"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” John 3: 14-15
"Mother, see what I found in the library just now!" exclaimed Annie as she approached her mother, carrying a large, gauzy-winged moth on her finger. "Where did it come from? and how did it get in there?"
"Call Herbert and come with me, and I'll finish the story I began to tell you some days ago." said the mother, as she went to the library and took down the cocoon from the corner in which it had been hanging.
"Now, children, I told you that a caterpillar spun this cocoon last fall, shutting itself up inside. Then it went to sleep, or apparently died. It has lain in this little casket, as we might call it, all these months - sometimes covered with the snow, sometimes rocked by the cold winds and beating rains.
"It was not dead, however. All this time that it was apparently lifeless, there was a change taking place in its body.
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| The caterpillar. |
''A certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the armor." I Kings 22:34
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| "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Psalm 127:5 |
About twenty-seven hundred years ago there was a king of Israel named Ahab. One day he went out with his army to fight against the Syrians. Now, Ahab was a coward. He was afraid that when the Syrians saw him they would try to kill him because he was the king of Israel. So he took off the fine armor and the plumed helmet that kings always wore in battle and put on the armor of an ordinary soldier. He did this so that the Syrians would not know who he was. By and by the battle was being fought and the Syrians looked around for Ahab, but they could not find him.
Off there in the Syrian army was a soldier with a bow and a quiver of arrows. He tightened his bowstring, took an arrow and put it against the string and looked for an Israelite to shoot at. He did not see any very near him so he just shot off that arrow into the air, not at anything in particular.
That is what we mean by drawing a bow at a venture. Let me tell you what became of that arrow. It went up and over and down, and hit the king of Israel who was trying so hard not to be killed that day. There was a place in the armor where the girdle and the breastplate came together, a little joint, and in there the arrow went and killed King Ahab.
The man in the Syrian army did not mean to do that. It is likely that he never knew as long as he lived that his arrow had killed the king.
Did you ever hear boys and girls say, "I didn't mean to"? When we start out we very seldom mean to do wrong. How is it, then, that we are so often guilty of doing evil things?
There was a story, that I read once in an old school book, of a workman who was busy building a ship. He came upon a wormy plank in a pile of lumber. He ought not to have put it into the ship, but he thought to himself, '' It is only one small plank and it will not matter." So he put it in and forgot all about it. After a while the ship was finished and went to sea. For years it did well, and then it was found that the timbers were eaten with worms. They tried to repair it but it became worse and worse, till one day while out at sea it began to leak badly. They tried to pump out the water, but it came in faster than they could get it out, and the crew only saved themselves by taking to the boats. It was that one wormy plank that caused the loss of that valuable ship. The man who put it in there did not mean to sink the ship, any more than that soldier meant to kill the king, but he did.
Some of the little things, that we do not mean to do, are those that most hurt others. The Prophet Jeremiah says that the tongue is like an arrow. It is often like the arrow of this soldier. It does what we do not mean it to do.
There was a story in one of our papers about a poor girl in one of our great cities. Her father had been killed, and she was working for her living, and trying to support her mother and her little sisters and brothers. It took so much for all this that she did not have anything left to buy pretty clothes with. Some of the girls in the shop where she worked made fun of her shabby dress. She was very sensitive and thought about it till her mind became affected. Then she ran off and jumped into the river. Those thoughtless girls did not mean to hurt her feelings. Their tongues were like that arrow. They killed when they did not mean to.
Good words are as arrows too. One of the great ministers of this country tells of crossing the ocean one summer. On the ship was a lawyer, the attorney-general of his state. One night the minister was passing the lawyer's stateroom. The door was open, and as he looked in he saw him reading his Bible. Just then the lawyer looked up and saw the minister and said, " Come in," and he went in. ''I am very glad," said the minister," to see you reading the Bible." ''Yes," said the other, " I read it through at least once each year. I did not know much about this book till a few years ago. One day a little girl said to me, ''Judge, have you ever read the Bible through?'' I said, ''No, have you?'' She said, ''Yes, of course I have.'' That set me thinking. I said to myself, ''Here I am, the attorney-general of this state, and I have never read through the book upon which our whole civilization rests.'' For pure shame I went and read it to the end, and I have never failed once each year to go through it again."
