and 
 Other 
 
 Talks 
 
 Children 
 
 Three 
 Fishing Boats 
 
 JOHN C. lAMEEirr. B.D. 
 
BV 4315 .L35 1895 
 Lambert , John C. 
 Three fishing boats 
 
 L. I (^ 
 
THREE FISHING BOATS 
 
^' 
 
 ^Vi OF PH/,VG^ 
 
 a 
 
 % 
 
 NOV 12 1931 
 
 1^^ 
 
 OGlCALSi 
 
 .v^^ 
 
 THREE 
 
 Fishing Boat5 
 
 AND 
 
 Other Talks to Children 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. JOHN C. LAMBERT, B.D., 
 
 Author of "The Omnipotent Cross and other Sermons," &c. 
 
 New Edition. 
 
 OLIPHANT, ANDERSON, & FERRIER. 
 
THE CHILDREN'S SUNDAY. 
 
 A New Series of Books for Young People, 
 
 Post 8vo, cloth extra. Price Is. 6d. each. 
 
 Bible Stories without Names. By the Rev. Harry Smith. With 
 Names on separate booklet at end. 
 
 Tlie Cllildren's Prayer. Addresses to the Young on the Lord's 
 Prayer. By the Rev. James Wells, D.D. 
 
 Object Addresses for Cliurcli, Home, and School. By the Rev. 
 A. Hampden Lee. 
 
 Talks on Favourite Texts, and other Addresses to Children. By 
 
 various Writers. Edited by the Rev. Harry Smith. 
 
 More Bible Stories without Names. By the Rev. Harry Smith. 
 
 THE "GOLDEN NAILS" SERIES. 
 
 Post 8vo, neat cloth. Price is. 6d. each. 
 
 Golden Nails, and other Addresses to Children. By the Rev. 
 George Milligan, B.D. 
 
 Pleasant Places: Words to the Young. By the Rev. R. S. 
 
 Duff, D.D. 
 Parables and Sketches. By Alfred E. Knight. 
 
 Silver Wings, and other Addresses to Children. By the Rev. 
 
 Andrew G. Fleming. 
 
 Three Fishing Boats, and other Talks to Children. By the Rev. 
 John C. Lambert, B.D. 
 
 Lamps and Pitchers, and other Addresses to Children. By the 
 Rev. George Milligan, B.D. 
 
 A Bag with Holes, and other Addresses to Children. By the 
 Rev. James Aitchison. 
 
 Kingless Folk, and other Addresses on Bible Animals. By the 
 Rev. John Adams, B.D. 
 
 The Little Lump of Clay, and other Five-Minute Talks to Children. 
 
 By the Rev. H. W. Shrewsbury. 
 
 The Oldest Trade in the World, and other Addresses to the 
 Younger Folk. By the Rev. George H. Morrison. 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 nn*HE following addresses are such as 
 ^ the writer is in the habit of giving 
 every Sabbath, at the morning service, to 
 the children of his congregation. The 
 circumstances of their production and 
 delivery account for their brevity and want 
 of elaboration. They are not intended 
 as examples of what children's addresses 
 ought to be ; they are simply specimens 
 of a kind of address which the writer has 
 found helpful in increasing the interest of 
 the children of his own congregation in 
 the public worship of the church. 
 
 Perhaps it should be added, as an 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 explanation both of their matter and 
 manner, that they were spoken mainly for 
 the sake of the younger children. The 
 writer, partly because of the unusual pro- 
 portion of very young children in his 
 morning audience, and partly because of 
 his belief that older children are, in 
 general, as appreciative of an ordinary 
 sermon as their fathers and mothers, has 
 found it most useful in the children's 
 portion of the service to keep before his 
 mind and heart those who are very 
 young. 
 
SUBJECTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Three Fishing Boats, - - - - 13 
 
 " Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and ye 
 shall find.'*— John xxi. 6 (R.V.). 
 
 The Hands of Jesus, - - - - 20 
 
 *' Behold My hands." — Luke xxiv, 39. 
 
 Loving though we cannot See, - - 27 
 
 "Whom having not seen, ye love."— i Pet, i. 8. 
 
 A Lesson from a Railway Lamp, - - 33 
 
 ••Among whom ye shine as lights in the world." — 
 Phil. ii. 15. 
 
 Lions in the Way, 39 
 
 *' The slothful man saith. There is a lion in the way ; 
 a lion is in the streets. As the door tumeth 
 upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his 
 bed." — Prov. xxvi. 13, 14. 
 
 The Yoke of Christ, .... 46 
 
 "Take My yoke upon you." — Matt. xi. 29. 
 
 God's Library, 53 
 
 " In Thy book all my members were written." — Ps. 
 
 cxxxix. 16. 
 "Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle : are they not 
 
 inThybook?"— Ps. Ivi. 8. 
 "And the books were opened."- Rev. xx. 12. 
 "The Lamb's book of life."— Rev. xxi. 27. 
 
Subjects, 
 
 PAGB 
 
 God's Hammer, 6i 
 
 " Is not My word, saith the Lord, like a hammer?" 
 — Jer. xxiii. 29, 
 
 God's Looking-Glass, . - - - 67 
 
 " For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, 
 he is like unto a man beholding his natural face 
 in a glass."— James i. 23. 
 
 " Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord."— 
 I Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 God's Search-Light, ... - 72 
 
 •' Search me, O God." — Ps. cxxxix. 23. 
 
 The Lily and the Cedar, - - - 79 
 
 " He shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots 
 as Lebanon."— HosEA xiv. 5. 
 
 The Message of the Bridge, - - 86 
 
 " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." — Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 Stephen's Three Crowns, - - - 91 
 
 "And they stoned Stephen."— Acts vii. 59. 
 
 Asking and Receiving, - - - - 98 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you." — Matt. vii. 7. 
 
 The Image of God, 105 
 
 "The Image of the invisible God."— Col. i. 15. 
 
 Let your light so shine before men." — Matt. v. 16. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The Treasures of the Snow, - - 117 
 
 " Hast thou entered into the treasures of the 
 snow?" — Job xxxviii. 22. 
 
 The Form of a Servant, - - - 124 
 
 "Christ Jesus, who . . . took upon Him the 
 form of a servant." — Phil. ii. 5-7. 
 
Subjects. xi 
 
 PACK 
 
 The Peace-makers, 131 
 
 " Blessed are the peace-makers." — Matt. v. 9. 
 
 Entertaining Angels Unawares, - - 138 
 
 " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers ; for there- 
 by some have entertained angels unawares." — 
 Heb. xiii. 2. 
 
 Contentment, 146 
 
 •' Be content with such things as ye have."— Heb. 
 xiii. 5. 
 
 The Rock that is Higher, - - - 153 
 
 " Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." — 
 Ps. Ixi. 2. 
 
 The Kingdom of God, - - - - 160 
 
 " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good 
 pleasure to give you the kingdom." — Luke 
 xii. 32. 
 
 Burden-Bearing, ----- 166 
 
 " Bear ye one another's burdens." — Gal. vi. 2. 
 
 A Scholar of Conscience, - - - 173 
 
 "But so did not I, because of the fear of God."— 
 Neh. v. 15. 
 
 Christ our Master, 180 
 
 "Ye call Me Master (8 tSacTKaXos) and Lord: 
 and ye say well ; for so I am." — John xiii. 13. 
 
 "Master (tTTtCTTaTa), we have toiled all the 
 ■ight."— Luke v. 5. 
 
Three Fishing Boats. 
 
 " Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and 
 ye shall find."— John xxi. 6 (R.V,). 
 
 MANY of you when you were 
 away for your summer holidays 
 were staying at the seaside, and 
 one of your chief pleasures there was to 
 go out in a boat, especially if you had 
 lines and bait so that you could "go a 
 fishing." I daresay you have noticed, 
 when two of you were fishing from 
 opposite sides of the boat, that sometimes 
 the fish came only to the one line, and 
 left the other severely alone, until you 
 
14 Three Fishing Boats. 
 
 began to think that the right side of the 
 boat must be a better side to fish from 
 than the left. 
 
 Last summer I was staying on the 
 shores of Loch Fyne ; and often, when I 
 was out on the loch in the evenings, I 
 saw a shoal of mackerel or herring pass- 
 ing quite near. Sometimes on the one 
 side of the boat the water would be 
 perfectly calm — not a fish to be seen ; 
 but on the other it seemed almost to be 
 boiling with the jumping fish. 
 
 Well, one evening Peter and James and 
 John and some other disciples went out 
 in their boat to fish. They fished all 
 night, but caught nothing. They hadn't 
 even, it appears, a single fish for their 
 own breakfast. Jesus came down to the 
 shore, and He knew, although they did 
 not, that there was a great shoal of fish 
 on the right side of the boat. So He 
 cried across the water, "Cast the net on 
 the right side of the boat, and ye shall 
 
Three Fishing Boats. 15 
 
 find." And now, when they cast the net, 
 they could not draw it in, for the multitude 
 of fishes. 
 
 Now, I want to speak to you for a few 
 minutes about casting the net on the right 
 side of the boat. I wish you to imagine 
 that you are all fishermen. Sometimes 
 the New Testament says that we are all 
 to be soldiers, and again that we are all 
 to be builders, and again that we are all 
 to be travellers. But suppose at present 
 that you are all fishers, and that Jesus 
 comes to you and says when you are 
 fishing, "Cast your net on the right side 
 of the boat, and ye shall find." 
 
 Let me tell you of three boats in which 
 boys and girls go out to fish. 
 
 I. The first I would call the School-boat. 
 
 As soon as you are old enough, you 
 are put into this boat and launched out 
 upon the wide sea; and your duty in this 
 boat is to catch something. Can you tell 
 me what it is? I think the name of it 
 
1 6 Three Fishing Boats. 
 
 is knowledge. You would be very poor 
 and helpless creatures by-and-by in this 
 busy world, if you had no knowledge. 
 And that is why your parents send you 
 to school, and your teachers do their best 
 to educate your minds. 
 
 But how are you to get this precious 
 thing which is called knowledge? You 
 must cast your net on the right side of 
 the boat. For there is a right side and 
 a wrong side in this school-boat. On the 
 wrong side are the lazy children, and the 
 idle children, and the inattentive children, 
 and all the children who do not wish to 
 learn. On the right side are the children 
 who love knowledge, and do their best 
 to gain it. And be sure of this, boys and 
 girls, that if you cast your net on the 
 right side of the boat, you are certain to 
 find. 
 
 2. The second boat I call the Business- 
 boat. 
 
 Some of the bigger boys have left 
 
Three Fishing Boats. ij 
 
 school now. We never see them going 
 along the road, as they used to do, with 
 large bundles of books. They have given 
 up wearing their school caps, and have 
 taken to felt hats ; and they start by the 
 train every morning along with the city 
 men. And some of you, I know, have 
 just finished your school-days, and are 
 looking out at present for something to 
 do. You are not sure what you are going 
 to be, but at all events you are going 
 into business. 
 
