With the Children on Sunday Part 25

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS: I have here an aquarium with a few very pretty goldfishes in it. As they swim from side to side they look very beautiful. When they see me coming nearer to the aquarium, or moving my hand upon this side or the other, they dart very quickly to the opposite side of the aquarium. They try to get out of sight, but it makes no difference whether they are upon this side or upon the other side of the aquarium, I can see them just as well. I can look right through the aquarium; I can see through the gla.s.s, and I can see through the water.

And wherever the fishes are in this aquarium, I can see them. It is impossible for them to hide away, or to get out of my sight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fishes in Aquarium.]

Now, the Bible tells us that "the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." (Prov. xv: 3.) We are very clearly taught in the Bible, that it makes no difference where we are, G.o.d can see us just as well in one place as in another. He can see us in the night just as well as in the daytime, for "the darkness and the light are alike unto Him." David said, "He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." (Psalm cxxi: 4.) So it makes no difference whether you are in the house or out of doors, whether it is day or whether it is night, G.o.d can see right through the house, just as you and I can look through this aquarium and through the water, so G.o.d can see right through the thick walls of a house, or even through a great mountain. If you were in the valley beyond the mountain, G.o.d could see right through the mountain; that would make no difference. He can even see way through the earth, from this side through to China. It makes no difference to G.o.d, for He can see just as well through material substances, through which you and I cannot look, as we can see through the air; indeed much better, for distance limits the possibility of our seeing distinctly and clearly, while G.o.d's power to see is not limited or circ.u.mscribed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "There is One Direction That You Have not Looked."]

Once there was a very excellent, good woman, who had a very nice and conscientious little boy, but the mother was poor and had to go out from day to day to earn her living. Each night when she returned home the little boy was very lonely, and would watch very patiently for his mother, and when he saw her coming, he would always run to the door to meet her, and throw his arms about her neck. But one evening when she returned, she noticed that little Willie was not at the door to meet her. She could not understand why, when she came into the house he seemed to be afraid of her. He tried to avoid her. After a time the mother called Willie to her and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him very tenderly. This was too much for the little boy's heart.

He looked up into his mother's face, and said, "Mamma, can G.o.d see through a crack in the door?" His mother said, "Yes, G.o.d can see everywhere." He said, "Mamma, can G.o.d see in the cupboard if it is dark in the cupboard?" "Yes, Willie, G.o.d can see in the dark as well as in the light." Willie looked up into his mother's face and said, "Then I might as well tell you. To-day I was very hungry, and although you told me that I should not take the cake which you had put in the closet, yet I went to the closet, and when I had closed the door, and it was all dark, I felt around till I got a piece of the cake, and I ate it. I did not know that G.o.d could see in the dark. I am very sorry that I have been so wicked and so naughty." And so little Willie threw his arms around his mamma's neck and laid his head upon her shoulder and wept very bitterly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eye in the Pulpit.]

Once a man went to steal corn out of his neighbor's field. He took his little boy with him to hold the bag open, while he should pull the corn and put it in the bag. After they had reached the cornfield the father looked this way and that way, and looked about him in every direction, and when he had given the little boy the bag to hold open, the little boy looked at his father and said, "Father, there is one direction that you have not looked yet." The father was quite frightened and supposed that his son had seen some one coming in some direction. But the son said, "You have not looked up. There is some one in that direction I am sure who sees us." The father was so much impressed that he turned away from his sinful purpose, and returned home, never again to steal from anyone.

Many years ago, among some of the denominations when they built a church, they used to build the pulpit very high. It was built almost as high as the gallery. And when the people sat in the pews and desired to see the minister, they had to bend their heads back, and look up very high toward the pulpit. At Reading, Pennsylvania, there is still one of these old pulpits which was formerly in use. On the under side of the shelf upon which the Bible rested in that pulpit, there was painted a large eye. And when the people would look up from the pews to see the minister, or towards the Bible, underneath this lid upon which the Bible rested they would always see this large eye. This eye would seem to look right down upon each one individually, and thus they would constantly be reminded of the text, "Thou G.o.d seest me," and the text which I repeated at the opening of this sermon, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." And so Sunday after Sunday, and year after year, from childhood to manhood, this object sermon was constantly being preached to them.

Whenever Satan tempts you to do wrong, remember that you cannot escape from the eyes of One who sees you constantly, and although no human being might know of your wickedness, yet G.o.d sees you, and G.o.d knows it all, for "His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men." (Psalm xi: 4.)