That little girl's arrow had hit the judge. Be sure that the words you speak are good words, so that when they hit, they will help instead of hurt. Hutchison.
I Thank Thee
by Rose Waldo
I'm Thankful, Lord, as I can be
That I can sing sweet songs to Thee.
I thank Thee for Thy loving care
And for the privilege of prayer.
I thank Thee, Lord, that I can say
My thankfulness to Thee each day.
I thank Thee, Lord, and love Thee, too,
For helping me with all I do
At home, and with my work at school.
I thank Thee for the Golden Rule
That helps me know the loving way
To treat my playmates everyday.
I thank Thee, Lord, that I can know
They love protects me and will show
How perfect gifts come from above,
But thank Thee most, dear God, for love.
"And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit
and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who
were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."Acts 10:38
The New Testament tells us many things about Jesus after He became a man. It does not say much about the child Jesus, so we ought to study and treasure very carefully everything that is said about His boyhood.
What kind of a place did Jesus live in when He was a boy? It was a very small town and a very poor and very dirty town. The streets were so narrow in some places that a woman could reach her hand out of her window on one side of the street, and shake hands with the woman, who was standing in her window, on the other side of the street. If a cart or a camel came along one of those narrow, dark streets, the children had to run into the houses to get out of the way.
The streets were also very dirty. There were no sewers then, or garbage wagons, and there was rubbish and filth everywhere.
The only time that the streets were cleaned was when it rained very hard.
Jesus lived in a very poor little house. The walls were bare and there was almost no furniture. He had none of the comfortable and pretty things that you have in your homes. He was a very poor boy. There were no beds or chairs in His home, and when He went to sleep at night He lay on the floor on a little rug.
Nowadays sometimes we hear boys and girls grumble and complain because they haven't as much as some one else, but there is not one of you who has not a better home, and more to make you contented than Jesus had when He was a little child.
What did Jesus do when He was a child? I think that He did pretty much the same things that boys do now. He was like every other healthy boy. He loved to run and play and have a good time. Some of the games that we play now are thousands of years old. "Hide-and-seek," "fox and geese," and some of our other out-of-door games, were played in Nazareth in the time of Jesus, and I have no doubt that some of the very games that you enjoy so much, Jesus used to play long ago when He was on earth.
But Jesus did something beside play. We are told that He went about doing good. That means that everywhere He went He tried to make people happier by helping them.
There was an old English admiral, long ago, who always carried with him a pocketful of acorns. Whenever a chance came he would plant one. Some one asked him why he did it. He replied, "I want to have plenty of oak trees to make ships for my country."
Wouldn't it be a fine thing for every one of us to carry goodness and happiness about with us, and leave a little everywhere we go? That was what Jesus did. " He went about doing good."
There was a man of whom I heard, who rode out every evening from business to his home in a railroad train. There isn't much fun in standing every day for three-quarters of an hour on a crowded train. But this man has a good time doing it. Let me tell you how he does it. Every day there are many people on that train who have to stand. Among them are tired women, and old men, who cannot hurry enough to get there before all the seats are taken. This man said to himself: ''I am big and strong and every night, when the rush comes for seats, I am going to get a good seat and hold it for someone who needs it more than I do."
So every evening when the crowd pushes through the gate, he is one of the first on the train, and always gets a good seat. Then when it is crowded he gives that seat to the most tired person that he can see, who has not been able to get there in time to find one.
He said, "I used to think hard of the railroad because they do not give us enough seats to go around in the rush hours, but I am glad of it now, for it gives me a fine chance to help some one else."
There is a little verse that we all ought to know, said to have been written by William Penn, "I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not neglect it, or defer it, for I shall not pass this way again." Hutchison.