 Now can you tell me what people go 
 to business for? "To make money," I 
 think I hear you saying. But I say, " No ! 
 Not to make money merely, but to do 
 zvork" Of course we must be paid for 
 the work we do, or we could not live ; 
 but it is a very poor thing to work only 
 for the money we get. We should work 
 for the work's sake, because work is a 
 noble thing in itself, and because every 
 honest worker is serving God, and doing 
 
1 8 Three Fishing Boats, 
 
 good to his fellows, as well as benefiting 
 himself. 
 
 Well, in this business-boat also there 
 is a right side and a wrong side. The 
 wrong side is the side of carelessness, 
 and unpunctuality, and dishonesty. The 
 right side is the very opposite of all these 
 things. And if you cast your net on the 
 right side of the boat, if you listen to the 
 voice of Christ, and do what He tells 
 you, you are certain to succeed. You 
 may not make a great pile of money, 
 and die a rich man ; but God will send 
 a blessing upon all your labour, and 
 enable you to serve your own generation 
 according to His will. 
 
 3. The third boat is the Home-boat. 
 
 This is the best boat of all. It is a 
 boat for girls as well as for boys, for 
 the old as well as for the young. And 
 what can we catch in the home-boat? 
 If the school-boat is for finding know- 
 ledge, and the business-boat for finding 
 
Three Fishing Boats. 19 
 
 work, the home-boat, I think, is for 
 finding love. God puts us into homes 
 that we may learn to love, that parents 
 may love their children, and children their 
 parents, and brothers and sisters may 
 love one another. 
 
 But in this beautiful home-boat there 
 is a right side and a wrong side. The 
 wrong side is the side of selfishness and 
 disobedience, the right side is the side of 
 obedience and love. Which side are you 
 on, boys and girls? Remember that 
 Jesus is watching you from the shore, 
 and He is telling you what to do. If 
 you will hearken to His voice, and cast 
 your net on the right side of the boat, 
 your homes will soon be full of a holy 
 love which will make your lives both 
 beautiful and bright. 
 
The Hands of Jesus 
 
 " Behold My hands."— LUKE xxiv. 39. 
 
 1WISH to speak to you this morning 
 about the hands of Jesus. What 
 wonderful hands they were! Won- 
 derful for what they did, and wonderful 
 for what they suffered. Will you listen 
 for a little, while I tell you something 
 about those blessed hands? 
 
 I. The hands of Jesus were working 
 hands. 
 
 Jesus, as you know, is called the " Car- 
 penter of Nazareth." There seems no 
 doubt that for many long years before 
 
The Hands of Jesus. 21 
 
 He began His public ministry, He had 
 been toiling patiently day by day in a 
 carpenter's shop, and earning His bread 
 by the labour of His hands. Most likely 
 He began to work when He was quite a 
 boy. Joseph and Mary were poor people ; 
 they could not afford to keep Him long 
 at school ; and when He was no more 
 than twelve years of age His school-days 
 would all be over, and He would begin 
 to learn His trade. Joseph at that time 
 was the village carpenter. So Joseph 
 took Jesus to be His own apprentice, 
 and taught those boyish hands how to 
 use the saw, and the hammer, and the 
 chisel, and the plane. And by-and-by 
 when Joseph died, it is very likely that 
 Jesus, who was Mary's eldest son, became 
 the chief support of His widowed mother 
 and His orphan sisters. The burden of 
 providing for a whole household rested 
 now upon His young shoulders. And 
 often, without doubt. He had to work 
 
22 The Ha7ids of Jesus. 
 
 very long and very hard, until the sweat 
 poured down from His brow, and His 
 hands were sore and weary. 
 
 And thus Jesus becomes an example 
 to us of diligence in doing our everyday 
 work. Never be afraid or ashamed of 
 honest work. Only be afraid and ashamed 
 of laziness and carelessness in doing it. 
 Behold the hands of Jesus! Think of 
 that little workshop in Nazareth, and of 
 the great and holy Jesus toiling there so 
 patiently at the task which His Father 
 in heaven had given Him to do. 
 
 2. But again the hands of Jesus were 
 praying hands. 
 
 Paul says, in his First Epistle to 
 Timothy, that he would have men "pray 
 everywhere, lifting up holy hands." That 
 was exactly what Jesus did. His hands 
 were continually lifted up to God as 
 hands of prayer. When He left His 
 home in Nazareth, and went about the 
 country teaching, and preaching, and work- 
 
TJu Hands of Jesus. 23 
 
 ing miracles, He often was very busy — 
 so busy, we are told, that He had no 
 leisure even to eat bread. But He always 
 found time to pray. Sometimes, after 
 working hard all day long, He climbed 
 to the top of a high mountain, so as to 
 be alone with God, and spent the whole 
 night in earnest prayer. 
 
 And if the holy Jesus prayed so con- 
 stantly and fervently, how much need 
 we have to pray. I hope you boys and 
 girls do not forget to lift up to God the 
 hands of prayer every morning when you 
 wake, and every night before you go to 
 sleep. But you should learn to pray not 
 only at these regular times, but always 
 and everywhere ; for you need God's help 
 and guidance all the day long, amidst 
 your tasks and pleasures, your troubles 
 and temptations. The life of Jesus was 
 always a life of prayer ; the hands of 
 Jesus were always the hands of prayer. 
 And if you wish to be like Jesus you 
 
24 The Hands of Jesus. 
 
 also must learn to pray everywhere, lifting 
 up holy hands to God. 
 
 3. The hands of Jesus were helping 
 hands. 
 
 Wherever He went His hands were 
 stretched out to help others. I am sure 
 that when He was a little boy He helped 
 His mother in the house, just as after- 
 wards He helped Joseph in the shop. 
 And when He began the great work of 
 His public life, you know how many 
 gracious and kindly acts the hands of 
 Jesus performed. When the hungry came 
 to Him, He gave them bread. When the 
 blind came. He laid His fingers on their 
 eyeballs and made them see. One day 
 He went into a house where a little girl 
 was lying cold and dead. But Jesus took 
 her cold little hand into His strong living 
 one, and said, "Damsel, I say unto thee. 
 Arise ! " and at once her spirit came back 
 again, and she arose and walked. You 
 cannot do such wonderful things as were 
 
The Hands of Jesus. 25 
 
 done by the hands of Jesus ; and yet 
 how much even your hands can do to 
 help others if only you are willing. What 
 a help some girls are to their mothers, 
 and some boys to their fathers. And how 
 beautiful it is to see a child whose hands 
 are helping hands, as the hands of Jesus 
 were. 
 
 4. In the last place the hands of Jesus 
 were pierced hands. 
 
 That was what Jesus wanted His dis- 
 ciples to notice when He said, " Behold My 
 hands." The disciples could not believe 
 that this was actually Jesus risen from 
 the dead, and so He showed them His 
 hands and His feet, still pierced by the 
 cruel nails with which He had been 
 fastened to the cross. 
 
 Yes, the hands of Jesus were pierced 
 hands ; and Jesus wants us all to look at 
 them, and to think why it was that the 
 nails were driven through them. Don't 
 you all know the reason why? It was 
 
26 The Hands of Jesus. 
 
 because Jesus loved us, and was willing 
 to lay down His life for our sakes, that 
 He suffered on that cross of Calvary. 
 " He was wounded for our transgressions, 
 and bruised for our iniquities." He died 
 to save us from our sins, and to win a 
 place for us in His Father's kingdom. 
 You remember the words of a beautiful 
 hymn in your own hymn-book : — 
 
 " How loving is Jesus who came from the sky, 
 In tenderest pity for sinners to die ; 
 His hands and His feet they were nailed to the 
 
 tree ; 
 And all this He suffered for sinners like me." 
 
 Well, if Jesus did all this for you, what 
 should you do for Jesus? The hymn 
 goes on to tell you : — 
 
 " Oh, give then to Jesus your earliest days ; 
 They only are blessed who walk in His ways ; 
 In hfe and in death He will still be their Friend, 
 For those whom He loves, He will love to the 
 end.'' 
 
Loving though we 
 cannot See. 
 
 "Whom having not seen, ye love." — i Pet. i. 8. 
 
 1WAS preaching lately in a church 
 where the organist is blind. He 
 was born blind, so that he never 
 saw the trees and the hills and the sky ; 
 he never even saw his father's and 
 mother's faces. He never saw an organ 
 or a music-book ; and yet he can play 
 beautifully, and he loves to play, as may 
 be seen from the light that comes into 
 his face when he is playing. Many of 
 
28 Loving though we cannot See. 
 
 you are learning music just now, and 
 you know how much you depend at first 
 upon your eyes. You have to look at 
 the keys, so as to learn their names ; 
 and at the notes in the book, so as to 
 know what keys to strike ; and at those 
 troublesome figures i, 2, 3, 4, so as to 
 know how to manage your fingers. I 
 am sure you must wonder how it is 
 possible for a blind boy ever to learn to 
 play. And yet, because the blind lad 
 I have told you of has some " music in 
 his soul," and has also a sensitive ear 
 and a delicate touch, he can play just 
 as well as if he had perfect eyesight. 
 
 Now, sometimes people say that they 
 cannot love Jesus Christ, because they 
 cannot see Him. But we don't depend 
 upon our eyes for loving Jesus any more 
 than the blind organist depends upon 
 his eyes for loving his organ. What 
 Peter says about Jesus is true, — "Whom 
 having not seen, ye love." 
 
Loving though we cannot See. 29 
 
 There are some boys and girls who 
 lost their mother when they were babies. 
 They don't remember anything about 
 her; perhaps they never saw her at all. 
 But their father sometimes speaks about 
 her, and their elder sister tells them how 
 good and kind she was ; and often they 
 look at her picture on the wall, and think 
 about her, and wish she was with them 
 still. And as they do this, they get to 
 love her very much, although they have 
 never seen her. 
 
 Well, it is something like that between 
 our souls and Jesus. We have never 
 seen Him ; but we love Him, because 
 He has first loved us, and because we 
 have heard a great deal about His good- 
 ness and His love. 
 
 There was an old minister in Edin- 
 burgh whom I used to know, who had 
 a blind boy in his congregation. One 
 breezy day when the minister was out 
 for a walk, he came upon this blind boy, 
 
30 Loving though we cannot See. 
 
 all by himself on the hillside, flying a 
 kite. He was sitting on the grass hold- 
 ing the string in his hand, and the kite 
 was high up in the air. "What are you 
 doing, James?" asked the minister. "I'm 
 fleein' my dragon," said the boy. "But 
 you can't see it." "Oh no," he said, "I 
 canna see it ; but I can feel it aye tug- 
 tuggin'." Well, there is just such a link 
 between our souls and Jesus. We cannot 
 see Him; but we can feel Him "aye tug- 
 tuggin'," like the blind boy's invisible kite. 
 Sometimes Jesus "tugs" us through 
 our consciences. Have you ever felt 
 Jesus tugging at your conscience? Have 
 you been tempted to do something wrong, 
 and felt just then a strange feeling inside 
 of you, as if some strong hand were 
 pulling at your very heart-strings and 
 saying, "Don't do it! Don't do it!"? 
 That was Jesus tugging at your con- 
 science. You could not see Him ; but 
 you felt His power. 
 