QUESTIONS.--Can the fish in the aquarium hide from our sight? How are we like the fish in the aquarium? What does the Bible say about the eyes of the Lord? Can darkness hide us from G.o.d's sight? Can He see through the earth? Tell about the little boy who ate the cake in the dark. Tell about the little boy whose father wanted to steal corn. Why was a large eye painted on the pulpit in the church? When we are tempted by Satan, what should we remember?

THE CLOCK.

MEASURING TIME.

SUGGESTION:--Object: An ordinary clock or watch.

I HAVE here a clock, with which I desire to ill.u.s.trate and emphasize the truth taught us in the twelfth verse of the ninetieth Psalm, where it says, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

Whatever is valuable we measure. Some things are measured by the yard, some things by the quart or gallon, other things by the pound or by the ton. Land is measured by the acre. One of the most valuable things that G.o.d gives to us is time. Queen Elizabeth, when she was dying, was willing to give her entire kingdom if she could only have one hour more in which to prepare for death.

As time is very valuable we measure it in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries. In the earliest time men had no means of measuring time, except as they saw it measured with the great clock which G.o.d has set in the heavens; for He tells us in the first chapter of Genesis that He made "the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night." The most accurate clocks in the world are those which most nearly keep time with the sun. All the effort to regulate clocks and watches is simply to adjust their movements so as to have them keep time with the movement of the sun. G.o.d has given us a conscience which is designed to regulate our lives until they shall be in harmony with the life of Christ, who is the Sun of Righteousness. Hundreds of years before Christ came, people may have had some very rude way of dividing the time during the day and night, but their princ.i.p.al division of time was simply day and night, summer and winter. These changes of day and night, summer and winter, helped to mark the progress of time, and they still do. If it were all daytime, or all night, and we had no clocks, we would have no means of measuring time. When Baron de Trench was liberated from his dungeon in Magdeburg, where the King of Prussia had confined him in darkness for a period of ten years, where he had no means of measuring how the time pa.s.sed and had even very few thoughts--when he was liberated, and was told that he had been in prison for ten years, his astonishment was almost beyond expression, for it had not seemed to him to be so long. It had pa.s.sed away like a painful dream.

In the early period of the world's history, human life was much longer than at present. Men lived to be several hundred years old. I suppose you can all tell how old Methuselah was. He was the oldest man who ever lived. When human life became shorter, time consequently became more valuable and men were more anxious to measure it.

I want to show you how to measure time, and what makes it valuable; for David asked to be taught properly to number his days; and the purpose was so that he might apply his heart unto wisdom.

Now, this watch and this clock are instruments with which we measure time. Once there was a king who desired not to forget that, like other men, he must die, and he had a man whose duty it was to come before him each hour and repeat the words: "Remember thou art mortal!" That is, every hour he had this man remind him that sometime he would have to die. Each time the man came in before the king, he was reminded that he had one hour less to live; so, each and every time that you hear the clock strike, you should be reminded of the fact that another hour has pa.s.sed, and that you have one less to live. In this sense every clock has a tongue, and when it strikes it tells us that we will now have one hour less to live upon the earth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hour-gla.s.s.]

The earliest device for measuring time was doubtless the sun-dial.

Perhaps you have never seen one. It is simply a round plate or disc of metal, with a small piece of metal standing upright in such a position that when the sun s.h.i.+nes, the shadow will be thrown upon the round cylinder or disc, around which are figures like those on the face of a watch or clock. Such methods of measuring time we know were used at least seven hundred and thirteen years before Christ, for in the book of Isaiah, thirty-eighth chapter and eighth verse, we find a very direct allusion to it. King Alfred of England used to use candles that were of uniform length; each candle would burn three hours, and by burning four candles, one after another, he could measure the hours of the day. In order to prevent the air from blowing against the candle and thus making it burn more rapidly or interfering with its accuracy in measuring time, he placed a horn or s.h.i.+eld around it, and in the old cathedrals this was the way they measured time. Later on they had hour gla.s.ses, such as you sometimes see placed on the piano when girls are practicing their music lesson. Sometimes you see small ones in the kitchen, which are used for timing the eggs while they are boiling, and it is to these forms of gla.s.ses that various poetical allusions are made when death is spoken of as the "sands of life" running out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What Use Do You Make of Your Time?"]