Do good for others "He went over to him...he took care of him."
Luke 10:34
" I have seen God face to face." Genesis 32:30
What does God look like? Almost every boy and girl asks that question sometimes. When we pray to Him and read about Him in the Bible, we are always wondering and wishing that we could see Him. The Bible tells us that no man can see God and live. This used to trouble me very much. I couldn't understand why, if He is a good and loving God, everybody cannot see Him.
One day I heard a little story that made it plainer to me. There was a missionary who was visiting a king in India. He had been trying to tell the old heathen ruler about the true God. At last the king said, "Why don't you show me your God? I tell you about my gods and I take you and show them to you. You tell me about your God, but you never let me see Him."
The missionary answered, "But no one can see my God. No one can look on Him and live.''
The old heathen said, "I don't understand that." Then the missionary went to the window and told the king to come and look at something. When the king came he pointed at the sun and told him to look hard at it for a moment. The king tried and then turned his head away and said, "I can't look at the sun. It blinds me."
"Yes," said the missionary, "that sun is just one of God's poor servants, and if you are not able to look at that, do you think that you could look at God Himself?"
That is the reason we cannot look upon God. He is so great and so wonderful and so bright that the very sight of Him is too much for our eyes to see.
Perhaps we cannot see God's face, but we can come very close to Him if we know how. In the time of Moses God came down on Mount Sinai, and the people all ran away. They were afraid, but we are told that Moses went straight up to the place where God was. He was not afraid.
Some years ago some men went to Washington to see the president. When they came to the door of the White House where he lived, they were told that he was very busy, and it would be a long time before he could see them. So they sat down there to wait.
While they were sitting there, a little boy came up the walk, and opening the door of the president's room, went straight in and sat down by the president. Do you know why he went in while every one else had to wait? It was because he was the son of the president, and he could see him at any time.
That is why Moses was not afraid to go into the presence of God. Moses was God's child, and God loved him, and he loved God. If we love God, and He loves us, then we are His children, and He is always ready and willing to have us come to Him.
God wants us to know Him. There was once a wise king who desired to know his subjects, and wanted them to know him. While he lived in the palace he could never come to know them very well. They were too far away from him. So he dressed himself so that they would not know he was the king, and went and lived among them as a carpenter. They did not know who this poor workman was, but he was so good and gentle that they all came to love him, and then they found out that he was their king.
That is what Jesus did. He came and lived among us as a poor workman. He came to make us love Him and to show us how much He loves us. And before He went away He said, ''He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father."
It is this that I want you to remember most of all in connection with this text. If you want to see God, look at Jesus. Take the New Testament and read about Him and in learning to know Him you will come to know God. Hutchison.
IN THE TEMPLE.
O'ER Judah's plains sweet Spring had
thrown
Her flowery robe of living green.
And Nature in her gala robes
Was mantled like a fairy queen.
High o'er the temple's burnished towers
The sunshine fell like molten gold,
And flamed and flashed from glittering spire,
From pinnacle and turret old.
While through the city's busy street
Echoed the tread of countless feet.
Far over Judah's hills they come,
From shepherd lad to stately priest,
To ancient Salem's gates they haste
To keep the sacred Paschal Feast.
Look, who is he, that youthful Lad, -
Standing within the temple fair?
Why do not Israel's sages know
That he — the Paschal Lamb — is there?
Strange blindness, that they knew him not, -
Those gray haired men, those learned
seers:
Useless the Rabbi's studied lore,
The vain philosophy of years.
From out those sacred, youthful lips
Flow wondrous words of heavenly lore, —
Such words of purity and grace
As man had never heard before.
And now, a kind, obedient Son,
No thought had he of earthly fame,
But 'mong the hills of Nazareth
A humble carpenter became.
He took our fallen nature; he
Who made the hosts which roll above
Of Abraham's frail seed partook,
In godlike sympathy and love.