Loving though we cannot See. 31 
 
 Sometimes Jesus " tugs " us through 
 our Christian faith and love. When we 
 are sitting in church or Sabbath school 
 on the Lord's own day, and hear about 
 the Saviour's grace and goodness, we feel 
 sorry to think how bad we have been, 
 and we wish that we were much better 
 than we are. And when children hear 
 about the love of Jesus, and how He 
 took the children in His arms and blessed 
 them, and for their sakes died at last 
 upon the cross, they cannot help loving 
 Him, although they have never seen Him. 
 
 And sometimes Jesus "tugs" at our 
 hearts in another way still. For amidst 
 all our work and play, our pleasures and 
 duties, we are apt to forget Him alto- 
 gether. But He comes into our homes 
 and takes away a child whom we dearly 
 love. The little coffin is carried to the 
 cemetery, and buried underneath the 
 ground ; but the little spirit has gone to 
 be with Jesus. And when a father and 
 
32 Loving though tve cannot See, 
 
 mother have a little child in heaven, and 
 when boys and girls have a brother or 
 sister there, that makes them think of 
 Jesus more than they used to do before. 
 For where our treasure is, there will our 
 heart be also. And thus Jesus gets Hif 
 hand upon our heart-strings, and draws 
 our thoughts upwards, and teaches us 
 to set our affections upon the things 
 above. And many a time we learn to 
 love Jesus just because He is the Good 
 Shepherd who takes care of our little 
 lambs. 
 
 So we do not need to see Jesus in 
 order to love Him. What the apostle 
 says is true, — " Whom having not seen, 
 ye love ; in whom, though now ye see 
 Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory." 
 
A Lesson from a 
 Railway Lamp. 
 
 -M#f4- 
 
 " Among whom ye shine as lights in the world."— 
 Phil. ii. 15. 
 
 THIS text speaks about shining; and 
 it also tells us why we ought to 
 shine, viz., "as lights in the world." 
 Sometimes we wish to shine, not that we 
 may give light to others, but only for the 
 sake of the pleasure and comfort and glory 
 which it brings to ourselves. A boy likes 
 to shine in the football field, because it's 
 nice to hear people say that he is a 
 splendid runner, or that no one can kick 
 the ball so far as he. Another boy wishes 
 
34 A Lesson from a Railway Lamp. 
 
 to shine at school, because he would like 
 to be looked upon, and spoken about, as 
 the cleverest boy in the class. And girls 
 are fond of shining too. They like to be 
 admired for their looks, or their dress, or 
 their manners, or their accomplishments, 
 or any other good qualities they possess. 
 
 Well, these are ways of shining ; and I 
 don't say that there is anything positively 
 wrong in wishing to shine in some of these 
 ways, although the desire to do it certainly 
 brings with it many dangers and tempta- 
 tions. But, at all events, there's a better 
 way of shining, and that is to shine as 
 lights in the world — to shine, not for our 
 own pleasure or our own glory, but in 
 order that we may give light to other 
 people, and try to make them happy and 
 good. 
 
 Let me tell you a story which I have 
 read about shining for the sake of others.* 
 
 •* Rev. F. C. Spurr in Christian World Pulpit^ 
 i6th December 1891. 
 
A Lesson from a Railway Lamp. 35 
 
 A gentleman was standing one winter 
 evening on a railway platform waiting for 
 a train. And as he had some time to wait, 
 he strolled up and down the station, until 
 he came to the lamp-room. It was a very 
 bright, warm room, and one of those large 
 four-wheeled barrows, which railway porters 
 use for the purpose, was standing on the 
 floor filled with freshly lighted lamps. 
 There was a new lamp in the barrow 
 which had never been lighted before. It 
 had come from the shop that very morning. 
 And just as the gentleman came up, the 
 new lamp was saying, " Yes, this is what I 
 call jolly. I always thought that railway 
 lamps had a bad time of it, hung up in 
 cold carriages — at least, so I have been 
 told ; but this warm bright comfortable 
 room is what I didn't expect ; anyhow, it's 
 very nice." One or two old shabby lamps, 
 that had seen a great deal of service, 
 smiled at this, and one of them whispered 
 to the other, " Let him alone ; he will tell 
 
36 A Lesson from a Railway Lamp, 
 
 a different tale when he has been out on 
 duty for a few nights." 
 
 Just then a porter came into the room 
 whisth'ng a tune, and in a minute or two 
 he had wheeled the lamps out to the 
 cold draughty platform. The new lamp 
 shivered, and said, " What next, I wonder ? 
 Surely he won't put us into the cold 
 carriages." But the next moment the 
 porter seized the lamp and tossed it up 
 into the air, and another porter on the top 
 of the train caught it cleverly with both his 
 hands, and pushed it into a hole in the 
 roof of a third-class carriage. And then 
 the guard blew his whistle, and the train 
 moved away. 
 
 Next evening the gentleman was at the 
 railway station again, and he went along 
 to the lamp-room to learn more about the 
 lamps. They were all there once more, 
 the new lamp included. And just as he 
 came up, the new lamp was saying, "Wasn't 
 I disappointed when the porter put me 
 
A Lesson from a Railway Lamp. 37 
 
 into a third-class carriage — a new lamp, 
 mind you, into a dirty third-class carriage ! 
 It made me quite ill at first, but when I 
 looked down into the compartment, I saw 
 a woman with a sick baby, and she looked 
 up and said, ' Fm so glad they have given 
 us a nice bright light for once, for now I 
 can see baby's face.' Then a working man 
 pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and 
 said, ' Yes, so am I, for I can see to read 
 the evening paper. They don't often give 
 us such a good light as this.' And then I 
 noticed in a corner a girl with very red 
 eyes, as if she had been crying, and she 
 said, * I'm going home to see my mother 
 who is very ill, perhaps dying, and I 
 wanted so much to read the letter that my 
 sister wrote about her; and now I shall 
 be able to read it with this bright light.' 
 And they all seemed so glad about my 
 light,'* the new lamp went on to say, " that 
 I quite forgot my disappointment, and I 
 did try to shine my very best And now 
 
38 A Lesson from a Railway Lamp. 
 
 I am quite looking forward to going out 
 again to-night ; for it's much better to help 
 other people than to stay here and enjoy 
 oneself." 
 
 That story is a parable, but all of you 
 will understand what it means. It tells us 
 that we should shine, not for our own 
 pleasure merely, but to bring light and joy 
 into other lives. You boys and girls can 
 do this. Your lights may not be very big 
 or bright, as yet ; but, at least, you can be 
 like the little candles of which you have 
 just been singing — each in your small 
 corner shining in the night. Or you can 
 be like the fireflies I used to see when I 
 was a boy in the dark tropical woods, 
 tiny little things, with lights far feebler 
 than the smallest candle, and yet breaking 
 up the night and making it beautiful. 
 Will you all try to shine, to shine for 
 Jesus, and so give light to others in this 
 dark world? 
 
Lions in the Way, 
 
 > • < 
 
 " The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the 
 way ; a lion is in the streets. As the door 
 turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful 
 upon his bed." — Prov. xxvi. 13, 14. 
 
 I 
 
 T would be a dreadful thing, would 
 it not, if there were lions in the 
 woods about Cathcart, and if some- 
 times we even heard them roaring in the 
 streets? You have seen pictures of lions, 
 and read stories about them ; and some 
 of you have seen a real living lion in a 
 menagerie ; and so you know what a 
 dreadful beast a lion is. If there really 
 was a lion in the way, you would have 
 
40 Lions in the Way. 
 
 a very good excuse for not going to 
 school in the morning. But the lion 
 the text speaks about is not in the 
 streets at all ; he is only in the sluggard's 
 fancy. The sluggard does not want to 
 get out of his bed in the morning. It 
 is too cold, he thinks, or it is too early, 
 or he has not had enough slumber; and 
 so he cries out, " I can't get up ; there's 
 a lion in the way." But the real lion 
 is in his own heart, and the name of this 
 lion is Sloth. 
 
 "'Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him 
 
 complain, 
 * You have waked me too soon, I must slumber 
 
 again.' 
 As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed 
 Turns his side, and his shoulders, and his 
 
 sleepy head." 
 
 I wonder if you boys and girls know 
 anything about that lion which Solomon's 
 sluggard heard roaring in the street, as 
 he lay in his bed in the morning. 
 
 But it is not only the sluggard who 
 
Lions in the Way. 41 
 
 says, "There is a lion in the way." 
 Sometimes when you ought to be learn- 
 ing your lessons, you don't wish to learn 
 them. You would much rather be out- 
 side playing on the roads, or else curled 
 up on the sofa with an exciting story 
 book in your hand. And just then you 
 may hear a lion roaring. "Your lessons 
 are too hard," it seems to say ; or, " You 
 are not in a mood for studying to- 
 night " ; or, " What's the use of learning 
 all that rubbish the teacher gives you to 
 learn? It won't be of the least use to 
 you by-and-by." Can you tell me the 
 name of this lion ? His name is Idleness^ 
 and most of you have met him some 
 time or other. 
 
 Sometimes at night, after the gas is 
 lighted in the parlour, your mother wants 
 you to go for something into a dark 
 room upstairs. And then you think that 
 there is a lion in the dark room, or if 
 not a lion there's a man, or else a bogle, 
 
42 Lions in the Way. 
 
 or some other strange monster of your 
 imagination. But there is nothing danger- 
 ous in the room at all. The lion is in 
 your own heart, and the name of the 
 lion is Cowardice. 
 
 Some day your father wants to send 
 you out on an errand ; and at once a 
 lion appears in the way. You are too 
 tired, or you were just going to do some- 
 thing else, or you can't be bothered going 
 out at all. Now this lion's real name is 
 nothing else than Disobedience ; for if you 
 truly loved and honoured your father, 
 as you ought to do, you would never 
 think of being tired or being bothered, 
 but would gladly do anything to help 
 him or to please him. 
 
 And here is another kind of lion that 
 often meets boys and girls in the way. 
 Their Sabbath School teacher has been 
 speaking to them about the love of Jesus 
 Christ, and telling them that Jesus wants 
 them to give their hearts to Him just 
 
Lions in the Way. 43 
 
 now, and to speak and act always like 
 the friends of Jesus. But the children 
 have caught sight of the lion. " Oh ! " 
 they say, " we are too young to be Chris- 
 tians. There will be plenty of time by- 
 and-by. It's only grown-up people who 
 can be proper Christians." I wonder if 
 you can tell me the name of this lion 
 that stands in the way. He has a very 
 long name, for he is called Procrastination. 
 And he has done a great deal of harm 
 in the world to men and women, and 
 boys and girls. A very greedy and 
 devouring lion is Procrastination, He 
 is often called " the thief of time " ; but 
 he is also the thief of souls. 
 
 But now I must tell you in closing 
 that there is a more dangerous lion than 
 any I have yet mentioned, and against 
 him you should be on your special guard. 
 The apostle Peter tells us that "the 
 devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, 
 seeking whom he may devour." And 
 
44 Lions in the Way, 
 
 the worst of it is that, instead of being 
 frightened of this terrible lion, we often 
 think that he is as harmless as a lamb ; 
 and so we let him walk down the street 
 with us, and go into the playground with 
 us, and come into the house and sit down 
 beside us at the fireside. Sometimes in 
 a menagerie there's a man called "the 
 lion-tamer," who puts his head into the 
 lion's mouth. It's a very dangerous thing 
 to do ; but it's just what some people 
 do with this great roaring lion. They 
 think he is quite tame, and they rather 
 like his company ; but some day, when 
 it is too late, they find out their mistake. 
 Now it is this cunning old lion who 
 sends all the other lions I have men- 
 tioned into your heads and hearts, — 
 Slothj and Idleriess^ and Cowardice^ and 
 Disobedience^ and Procrastination. And 
 so you must fight against him first of 
 all, and most of all. "Whom resist," 
 the apostle says, "stedfast in your faith." 
 
