see a pair of little feet running across the snow and you have footprints in the snow. Then those same little feet travel back over the same tracks and return and by and by there is a path in the snow. Now thoughts and acts and words, repeated again and again make tracks in our brain and in our soul and these paths when they become well beaten are habits. Habits are the paths our thoughts and actions take.
       Last summer at a farmhouse near my summer home in Canada I saw an interesting example of habit. My friend Mr. Cotter, whom his good wife calls “Sack,” is the warden in the little church at Port Maitland. That is to say, he is the chief man, next to the minister, and watches over the church, takes up the collection, and keeps his eye on the preacher and his ears open to the preaching. His father had been warden before him and before his father his grandfather had held the same important position. So Mr. Cotter knew all about the church.
       One Sunday morning as usual he was getting ready for church and had harnessed up old Dolly and hitched her to the buggy and then gone in to wash his hands, put on his coat and take a last look at himself in the glass. That is the way all good farmers do. They dress the horse first, and then themselves.
       When he came out Dolly was gone. She was nowhere to be seen. He looked in the shed, and in the field and behind the barn, but there was no Dolly. Where do you think she was? Yes! She had gone off herself with the empty buggy to church and Mr. Cotter found her looking over the fence, listening to the first hymn. Old Dolly, better than most people, had good old-fashioned habits of church-going, and she had a fine habit of being on time.
       If you will take your New Testament you will find that three times we are told about the habits of Jesus. When He was twelve years old we read that according to His habit He went up to the feast at Jerusalem. When He became a full grown man He returned from His work to His own village at Nazareth and there according to His habit He entered into the little synagogue and took part in the service. Then near the close of His life we read that according to His habit He went out into the Mount of Olives to pray. These were Jesus’ habits. He had good home habits, good church habits and good prayer habits. Take your Bible and find the verses where these habits of Jesus are spoken of. You will find them all in the Gospel of Luke. You will not find the word “habit” but the word “custom,” which means the same. And then sit down and count over your habits, and ask yourself if you have good church habits, good prayer habits, good study habits, for your habits are just yourself. Kerr

3 Good Religious Habits for Kids!

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.

Sample Illuminated Letter "E"

Description of Sample Letters: A collection of illuminated letter "E" throughout earlier centuries when it was a common place art form. These letters may be traced and integrated into student illumination of scripture, poems, prayer, etc...

• Read more about the history behind the letter "E"
  

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Sample Illuminated Letter "D"

Description of Sample Letters: A collection of illuminated letter "D" throughout earlier centuries when it was a common place art form. These letters may be traced and integrated into student illumination of scripture, poems, prayer, etc...

• Read more about the history behind the letter "D"
  

Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

Live for Something

 LIVE FOR SOMETHING

Live for something, be not idle,
Look about thee for employ,
Sit not down to useless dreaming, -
Labor is the sweetest joy.
Folded hands are ever weary,
Selfish hearts these never gain,
Life for thee hath many duties, -
Active be, then, whilst thou may.

Scatter blessings in thy pathway!
Gentle words and cheering smiles
Better are than gold and silver,
With their grief-dispelling wiles.
As the pleasant sunshine falleth
Ever on the grateful earth,
So let sympathy and kindness
Gladden well the darkened hearth.

Hearts there are oppressed and weary, -
Drop the tear of sympathy;
"Whisper words of hope and comfort;
Give, and thy reward shall be
Joy unto thy soul returning.
From this perfect fountain-head;
Freely, as thou freely givest.
Shall the grateful light be shed.

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.