Later came the clocks. They were first made about 2,000 years ago, but were very rude and awkward. The first watches were made about 475 years ago, but they were very large, and you would almost need to have a man to carry your watch for you, it was so heavy. Smaller watches were first made about 200 years ago, and now they have some that are so very small that you could carry six or seven of them in your vest pocket without inconvenience. How else could we tell about the time of the departure of trains and steamboats, the hours to go to work in the factory or to go to school, when to go to church? And the enjoyment of many other things depends upon knowing accurately what moment we should be on hand. You should learn never to be late, but always to be prompt. Suppose that, with an audience of six hundred people, the preacher should be five minutes late. Each person would then have lost five minutes. This, for the entire six hundred present, would have been equal to more than forty-eight hours for a single person--more than two days and two nights.

But now what is it that makes time valuable? It is the use that we can make of it. David wanted to know about it, so that he could apply his heart unto wisdom. The man who does nothing with his time, in the eyes of others, is worth nothing; but the busy man always finds that his time is very valuable. It is strange, also, that when you go to idle people and ask them to do anything they always say they haven't time, so that the expression has come to be used that "if you want anything done go to a busy man." The more busy the man is the more likely he is to find time, in some way, to undertake any new form of useful endeavor and work.

Now, I want to ask you, What use do you make of your time? Are you faithful in the use of every moment at home, diligent in doing the work a.s.signed you, looking about you, and doing your own thinking, finding, for yourself, what is to be done, instead of standing around and waiting to be told? Are you diligent in school, always studying your lessons, learning all that you possibly can, remembering that everything that you can learn will at some time be of service to you? If you are employed in a store, or engaged in any other kind of business, are you faithful, using each moment and each hour, remembering that you are not to be faithful simply when your employer is looking at you, but you are to be faithful at all times? As the Bible says, "Not with eye service, as men pleasers" (Colos. iii: 22), but doing everything as unto the Lord. Are you faithful in the matter of attending church, and then when you are in the church, giving your mind to the consideration of the truth which is being presented, rather than allowing your mind to be engaged with the amus.e.m.e.nts and plays of last week, or the plans and purposes of next week? Are you faithful in the Sunday-school? Do you listen attentively to the lessons which are taught by your Sunday-school teacher? Each minute of the thirty devoted to the study of the lesson is very important, and all of the other moments in the Sunday-school are very important.

I was wondering the other day why the clock should have the long hand point to the minutes, and the short hand to the hours; but after all, it seems very wise that the greater emphasis, and greater importance should be attached to the longer hand. It points to the minutes, as though it were constantly saying to you and to me, look out for these minutes, look out for these small parts of the hour, and the whole hour will take care of itself. The big hand points to the minutes because, after all, they are the important things. It is like the old saying, "if we take care of the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves." If we will take care of the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves.

If you have never thought on these things, and have been an idler, I want to ask you to "Redeem the time." (Eph. v: 16.) That is, do not let your time go to waste. If you are not a Christian, even though you are very busy and very industrious concerning temporal things, you are really wasting your time. We are placed here upon the earth in order that we may love and serve G.o.d. That is our main business here. If we are going to serve Christ, we should study to know His life and His teachings, and yet some people know very little about the Bible. Did you ever stop to think that a man who is thirty-five years old has had five solid years of Sundays? And the man who is seventy years old, has had ten solid years of Sundays? With ten years given to wors.h.i.+p and the study of G.o.d's Word, a man at seventy ought to know a great deal concerning the teachings of the Bible. May G.o.d teach us so to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

QUESTIONS.--How do we measure cloth? Are sugar and coal measured by the yard? How do we measure land?

How do we measure time? How many divisions of time can you name besides seconds? What was the first instrument with which time was measured? With what did King Alfred measure the hours? What was later used for measuring time, after the sun-dial? About how long ago were clocks first invented? About how long ago were watches first made? Why did David want to be taught to number his days? Can the idle man or the busy man more easily find time for necessary duties? Will you always make diligent use of your time? Why does the larger hand of the clock point to the minutes? If we take care of the minutes, what will the hours do?

PLANS.

LIVING WITH A PURPOSE.

SUGGESTION:--Object: Architect's drawings for the building of a house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plans for Building a House.]