Lions in the Way, 45 
 
 Ask Jesus to help you, and He will 
 clothe you with His heavenly armour, 
 and fill you with His Holy Spirit. And 
 then, children though you are, you shall 
 be stronger than this great lion, and all 
 the other lions as well ; for you shall be 
 more than conquerors through Him that 
 loved you. 
 
The Yoke of Christ. 
 
 " Take My yoke upon you." — Matt. xi. 29. 
 
 ONE Sabbath morning not long 
 ago I spoke to the older folks 
 about the time in Christ's life 
 when He was the Carpenter of Nazareth. 
 Do you boys ever think of Jesus as a 
 carpenter? I remember when I was a 
 little boy that we went to live in a new 
 house before it was quite finished, and 
 there was a carpenter who stayed and 
 worked about the house for several weeks. 
 Not long before I had learned that Jesus 
 
The Yoke of Christ. 47 
 
 was a carpenter, and this gave me a great 
 reverence for this man. I used to stand 
 beside him, and watch him sawing boards 
 lengthwise and crosswise ; or smoothing 
 them with his plane until the ground was 
 all covered with curly shavings ; and I 
 thought that Jesus when He was working 
 must have looked exactly like that. Whilst 
 he was still employed about the house, 
 my little brother fell sick and died, and 
 it was this carpenter who made his coffin. 
 I remember to this day how I stood beside 
 him, watching and wondering, while he 
 made the little coffin out of sweet-smelling 
 cedar wood. And this made me think 
 more than ever that this carpenter must be 
 like Jesus ; for it was Jesus, I knew, who 
 had taken my brother away. 
 
 Jesus was a carpenter. But what kind 
 of work did Jesus do ? Most of His 
 work would be done for the people who 
 lived in the town of Nazareth. But some- 
 times, perhaps. He made articles for the 
 
48 The Yoke of Christ, 
 
 farmers who lived outside of the town; 
 and when He worked for them, He would 
 make ploughs (for ploughs were made of 
 wood in those days), and carts, and yokes 
 for the oxen. 
 
 A great Russian artist * has painted a 
 picture of Jesus the Carpenter. He repre- 
 sents Jesus as seated in His workshop 
 with a yoke upon His knees, to which 
 He is just giving the last touches ; 
 and as He bends over His task there 
 is a look of profound thought upon His 
 face, which is meant to show that whilst 
 He was fashioning this yoke He was 
 thinking all the time of another yoke 
 which He would make, not for oxen, but 
 for men ; and how He would invite all the 
 weary and the heavy laden to take His 
 yoke upon them, and so find rest unto 
 their souls. 
 
 I wonder if you boys and girls know 
 
 * Verestchagin. 
 
TJie Yoke of Christ, 49 
 
 what is meant by the yoke of Christ. 
 Perhaps you think that it is some dis- 
 agreeable and painful thing that Jesus 
 wants you to bear. If so you are making 
 a great mistake. Christ's yoke is meant 
 to make your life easier and happier, not 
 to make it harder and more burdensome. 
 The farmers in Palestine put yokes upon 
 their oxen, not to make their burdens 
 heavier, but to make them lighter. If 
 the oxen had tried to draw the cart or 
 the plough without a yoke, they would 
 soon have been lamed or strangled. But 
 they went along quite easily and lightly 
 when they had the yoke upon their 
 shoulders. 
 
 Now men, and women, and boys, and 
 girls have all got burdens to bear, and 
 they need a yoke of some kind to 
 enable them to bear these burdens. Jesus 
 knows this, and He wants us to take His 
 yoke, because that yoke is the best. " Take 
 
 My yoke," He says. "Don't take any 
 D 
 
50 The Yoke of Christ. 
 
 other yoke. Take My yoke upon you 
 and learn of Me ; and ye shall find rest 
 unto your souls." 
 
 I wonder if I could guess the names 
 of any of the burdens which boys and 
 girls have to bear. One burden is the 
 burden of work. There is your school 
 work, for example. It must be done ; 
 but sometimes young people don't like 
 very much to do it. How then are you 
 to get it done? Perhaps you take upon 
 you the yoke of fear. You say, "If I 
 don't do it I shall be punished." Or else 
 you take the yoke of ambition. You say, 
 " If I do it, and do it well, I may get a 
 prize." But how poor such yokes are in 
 comparison with the yoke of Christ ! Do 
 your work for Jesus' sake, because you 
 want to be a scholar in His school, and 
 to learn of Him, and to please Him ; 
 and then your tasks will be easy, and 
 your burden will be light. 
 
 If there was time I might speak of some 
 
The Yoke of Christ. 51 
 
 of your other burdens. I might tell you 
 about a child's sorrows, and a child's 
 temptations, and a child's sins. To get 
 relief from the weight of all these burdens 
 you need to have a yoke. Many yokes 
 may be tried ; but there is no yoke like 
 the yoke of Christ. And so you must 
 come to Jesus with all your sorrows, and 
 temptations, and sins, if you want to find 
 rest unto your souls. 
 
 I can fancy that, in the days when Jesus 
 was a carpenter, there were other car- 
 penters in Galilee who made yokes too, 
 and sold them to the farmers. But there 
 were no yokes like those which were 
 made by the Carpenter of Nazareth. His 
 yokes never pinched the necks of the 
 oxen, and never galled their shoulders ; 
 they always fitted easily and perfectly, 
 and so made the burdens light. 
 
 Now Christ's yoke for you is just like 
 that. Don't go to anybody else for relief 
 from your burdens ; but come to Jesus 
 
52 The Yoke of Christ 
 
 first of all. Listen even now to this 
 gracious invitation : — " Take My yoke 
 upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am 
 meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall 
 find rest unto your souls." 
 
God's Library, 
 
 " In Thy book all my members were written."— 
 Ps. cxxxix. 1 6. 
 
 " Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle : are they 
 not in Thy book?"— Ps. Ivi. 8. 
 
 "And the books were opened." — Rev. xx. 12. 
 
 "The Lamb's book of Hfe."— Rev. xxi. 27. 
 
 "X"^ OD'S Library!" I hear you say; 
 I -Y "what does the minister mean 
 ^^^^ by that?" Perhaps some of 
 you will guess that by God's Library I 
 mean the Bible. The Bible is made up 
 of sixty-six different books, and though 
 all of these books were written by men, 
 they were written at the same time by 
 the special help of God's Spirit And so 
 
54 God's Library. 
 
 these sixty-six books are justly spoken 
 of as God's books, and one of the Fathers 
 of the Church, who lived many centuries 
 ago, called the Bible, as a whole, "The 
 Divine Library." 
 
 But it is not the Bible that I am 
 
 thinking of at present. All of you have 
 
 seen that library; but the library I wish 
 
 to tell you about is one which no eye 
 
 but God's has ever seen. God writes with 
 
 His own hand the books of which it is 
 
 composed, and He keeps those books in 
 
 His own keeping. And yet those invisible 
 
 books are full of interest to us ; for while 
 
 God alone is the author of them, it is 
 
 about us that He writes, — about you and 
 
 me, and all the men and women and 
 
 children in the world. What a wonderful 
 
 library God's library must be ; and how 
 
 wonderful too to think that your name 
 
 and mine should be written on the pages 
 
 of those invisible books in the library of 
 
 God. Let me tell you of four of those 
 
God^s Library. 55 
 
 strange books of God which are mentioned 
 in the Bible. 
 
 I. The book of our members : — " In Thy 
 book all my members were written." 
 
 Our members are just the various parts 
 of our body — hands and feet, head and 
 heart, eyes and ears. Well, God has 
 written down all these members in one 
 of His wonderful books. He knows all 
 about them. It was He who made them, 
 and nothing can happen to any one of 
 them without His seeing it and marking 
 it down. " He keepeth all our bones," 
 says a psalmist, "not one of them is 
 broken." And Jesus Himself tells us that 
 even the very hairs of our head are all 
 numbered. And God knows at every 
 moment what all our members are after. 
 He watches where our feet are going 
 and what our hands are doing. He 
 listens to the words that fall from our 
 mouths, and He marks the very glances 
 that shoot from our eyes. 
 
56 Go(Vs Library. 
 
 Shouldn't we be very glad to think 
 that God is watching so lovingly over all 
 our members, even the smallest? And 
 shouldn't we also be very careful that 
 none of these members should do any- 
 thing that would vex our loving and 
 watchful heavenly Father? Remember 
 the great purpose for which each and all 
 of your members were given : — 
 
 " Two little eyes to look to God ; 
 Two little ears to hear His word ; 
 Two little feet to walk in His ways ; 
 One little mouth to sing His praise ; 
 Two little hands to do His will ; 
 And one little heart to love Him still." 
 
 2. The book of our tears : — " Put Thou 
 my tears into Thy bottle : are they not 
 in Thy book ? " 
 
 God not only writes about our mem- 
 bers ; He notes our feelings ; He marks 
 every tear that we shed. Sometimes a 
 child thinks that no one knows its sorrows. 
 Perhaps your mother is not near, and 
 
God's Library, 57 
 
 there is nobody to whom you can tell 
 the trouble of your heart. But God 
 knows. He marks the poor little sparrow 
 that falls to the ground ; and much more 
 will He mark the tears of a little child. 
 Think of that, you who are unkind and 
 cruel to the little ones, you who make 
 the bitter tears roll down their cheeks. 
 God is watching. God knows what you 
 have done. He has written those tears 
 in His book ; and He will make you 
 suffer for your cruelty to the little children 
 whom He loves. 
 
 3. Tlie book of judgment : — "The dead 
 were judged out of those things which 
 were written in the books." 
 
 In the days of the Inquisition, long 
 ago, a prisoner was brought before a 
 court. The lawyers were cross-examin- 
 ing him, and he was answering their 
 questions very freely. But suddenly he 
 heard, from behind a curtain, the sound 
 of a pen scratching, scratching very fast; 
 
58 GocVs Library. 
 
 and with that he grew silent, and refused 
 to answer; for he knew that his words 
 were being taken down, and that for 
 every word he spoke he would have to 
 give account. 
 
 And there is some One behind the 
 curtain, some One whom you cannot see, 
 who is writing down everything you say 
 and think and do. 
 
 " For we know the Lord of glory 
 Always sees what children do. 
 And is writing now the story 
 
 Of their thoughts and actions too." 
 
 Be careful, children ! Think of that 
 great day when the books shall be opened, 
 and the dead shall be judged out of those 
 things which are written in the books. 
 
 4. The LamUs book of life. 
 
 Of all the books in God's library this 
 is the most precious and the most wonder- 
 ful. The Lamb is Jesus Christ the Son 
 of God. He is called the Lamb, because 
 He offered up Himself as a sacrifice for 
 
God's Library. 59 
 
 our sins, and because we are "redeemed 
 with the precious blood of Christ, as of a 
 lamb without blemish and without spot." 
 And the Lamb's book of life is the book 
 in which are written the names of all 
 those to whom Jesus has given eternal 
 life, those who shall pass through the 
 gates into the heavenly city, and shall 
 "eat of the tree of life, which is in the 
 midst of the paradise of God." 
 
 What would we not give to have a peep 
 into that book, and to see that our names 
 are written there? But the book is shut 
 and sealed ; and no one as yet can look 
 into it, except God Himself and Jesus 
 Christ His Son. And yet, without look- 
 ing into the book, it is possible for us to 
 know that our names are written there. 
 For all who trust in Jesus as their Saviour, 
 and love Him as their Friend, and seek 
 to " follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
 goeth," may be sure that their names are 
 in the Lamb's book of life. Will you not 
 
6o Go(rs Library. 
 
 give your hearts to Jesus, so that you 
 may know that your names are inscribed 
 in this wonderful book, and that in the 
 great day, when the book of life is opened, 
 Jesus will confess your name before His 
 Father and before His angels? 
 
God's Hammer. 
 
 "Is not My word, saith the Lord, like a hammer 
 that breaketh the rock in pieces?" — Jer. xxiii. 29. 
 
 I WONDER if you have ever noticed, 
 in reading the Bible, how many 
 different things there are to which 
 God's Word is compared. It is called a 
 lamp and a looking-glass ; it is called a 
 shield and a sword ; it is likened to seed 
 which the sower casts into the furrows ; to 
 milk which is given to new-born babes ; 
 and in this text to a hammer which breaks 
 the rock in pieces. Perhaps I may tell 
 you, by-and-by, of some of the other 
 
62 God's Hammer, 
 
 things to which God's Word is compared ; 
 but this morning let me speak to you of 
 God's Word as a hammer. 
 
 There are two chief ways, I think, in 
 which all of you have seen a hammer used. 
 Sometimes when you are out for a walk 
 you see a man who wears a curious pair of 
 spectacles standing by the wayside with a 
 heap of stones lying before him. The 
 stones are big hard lumps of rock, and he 
 wants to break them down into little 
 pieces, so that they may be used to mend 
 the roads. But how is he ever to do it? 
 Well, see, in his hand he holds a heavy 
 hammer, and with that hammer he strikes 
 and strikes until the big lumps of stone 
 have all been broken down into those 
 little fragments which are called road metal, 
 and which are used for mending rough 
 and muddy roads. That is one great use 
 of a hammer — it is used to break things 
 down. 
 
 But, again, if you watch a house that is 
 
God's Haimiter. 63 
 
 being built, you see the joiners working 
 away with planks and boards. And how 
 do they get these planks and boards to 
 stay in their proper places, so as not to 
 tumble down? See, again, they have 
 hammers in their hands ; and with these 
 hammers they drive nails into the roof and 
 walls and floor, until every board and 
 plank is firmly fastened in its proper place. 
 That is another use of a hammer — not 
 to break down, but to build up. 
 
 Now, God's Word is like both of these 
 kinds of hammer, the stonebreaker's 
 hammer, and the joiner's hammer. It can 
 break things down, and it can also build 
 things up. 
 
 I. It is a hammer which breaks down 
 everything that is bad. You have all heard 
 of Martin Luther, the famous monk who 
 shook the world. And how did he shake 
 the world? It was with the hammer of 
 God's Word. The Pope of Rome had 
 persuaded men to believe a great many 
 
64 God^s Hammer, 
 
 false and foolish things that were doing 
 great harm to their souls ; but Luther 
 came with the Bible hammer, and broke 
 all that rubbish down. 
 
 If you are ever tempted to do something 
 that is wrong, just take the Bible hammer 
 in your hand, and it will break the bad 
 temptations in pieces. Perhaps you feel 
 inclined to take something that is not your 
 own ; but down comes this hammer with 
 a heavy blow, saying, "Thou shalt not 
 steal." Perhaps you are tempted to tell a 
 lie; down it comes again, and says, "Lying 
 lips are an abomination to the Lord." 
 Some day a dreadful noise is heard in the 
 parlour where the children are playing. 
 Tom and his brother have come to blows, 
 and are knocking over the parlour chairs 
 in all directions. Or two of the girls are 
 quarrelling about a doll, or are both trying 
 to get possession of the piano at the same 
 time. And in the midst of all this strife 
 down comes the Bible hammer with a 
 
GocTs Hammer. 65 
 
 tremendous blow, saying, " Little children, 
 love one another." 
 
 2. But God's hammer not only breaks 
 down what is bad^ but builds up what is 
 good. God wants our souls to be built up 
 into beautiful temples ; and God's Word is 
 a hammer which enables us in the building 
 of this temple to fasten everything in its 
 proper place. Here, for example, is a 
 plank called faith. Without faith the 
 temple cannot be built ; but, unless we 
 have in our hands the hammer of God's 
 Word, our faith can never be secure. 
 Here is another plank called love ; but it 
 is only by God's hammer that that plank 
 can be fastened for ever to the walls of 
 the heart. Here is another plank called 
 obedience ; and down comes the hammer 
 with a rap, rap, rap on the heart of every 
 child, saying, " Honour thy father and thy 
 mother;" and so that plank is fastened too. 
 And it is just the same with everything 
 else that is pure and lovely and good. It 
 
66 God's Hammer. 
 
 is by the help of the hammer of God's 
 Word that these things are built up into 
 our lives. 
 
 I met a little boy the other day who 
 told me that when he grows up he means 
 to be a joiner. I wish you would all be 
 joiners in my sense of the word, and little 
 stonebreakers too. Get a firm hold of 
 God's hammer, and try to break down 
 everything that is bad, and to build up 
 everything that is good. 
 
God's Looking=QIass, 
 
 " For if any be a hearer of the Word, and not 
 a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his 
 natural face in a glass." — James i. 23. 
 
 "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the 
 Lord."— 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 I SPOKE to you lately about God's 
 hammer, i.e.^ the hammer of God's 
 Word. And I was glad, since that, 
 to meet a boy who said that he was 
 going to keep hold of that wonderful 
 hammer, and try to use it every day. 
 
 But this morning I wish to speak to 
 you about God's looking-glass ; for that 
 is another of the names by which God's 
 Word is described. You all know the 
 
6S God's Looking-Glass. 
 
 use of a looking-glass. It is for looking 
 at ourselves in, and seeing what we are 
 like. If you are going to a party, and 
 want to be perfectly neat and tidy, you 
 look into the glass before you go out, in 
 case any stain should be on your face, 
 or your hair should not be quite smooth, 
 or your collar not quite straight. The 
 looking-glass shows you exactly what 
 you are like ; and, in another sense, that 
 is just what the Bible does too. We 
 look into God's Word, and there we 
 behold our " natural face as in a glass." 
 
 Sometimes little girls, I have been told, 
 like to look into the mirror, because they 
 think they are pretty, and they like to 
 see their own sweet faces. But no one 
 who looks into God's looking-glass can 
 ever think that he or she is beautiful. 
 This mirror does not flatter us, it makes 
 us appear quite ugly, and vile, and 
 sinful. 
 
 Perhaps you have got your hands and 
 
God's Looking- Glass. 6g 
 
 face freshly washed, and your hair 
 smoothly brushed, and a clean collar on. 
 If you look into the bedroom looking- 
 glass, you think you are as nice as nice 
 can be. But take a peep into God's 
 looking-glass, and you see things quite 
 differently. Your face is ugly, because 
 it was screwed up this morning in anger 
 and passion. Your mouth is dirty, be- 
 cause only a little while ago you spoke 
 rudely and disobediently to your mother. 
 And your hands are as black as a 
 sweep's, because those newly washed 
 hands are the very hands that slapped 
 your little sister and made her cry, and 
 went into the press when no one was 
 looking, and took something there that 
 didn't belong to you. 
 
 The Bible, you see, is not a very 
 pleasant looking-glass in which to see 
 ourselves, because it never flatters us, but 
 always shows us how bad and sinful we 
 are. 
 
yo Go(Vs Looking-Glass, 
 
 But there is something else we see in 
 God's looking-glass besides our own faces. 
 Sometimes when you look into a glass 
 you do not see your own face at all, 
 because you are not standing just in 
 front of it; but you see your mother's 
 face or your sister's face in another part 
 of the room. And when we look into 
 the Bible looking-glass it is not always 
 ourselves that we see. We see the face 
 of Jesus Christ. We behold " as in a glass 
 the glory of the Lord." And oh, what 
 a beautiful face the face of Jesus is! 
 There is no stain of sin upon it. There 
 is no mark of selfishness and passion. 
 There is nothing in His face but good- 
 ness, and kindness, and love. 
 
 Now, I want you to look into the 
 Bible looking-glass, so as to see both of 
 these faces side by side, — your own face 
 and the face of Jesus ; just as you might 
 stand in front of a mirror, and see your- 
 self there, with your mother looking over 
 
God's Looking- Glass. 71 
 
 your shoulder. And remember this, that 
 if God's mirror shows your face to be 
 soiled and ugly, Jesus Christ can make 
 it pure and beautiful. By looking at 
 Jesus, and loving Jesus, your face may 
 grow into the likeness of His own. 
 " Beholding as in a glass the glory of the 
 Lord, we are changed into the same 
 image from glory to glory." Is not 
 God's Word a wonderful mirror, when it 
 has a transforming power like that? 
 Will you not prize this precious looking- 
 glass which God has put into your 
 hands, and use it every day you live ; 
 so that you may see your natural face in 
 all its need of cleansing, but may also 
 see that gracious Saviour who can take 
 all your sins away, and put His own 
 holy beauty into your faces as well as 
 your hearts? 
 
God's Search = Light. 
 
 " Search me, O God, and know my heart ; try 
 me, and know my thoughts." — Ps. cxxxix. 23. 
 
 THIS verse speaks about an exami- 
 nation. But there are different 
 kinds of examinations. Those 
 of you who are attending the public 
 schools are quite familiar with one kind of 
 examination. Every year Her Majesty's 
 Inspector comes round to examine the 
 school. He searches it, and tries it, 
 to see if the teachers have been teach- 
 ing well, and if the scholars have been 
 learning well. That is one kind of 
 
God's Search-Light. 73 
 
 examination — an examination of your 
 minds. 
 
 And some of you have had to pass 
 through another kind of examination. 
 One morning when you woke you felt 
 all out of sorts. Your mother said that 
 you must not rise from your bed ; and 
 she sent a messenger to ask the doctor 
 to come and see you. When the doctor 
 came he felt your pulse, and made you 
 show him your tongue ; and after that 
 he took a little thermometer out of his 
 pocket, and put it under your arm, and 
 then looked at it after a while, to see 
 what he called your temperature, and to 
 know whether or not you were in a fever. 
 That was a quite different examination 
 from the school inspector's — an examina- 
 tion of your body. 
 
 But the text speaks of a different 
 examination still — an examination oi the 
 heart. " Search me, O God, and know my 
 heart ; try me, and know my thoughts." 
 