MY DEAR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN: I have here what the architect calls "plans," or drawings for a house. Unless the carpenter and builder had a copy of the plans he is to follow he would not be able to build successfully. He would not know what kind of material he would need. He would not know where to place the doors, or how large to make the windows, and whether to put the dining room on this side of the house or on the other side of the house; whether the parlor was to be on the first floor or on the second floor. So when a man is going to build, the first thing to be done is to decide what kind of a house he wants, and then to get an architect who is able to draw the plans perfectly, so as to show the size of every door and window and room, and the exact position and place of everything that is to enter into the building of the house. These plans cost a great deal of thought and oftentimes much delay in beginning, but in the end they save both time and expense, and secure the most desirable results.

Every boy and girl should have a plan, for we are all builders. We build day after day and week after week, and year after year. First of all, you should have some great purpose in life, and then all your other plans and purposes should be made to further and help the great main object which you have in life.

Once there were two boys who were very intimate when they were young.

They played together, and came to love each other very much. One was a boy who always had a plan. He had a plan for studying his lessons; he had a plan which showed what time he had resolved to get up in the morning; how many hours he would devote to study; what portions of the day he would give to play, and how much to work. So each and every day he had his plans. At the beginning of the year he had his plans for each month of the year.

The other boy never had any plans. Everything went along just as it happened. The boy who always had the plans had no money; his father was poor. But the boy who had no plans had plenty of money, for his father was rich. These two boys both became merchants, had stores in the same square in a large city. The one who had the plans always knew what he purposed to do, before the season began. He knew just when to purchase his goods for the spring trade; he knew when to sell them; everything was done methodically and with a plan. As the result of his thoughtful plans he soon began to acc.u.mulate wealth, obtained a place of confidence in the minds of business men, and eventually became one of the most honored and influential men in the city. With the other boy it was not so. He bought his goods whenever he chanced to see something that he fancied; often bought too much of one thing; had no method in business, and consequently in the course of a few years lost what money he had and died a poor man.

Let me hope that you will always have a plan for everything you do. G.o.d is the G.o.d of order, and we should also be orderly in all that we do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plans for Building a Life.]

These plans of the architect, when followed by the builders, will tell the stonemason, the bricklayer, the millman and the carpenter, the plasterer and the painter, just what each is to do, and all will be able to work in harmony, so as to secure a nice, comfortable and desirable home when the work is completed.

Now, we are all laying foundations in this world, and the perfect character cannot be obtained until in eternity. So when you come to plan for life, do not think that your stay in this world is to be all there is of your life. Let your plans take in eternity. If they leave out eternity they leave out the greatest portion of your existence. If you leave out the idea of eternity you will be like the man who simply lays the foundation and then never builds a house on it, and there, year after year, the foundation stands as the monument of his folly.

But you may desire to know where you can get the plans for a good and n.o.ble life--a plan that will include eternity. I will tell you: in the Bible. This is the best book in which to find the plans for a perfect and complete life. Just the same as the man who is going to build a house desires to go and examine other houses, so if you desire to be great and good, you should desire to read the biographies, the story of the lives of great men. I do not mean the fancied stories of lives which were never lived, which are so often told in some kinds of books, but I mean the lives of real men. When you see the difficulties which have been overcome by others; when you see how great and good other people have been, it will help you to be great and good. But after you have studied the lives of all the greatest and best men who have ever lived, and then compare them with the life of Jesus Christ, you will eventually come to see very clearly and distinctly, that after all there has never been but one perfect life lived on this earth, and that was the life of Jesus Christ. So you will readily see that if you desire to use a model which is perfect, you will have to take the life of Christ. You will find it fully portrayed in the Bible, especially in the first four books of the New Testament--Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This will give you the model of a perfect life and enable you to live so as to make your life glorious while upon the earth, and prepare you for an eternity of happiness and joy beyond this world. Have a plan and live to it, and let your plan include eternity. And may G.o.d give you grace to live up to a high ideal, to be n.o.ble Christian men and n.o.ble Christian women.

QUESTIONS.--What are needed before a house is built? Are all boys and girls builders? Builders of what? Do they need plans? Should we all have a main object in life? What must we use all other plans and purposes for? Which boy in the story turned out the better? What does the story ill.u.s.trate? Should we have a plan for each thing we do? Does G.o.d love order? What foundation are we laying in this life? Should our plans concern only this life? What kind of a builder are we like, if we make no plans for the life to come? Where can we get our plans? What perfect model can we follow?