74 God's Search-Light. 
 
 An inspector can examine your minds, 
 a doctor can examine your bodies, but 
 God alone can truly examine your hearts. 
 Only God can tell what thoughts, and 
 feelings, and desires are passing through 
 you at this very moment ; only God can 
 see the selfishness, and pride, and anger, 
 and hatred that lurk continually within 
 you, in those deep places of the soul to 
 which your neighbours' eyes can never 
 reach. Our hearts are very dark, as dark 
 as night ; but God can see right into 
 them, and God can enable us to see into 
 them ourselves. 
 
 I was once staying in a little village 
 far up a long fiord on the west coast of 
 Norway. It was late at night, and 1 had 
 gone out to take a stroll before going to 
 bed. It was darker than usual that night, 
 and nothing could be seen except the 
 black masses of the mountains against 
 the sky, with the pale glimmer of the ice 
 and snow lying on their broad summits. 
 
God's Search-Light, 75 
 
 But all at once a great sheet of light 
 seemed to fall just where I stood, and 
 everything round about was as distinctly 
 seen as if it had been the middle of the 
 day. The light travelled along the shore 
 until the houses at a distance, and the 
 startled men and women who came run- 
 ning out of doors, were just as plain as 
 sunlight could have made them. Then it 
 crept up the mountain side, and every 
 boulder and pine tree stood out in 
 sharp distinction from its neighbour. 
 At last, before it disappeared, it flashed 
 upon the snow and ice of the great 
 glacier, that crowned the mountains, 
 almost dazzling one's eyes with the 
 shining whiteness. 
 
 Perhaps some of you have guessed 
 already what that strange light was. It 
 was a search-light^ and it came from a 
 large steamer that lay out on the fiord. 
 A search-light is a very powerful electric 
 light which is carried by men-of-war and 
 
^6 God^s Search-Light. 
 
 some other vessels, and which enables 
 them to see by night as well as by day. 
 Now God can cast a search-light of His 
 own upon our hearts, and though our 
 hearts are very dark and full of hidden 
 things, God can make all these hidden 
 things perfectly plain. 
 
 God has a search-light which He calls 
 conscience. Sometimes He turns it on in 
 all its power, and it makes us feel very 
 uncomfortable and miserable, as we see 
 what bad and ugly things are lurking 
 within us. And God has another search- 
 light which He calls the Bible. It also 
 can reveal all hidden things, yea, the 
 very thoughts and intents of the heart. 
 Have you not sometimes felt as you 
 read the Bible that God knows all about 
 you, and that God is also enabling you 
 to see yourselves as you really are ? Once 
 when I was visiting at a farmhouse that 
 stands on the edge of an Ayrshire moor, 
 the farmer's wife told me that they were 
 
God's Search-Light. 77 
 
 reading just then through the Book of 
 Proverbs at family worship, and that the 
 servant girl said to her one day, " I dinna 
 like yon book ; it kens ower muckle 
 about folk." Yes, sometimes it is not 
 very pleasant to have the search-lighl 
 turned on. But it is good for us. The 
 inspector examines the school, not because 
 he wants to find fault, or wants to make 
 you fail, but because he wants to make 
 you better scholars than you are. The 
 doctor examines you when you are ill, 
 not because he wants to hurt you, but 
 because he wants to make you well. And 
 God searches us, and tries us, in order to 
 make us better boys and better girls, 
 better men and better women. 
 
 That was why the Psalmist wished God 
 to search him ; so that if there was any 
 wicked way in him, God might reveal it, 
 and might lead him in the way ever- 
 lasting. Will you not take his prayer 
 and make it your own? Ask God to 
 
78 God's Search-Light. 
 
 show you what is wrong and wicked in 
 your hearts and lives ; and to lead you 
 with His strong hand in His own ever- 
 lasting way. 
 
The Lily and the 
 Cedar. 
 
 " I will be as the dew unto Israel : he shall 
 grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as 
 Lebanon." — HOSEA xiv. 5. 
 
 YOU could hardly imagine two 
 kinds of growth more different 
 from each other than the tiny 
 lily, and the great cedar tree which casts 
 forth its roots on the slopes of Mount 
 Lebanon. But both of them are planted 
 by the same divine hand, and both of 
 them are watered by the same heavenly 
 dew. 
 
8o The Lily and the Cedar. 
 
 Let me tell you a story about a cedar 
 and a lily that grew on the heights of 
 Lebanon long ago. It was in the days of 
 King Solomon, a thousand years before 
 Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. 
 Great bands of wood-cutters were on the 
 mountain, cutting down cedars for the 
 building of the temple at Jerusalem. 
 And at noon-tide, when all the foresters 
 were resting for a while, there was one 
 of them who threw himself down under 
 the shadow of a great cedar tree, not far 
 from where a beautiful lily was growing 
 amidst the grass. I cannot tell you 
 whether or not he fell asleep as he lay 
 there and rested ; at all events he heard 
 by-and-by the sound of a gentle voice ; 
 and, as he listened, he found that it was 
 the lily who was speaking. And this 
 was what the lily said : — 
 
 " O great cedar tree, I wish that I 
 were you ! I am so weak and helpless ; 
 but you are so great and strong. I am 
 
The Lily and the Cedar. 8 1 
 
 so small that I can hardly see above 
 the grass ; but you are so tall that you 
 can see away down the valley, as far as 
 the peaks of the distant mountains 
 And I am very useless too. I can do 
 nothing to help anybody. But you give 
 the birds room to build their nests in 
 your branches, and here is this tired 
 wood-cutter enjoying a rest in your deep 
 shade. And, besides, I heard the king's 
 officer saying to-day to the woodmen 
 that you are to be taken away to 
 Jerusalem, to be made into a beautiful 
 pillar in the temple of God, carved all 
 over with lovely figures, and covered 
 with yellow gold. How I wish that I 
 could be great and strong and useful 
 like you ! " 
 
 Then the woodman heard a sound like 
 the wind rustling in the branches over- 
 head ; but it was the cedar giving a 
 melancholy sigh. "Lily of the valley," 
 it said, "do not envy me. Your lot, I 
 
82 The Lily ana the Cedar, 
 
 am sure, is far happier than mine. I 
 have no delicate beauty like you, no 
 sweet fragrant smell. I am a gnarled 
 old cedar tree. The storms shake and 
 toss my branches, while they leave you 
 lying peacefully on the ground. And 
 then, as you have said, I am going to 
 be cut down, and dragged away to the 
 foot of the mountain, and carried to 
 Jerusalem. It may be that I shall be 
 turned into a pillar in this great temple 
 they are building ; but I would much 
 rather stay where I am on the mountain 
 side. I wish I were, like you, a humble 
 lily of the valley, with no battles to 
 fight, and no troubles to vex me." 
 
 When the woodman heard this, he 
 could be silent no longer, but said — 
 
 " Listen to me, O cedar tree, and lily 
 of the valley. Has not God planted 
 both of you, has He not caused you both 
 to grow, has He not watered you alike 
 with His own dew, and has He not given 
 
The Lily and the Cedar. 83 
 
 to each of you your own proper work 
 to do? The cedar has made Lebanon 
 beautiful from afar ; it has welcomed 
 the birds to its shelter, it has guarded 
 the lily from the tempest, it has given 
 me a shadow in the heat. And now it 
 is going to Jerusalem to glorify the 
 house of God's glory. But the lily also 
 has been filling a place that nothing else 
 could have filled. The wild bees have 
 sucked honey from its bending cup, the 
 wood-cutters have enjoyed its beauty 
 and its fragrance, and it has made them 
 think of the love of the great God who 
 cares for the lilies of the field." 
 
 Now, children, you sometimes feel like 
 that lily, do you not? You think that 
 if you were great and wise and strong, 
 your lives might be happier and better 
 than they are. But remember that older 
 people also have their troubles and diffi- 
 culties. And remember too that God 
 made the lilies as well as the cedars 
 
84 The Lily and the Cedar, 
 
 and that He has plenty of work for 
 the lilies to do. Seek to glorify God 
 in the place where He has planted you. 
 Be pure and sweet and fragrant like a 
 lily of the valley ; and then your lives 
 will be full of happiness, and full of use- 
 fulness as well. 
 
 There was a great poet called Ben 
 Jonson, who lived in England long ago. 
 He wrote many famous works, but he 
 never wrote anything more beautiful 
 than these lines, which tell us how a 
 little child may glorify God : — 
 
 "It is not growing like a tree 
 In bulk, doth make man better be ; 
 Or standing long an oak three hundred year, 
 To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere ; 
 A lily of a day 
 Is fairer far in May; 
 Although it fall and die that night. 
 It was the plant and flower of light. 
 In small proportions we just beauty see ; 
 And in short measures life may perfect be.** 
 
 Try to remember that. A life of small 
 
The Lily and the Cedar, 85 
 
 proportions may be a life of true beauty 
 and perfection. For God loves the 
 children, and God has something on 
 earth for the children to do. 
 
The Message of the 
 Bridge. 
 
 "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." — Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 THERE is a town in Austria which 
 is built, like Glasgow, on two 
 sides of a large river. And there 
 is a bridge, corresponding to Glasgow 
 Bridge, which connects the two parts of 
 the town. A great many people have to 
 cross this bridge every day — workmen 
 going to their work, and merchants going 
 to business, and children going to school, 
 and message-boys sent out on errands. 
 
The Message of the Bridge. 87 
 
 And on the panels of the bridge a sculptor 
 has carved with a loving hand many of 
 the most familiar scenes from the life of 
 Jesus Christ ; so that, day by day, all who 
 cross the river may find something to 
 teach them, or something to comfort, or 
 something to strengthen, or something to 
 save, if they will but glance at the 
 sculptures on the bridge as they pass by. 
 If a man passes who has done something 
 very wrong, but who is sorry for it, he 
 may see Jesus in the Pharisee's house 
 saying to the penitent woman, " Thy sins 
 be forgiven thee." If a funeral passes over, 
 and the mourners are feeling very sad, 
 they have only to look at the bridge, and 
 they will see Jesus comforting Martha, and 
 saying to her, " I am the Resurrection and 
 the Life." If a little child goes over, and 
 looks at all the pictures, one by one, as a 
 child would be apt to do, he will come, 
 by-and-by, to one that he will like the 
 best — Jesus taking the young children in 
 
88 The Message of the Bridge. 
 
 His arms and blessing them, while He says, 
 "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, 
 and forbid them not ; for of such is the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 Now, I think that that old bridge 
 preaches a far better sermon to children 
 on the subject of my text than I could 
 possibly preach. Shakespeare tells us 
 about " sermons in stones/' and that bridge 
 is just a sermon in stone. Every day it says 
 to all who pass by, " Come to Jesus ! 
 Come to Jesus ! Come unto Me, all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." 
 
 Let me tell you, very shortly, of three 
 great burdens from which Jesus will give 
 you rest. 
 
 I. One is the burden oi sin. 
 
 That's the worst burden of all. Don't 
 you know something about it, dear chil- 
 dren? Haven't you sometimes felt a heavy 
 load lying upon your heart, because you 
 have done what is wrong, or because, even 
 
The Message of the Bridge. 89 
 
 when you were trying to do what was 
 right, evil thoughts and angry passions 
 would arise? Well, take that burden to 
 Jesus. Ask Him to forgive your sins, and 
 He will do it. Ask Him to keep evil 
 thoughts and angry passions from arising 
 in your heart, and Jesus will do that too. 
 
 2. Another burden is the burden of 
 diity. 
 
 Sometimes boys and girls, just like men 
 and women, feel the burden of duty to be 
 heavy and irksome. Perhaps you don't 
 like to learn your lessons for the school ; 
 perhaps you don't like to let your brothers 
 and sisters have any of their own way ; 
 perhaps you don't like to do what father 
 and mother tell you. These duties, you 
 think, are all very hard. Well, why not 
 take your load to Jesus, and ask Him to 
 give you rest? He will help you to like 
 duties that seem to be unpleasant, and so 
 your yoke will be easy, and your burden 
 will be light. 
 
go The Message of the Bridge, 
 
 3. The last burden is the burden of 
 sorrow. 
 
 We older people are apt to think that 
 you boys and girls have got no experience 
 of sorrow. You seem so happy, for the 
 most part, that we sometimes wish we 
 were young again, just as you are now. 
 But I know that children have their 
 sorrows too. Your hearts are sometimes 
 vexed and pained, and the tears come 
 starting into your eyes. Well, Jesus can 
 take the pain out of your hearts, and He 
 can wipe away the tears from your eyes. 
 Jesus is always sorry when He sees a child 
 crying, and if you would only listen at 
 such a time, you might hear Him saying, 
 " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 Try to get into the way of telling Jesus 
 about all your sorrows, the little sorrows 
 as well as the big ones, and you will find 
 that it brings a wonderful relief, and gives 
 "rest unto your souls." 
 
Stephen's Three 
 Crowns. 
 
 "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, 
 and saying. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." — Acts 
 vii. 59. 
 
 M 
 
 ANY of you know that Stephen 
 was the first of all the Christian 
 martyrs, the first of that long 
 line of heroic men and women, yes, and 
 of heroic boys and girls as well, who 
 laid down their lives for the sake of 
 Jesus Christ. We are not told a great 
 deal about Stephen in the book of Aas; 
 but what we are told is very interesting 
 and very touching. Perhaps I might sum 
 
92 Stephen's Three Crowns. 
 
 up the whole of his history in these three 
 statements. First, he was " a good man." 
 Next, this good man was stoned to death 
 for the sake of Jesus Christ. And lastly, 
 Christ gave His martyred servant a glorious 
 reward. For Stephen "fell asleep" in 
 Jesus ; while his face shone, like the face 
 of an angel, with the light of that great 
 glory into which he was about to pass. 
 
 Now, I think I might put these three 
 things which I have told you about 
 Stephen, into a form which you would 
 more easily remember. Let us think of 
 them as three crowns which Stephen 
 wore. Stephen is a Greek name ; and in 
 Greek Stephen, or ^Tecfjavos, means "a 
 crown." And this man, whose very name 
 means a crown, had three shining crowns 
 set upon his brow — first, the crown of 
 grace ; next, the crown of thorns ; and 
 lastly, the crown of glory. 
 
 I. Stephen's first crown was the crown 
 of grace. 
 
Stephen's Three Crowns, 93 
 
 Grace is just another name for goodness. 
 It means a goodness which is so pure 
 and beautiful that we know at once that 
 it must be the gift of God. And Stephen 
 was a man on whose head God had set 
 this "ornament of grace." We are told 
 that he was "a good man, full of faith 
 and of the Holy Ghost." And we can 
 see for ourselves how full of grace he 
 must have been, when we read the speech 
 that he made to his judges, and still more 
 when we see the way in which he died. 
 For what a wonderful death it was that 
 Stephen died, kneeling down and praying 
 to God, and crying with his last breath, 
 "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 
 
 Surely it was nothing but that "grace 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ" with which 
 Stephen had been so abundantly crowned, 
 that could have enabled him to die in 
 such a fashion, praying, even as Christ 
 had prayed upon the cross, that his cruel 
 murderers should be forgiven. 
 
94 Stephen's Three Crowns, 
 
 2. Stephen's second crown was the crown 
 of thorns. 
 
 You remember that when Jesus was 
 led away to Calvary, He had a crown of 
 thorns upon His brow. What a painful 
 thing it must have been to have those 
 great sharp thorns piercing into His flesh, 
 and making the blood run down His face ! 
 And so the crown of thorns has become 
 a symbol for the sore suffering which a 
 Christian sometimes has to bear, as he 
 seeks to walk in his Master's footsteps. 
 Stephen's suffering was of a very dreadful 
 kind. He was stoned with great stones, 
 until all the life was quite beaten out of 
 his body. And he suffered this torture 
 for Jesus' sake, because he loved Jesus so 
 well that he would not deny his Lord, or 
 cease to proclaim His truth, even though 
 a horrible death was staring him in the 
 face. There were multitudes of martyrs, 
 by-and-by, who wore for Jesus' sake the 
 crown of thorns and suffering. But 
 
Stephens Three Crowns. 95 
 
 Stephen's crown shines before us with a 
 special brightness, because he was the first 
 of all the Christian martyrs. 
 
 3. Stephen's third crown was the crown 
 of glory. 
 
 He " fell asleep " ; but it was to awake 
 in a glorious world, and a still more 
 glorious presence. Just before they began 
 to stone him, he looked up to heaven, 
 "and saw the glory of God, and Jesus 
 standing at the right hand of God." Can 
 we doubt what that vision meant? It 
 was Jesus rising to greet His faithful 
 servant, and to bestow upon him " a crown 
 of glory that fadeth not away." 
 
 It was that splendid vision which filled 
 Stephen with peace, and charity, and 
 triumph, in the very midst ot his suffering. 
 
 " He heeded not reviling tones, 
 Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 
 Tho' cursed and scorned, and bruised with stones : 
 
 But looking upward full of grace. 
 He prayed, and from a happy place 
 God's glory smote him on the face." 
 
g6 Stephen's Three Crowns. 
 
 Now, dear young friends, would you 
 not like to wear two at least of Stephen's 
 crowns — the crown of grace, and the crown 
 of glory? I pray that God in His mercy 
 would spare you, as far as may be possible 
 and right, from thorns and sufferings ; 
 and that if the crown of thorns should 
 come to you. He would give you strength 
 to bear it patiently for Jesus' sake. But, 
 at all events, will you not seek to have 
 the crown of grace on earth, and the 
 crown of glory in heaven ? 
 
 There was once a boy who was the 
 eldest son of a well-known Scotch duke, 
 and who lay dying of consumption. His 
 minister came to see him, and the boy 
 took his Bible from beneath his pillow, 
 and opened it at the words, " I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my 
 course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth 
 there is laid up for me a crown of 
 righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
 eous judge, shall give me at that day." 
 
Stephens Three Crowns. 97 
 
 "This," he said, "is all my comfort." After 
 that, as death drew nearer, he called his 
 younger brother to his side, and bade 
 him farewell ; and then he said, " Now, 
 Douglas, in a little while you will be a 
 duke, but I shall be a king." 
 
 None of you will ever be a duke ; but 
 all of you may be something much better 
 than that. You may be little kings and 
 queens, crowned with crowns of grace 
 even now, and heirs to crowns of glory 
 by-and-by. Give yourselves to Jesus, as 
 Stephen did, with a strong and loving 
 faith ; and Jesus will see to it that both 
 here and hereafter you shall not lack His 
 promised crowns. 
 
Asking and Receiving. 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you." — Matt. vii. 7. 
 
 THIS is a text which all children can 
 easily understand. For children 
 are always asking for things, and 
 they are continually getting things in 
 answer to their requests. A little baby 
 only a few days old knows how to ask. 
 It cannot speak a single word ; it has 
 " no language but a cry." But how ready 
 it is to cry, and how lustily it does cry 
 once it begins. And what is a baby's 
 cry but its way of asking? Sometimes 
 that cry means, " Tm very hungry, please 
 
Asking and Receiving. 99 
 
 give me some food ! " and sometimes it 
 means, " I've got a dreadful pain, won't 
 you do something to take the pain away?" 
 And then, when a baby gets a little older, 
 but is still unable to speak, it begins to 
 ask by using its hands. If it sees a rosy- 
 cheeked apple on the table, it stretches 
 out its hands, as much as to say, " I want 
 that apple !" If it is taken to the window 
 on a moonlight night, and sees the moon 
 shining in the sky, it will stretch its little 
 hands upwards, and wriggle in its mother's 
 arms, saying as plainly as it can, " Please 
 give me the moon ! " And when children 
 grow older still, and get the free use of 
 their tongues, they keep running to their 
 mother all day long, and asking for things 
 — a "piece," or a drink, or a picture- 
 book, or a toy, or a pencil and paper to 
 write imaginary letters, or something else 
 that comes into their heads. 
 
 A child's daily life is a very good 
 illustration of asking and receiving. And 
 
100 Asking and Receiving. 
 
 so we find that Jesus, in this same passage, 
 takes the case of a little child asking his 
 father for something, as an example of 
 what we should all do when we go in 
 prayer to our Father in heaven. A child, 
 says Jesus, asks his father for bread or 
 for fish, and the father grants the child's 
 request. He does not give a stone instead 
 of bread, or a serpent in place of a fish. 
 And if men who are evil know how to 
 give good gifts unto their children, much 
 more will our Father in heaven give 
 good things to them that ask Him. 
 
 Remember, then, boys and girls, that 
 God is your Father in heaven, and that 
 just as you go to your father and mother 
 with your requests, so should you go to 
 God. God loves you more than your 
 mother does ; and God is far stronger 
 and kinder than your father. Every day 
 you should tell Him about all your 
 troubles and all your wants. And be 
 sure of this, that if your father and 
 
Asking and Receiving, loi 
 
 mother try to give you what you need 
 much more will your heavenly Father 
 give you all good things. 
 
 But does God always give us the very 
 things for which we ask ? " Ask, and it 
 shall be given you," the text says. But 
 this does not mean that God will do 
 exactly what we ask. We must think 
 again of that illustration which Jesus 
 uses of a father and his little child. 
 
 There are some things which children 
 ask, but which their parents do not give. 
 A child's request is sometimes an impos- 
 sible request. And there are other 
 requests which, if they are not impos- 
 sible, are yet so foolish that fathers and 
 mothers cannot grant them. When your 
 little brother was brought to the table 
 for the first time, he immediately wanted 
 to get hold of a knife. But your mother 
 said, " No ! " for she knew how dangerous 
 that would be. When children are at 
 the stage at which one of the chief 
 
102 Asking and Receiving, 
 
 pleasures of life consists in eating sweeties, 
 they often wish to have far more sweet 
 things than would be good for them. 
 But their mother says, " No ! " because 
 she does not want them to make them- 
 selves ill. A boy sometimes comes to 
 his father and asks to be allowed to go 
 to a certain place, or to do a certain 
 thing ; but the father, who knows the 
 world much better than his boy, thinks 
 it would be safest and best not to give 
 permission, and therefore he says, "No!" 
 Well, God deals with us just as a wise 
 and loving parent does. There are some 
 prayers which are impossible prayers. 
 God could not grant them without con- 
 tradicting Himself, without turning upside 
 down those great laws by which He 
 governs the world. And there are some 
 prayers which are foolish prayers. Perhaps 
 we do not think so ; but God knows 
 much better than we, and therefore God 
 says, "No!" A parent gives his child 
 
Asking and Receiving. 1 03 
 
 " good things " ; and our heavenly Father 
 wants us only to have "good things,' 
 not things that are foolish or wrong. 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you." 
 Will you boys and girls remember that? 
 You do not hesitate to go to your father 
 and mother with your requests, and you 
 must not hesitate to go to God. If your 
 request is a good one, God will grant it 
 when you ask Him. Only you must ask 
 in real earnest. You must mean what 
 you say ; and you must show that you 
 mean it by your manner of asking. " Ask, 
 and Seek, and Knock," the verse says; 
 that is, don't ask once only, but go on 
 asking, and ask more earnestly every 
 time. Mr Moody once told this story 
 at a children's meeting :—" Sometimes in 
 the house my little boy will be playing, 
 and he will stop and say, 'Papa, please 
 give me a drink of water!' But if I am 
 busy writing, and I see that he goes back 
 to his play, I don't think he is very thirsty, 
 
I04 Asking and Receiving. 
 
 and I don't rise to get it. Perhaps he 
 comes once or twice and asks again ; but 
 if he runs back to his play, I know that 
 he does not want it very much. But 
 by-and-by he gets thoroughly in earnest; 
 he throws away his toys, and comes and 
 seizes hold of my hand. He must have 
 the water now, he is so thirsty. Then, 
 of course, I go to get it, because I see 
 that he really wants it." Even so, when 
 we go to God and ask with heartfelt 
 earnestness, God will give us all good 
 things. 
 
The Image of God. 
 
 "The Image of the invisible God."— CoL. i. 15. 
 
 WHEN visitors come to call at 
 your house, some of you 
 like very much to fetch the 
 album, and point out the photographs of 
 all your friends. "This is father," you 
 say, "and this is mother, and this is 
 Mary, and this is James, and this is me." 
 By-and-by you come to another photo- 
 graph further on, and you say, "This is 
 my uncle in Australia." "But did you 
 ever see this uncle in Australia ? " your 
 visitor asks. " Oh no ! " you reply, " I 
 
io6 The Image of God. 
 
 never saw him, I've just heard father 
 and mother speaking about him." And 
 yet you know what he is like, you have 
 a clear picture of him in your mind's 
 eye, because you have so often looked 
 at his image or portrait in the album. 
 
 Sometimes, again, when you have been 
 in Glasgow, you have passed through 
 George Square. And in the Square 
 you have seen a great many statues or 
 images standing on high pedestals. One 
 is the statue of James Watt, the inventor 
 of the steam-engine; another of Sir 
 Walter Scott, the author of " Rob Roy," 
 and " Ivanhoe," and many more splendid 
 stories ; another of Robert Burns, the 
 Ayrshire ploughman who became Scot- 
 land's greatest poet ; and another of 
 David Livingstone, the famous African 
 missionary and explorer. None of you 
 ever saw James Watt, or Sir Walter 
 Scott, or Robert Burns, or David Living- 
 stone ; but in George Square you may 
 
The Image of God. 107 
 
 see their images, carved in marble or 
 moulded in bronze ; and these images 
 give you some idea of what the men 
 themselves were like. 
 
 Sometimes when a little boy is playing 
 on the road, one person who is passing 
 says to another, " Whose little boy is 
 that?" And when he is told whose 
 boy it is, he says, " Ah ! I thought so. 
 He's the very image of his father." So 
 you see there are different kinds of 
 images. A photograph in an album 
 may be an image ; a statue carved in 
 stone may be an image ; but the best 
 image of all is the living image, the 
 image that can run and think and 
 speak. 
 
 Now God is a spirit. " No man hath 
 seen God at any time." No man ever 
 could see God. Where, then, shall we 
 find an image of the invisible God ? 
 
 Well, sometimes men have tried to 
 make an image of God by carving a 
 
io8 The Image of God. 
 
 figure in wood or stone. In the temples 
 of Greece long ago there were beautiful 
 statues in marble, by the greatest sculptors 
 that ever lived ; and these statues were 
 meant to be images of the invisible God. 
 And in the heathen temples of India 
 and China at the present day, there are 
 ugly images — idols we call them ; but 
 the poor people who worship them think 
 they are images of the invisible God. 
 Some years ago I was in Rome, and I 
 went to the Vatican Palace where the 
 Pope lives, and saw the paintings in the 
 famous picture - galleries. In some of 
 the old paintings you may see a majestic 
 figure that is meant to be an image of 
 God. Great painters have painted these 
 pictures, some of them probably the 
 greatest painters the world has ever seen. 
 But though the majestic figures are very 
 grand as works of art, they are very 
 poor as images of God. 
 
 No human eye has ever seen God's 
 
The Image of God. 109 
 
 face, and no human hand can make an 
 image of the unseen God. But the text 
 tells us that Jesus Christ is "the Image 
 of the invisible God"; and in another 
 place we read that He is "the brightness 
 of the Father's glory, and the express 
 Image of His Person." Just as a living 
 boy with a mind that thinks, and a 
 heart that loves, and lips that speak, and 
 eyes that shine, is a much nobler and 
 truer image of his father than any 
 picture or statue can possibly be, so the 
 best Image of God, the only true Image, 
 is God's own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 One of the disciples said to Jesus once, 
 "Lord, show us the Father." Jesus 
 answered, " He that hath seen Me hath 
 seen the Father." In Jesus we see the 
 perfect Image of God. And so if we 
 want to know what God is like, and to 
 have right thoughts about Him, we have 
 just got to keep looking at Jesus. 
 Sometimes, I believe, boys and girls are 
 
no The Image of God. 
 
 afraid of God, because they think of 
 Him as a great and awful Being who 
 lives far away in the sky. But you 
 should think of God as He is revealed 
 in Jesus Christ. All that Jesus is, God 
 is. Remember, then, how gentle Jesus 
 was, how fond of little children, how 
 kind to the sorrowful, how willing to 
 forgive sinners; and as you think of 
 these things, you will understand what 
 God is like. And if you always look at 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ, and 
 look at Jesus Christ as the true " Image 
 of the invisible God," you will not be 
 afraid of the heavenly Father, but will 
 come to love Him more and more. 
 
Lighthouses. 
 
 " Let your light so shine before men." — Matt. 
 V. 1 6. 
 
 IN the days when Jesus lived in 
 Palestine lighthouses were not very 
 common, and as Jesus did not live 
 near the coast of the open sea, it is quite 
 possible that He never saw one. And 
 yet, I think, we cannot get a better 
 illustration of the duty of letting our 
 light shine before men, than by watching 
 the light of the lighthouse as it shines 
 across the sea. 
 
 Many of you are accustomed to spend 
 
112 LightJiouses. 
 
 your holidays at the seaside, and have 
 often seen the well-known lighthouses of 
 the Clyde — the Cloch, and Toward, and 
 Cumbrae, and Pladda. It is a pleasant 
 thing, when the darkness is coming on, 
 to watch for the shining of the light, and 
 to see it at last beaming brightly over 
 the water. But if it is a pleasant sight 
 to children at the seaside on a holiday, 
 how much more welcome it is to the 
 ships and steamers out at sea, especially 
 if they are coming up the firth on a 
 dark and cloudy night when the wind 
 is blowing hard. Many a good ship 
 would be lost, many a brave sailor would 
 be drowned, if it were not for the shining 
 of these lights. 
 
 Now Jesus wants you boys and girls 
 to be like lighthouses shining on the 
 sea. Let me suppose that you are little 
 lighthouses, every one of you, and let 
 me ask you three questions about your 
 light 
 
Lighthouses, 113 
 
 1. Why should you shine? 
 
 The great reason is because the world 
 is so dark. The ships do not need the 
 light in the daytime, but when darkness 
 comes on they need it very much. And 
 the dark world is in great need of 
 Christian light. Ignorance, and sorrow, 
 and sin all combine to deepen the world's 
 darkness ; and therefore the children of 
 Jesus must let their light shine, so as to 
 warn men of their dangers, and to cheer 
 them in their troubles, and to point them 
 on their way. Will you seek to be 
 shining lights? Will you think of the 
 ignorant and the sorrowful, the tempted 
 and the sinful, and try to guide them 
 past the place of trials and dangers, and 
 show them the way to Jesus Christ, the 
 true harbour and refuge of the soul? 
 
 2. How should you shine? 
 
 You should shine brightly and steadily. 
 
 Some dreadful shipwrecks have taken 
 
 place of late years on the coast of Spain, 
 H 
 
114 Lighthouses. 
 
 and our sailors and shipowners have 
 complained that the Spanish lighthouses 
 are not properly kept, for their lamps 
 do not burn with a clear and steady 
 radiance, like the lights on our British 
 coasts. If a lighthouse does not shine 
 with a bright and steady light, it may 
 do more harm than good. And so the 
 lighthouse keepers must be very particular 
 about the quality of the light. 
 
 When I was a student I was sent for 
 some weeks to preach among the Orkney 
 Islands, and in one place the precentor 
 in the church, who was a boatman, invited 
 me to go with him to see a lighthouse. 
 Every week he had to visit this light- 
 house with provisions for the people who 
 lived there. So we sailed away from the 
 island of Stronsay to a lonely rock, or 
 skerry as it is called, some miles from 
 land, on which this lighthouse stands. 
 The keeper showed me all that was to 
 be seen ; and I can tell you that every- 
 
Lighthouses. 115 
 
 thing was dene in that lighthouse to 
 make the h'ght burn bright and clear. 
 The great reflectors were kept shining 
 like mirrors, and the glasses of the cage 
 were quite spotless and transparent, so 
 that none of the light might be lost, but 
 all of it might shine freely out across 
 the sea. 
 
 Well, your light should shine like that 
 Don't allow any little faults and bad 
 habits to gather like dirt on the windows 
 of your soul. Don't shine on Sabbaths 
 and grow dark on Mondays. Don't be 
 well behaved in the church and ill behaved 
 in the house or at the school. Seek to 
 shine out always brightly and steadily, 
 as children of Jesus, and "children of 
 light." 
 
 3. My last question is this : — Who is 
 your lighthouse keeper? 
 
 Every lighthouse needs a keeper, or 
 the light would never shine. The keeper 
 must supply the oil, and trim the wicks. 
 
1 16 Lighthouses. 
 
 and light the lamps. And if you boys 
 and girls are to be little lighthouses in 
 this dark world, you too must have a 
 lighthouse keeper. Who then is your 
 keeper? It must be Jesus. You cannot 
 shine unless He brings the light into 
 your heart, and gives you the oil that 
 keeps the light from going out. And so 
 if you wish to be lights in the world, you 
 must come to Jesus day by day saying — 
 " Lord, be Thou my keeper. Keep my 
 heart, lest my light should go out. Help 
 me to shine for Thee. And grant, when 
 men see me shining, that they may be 
 guided to the true haven, and may glorify 
 my Father which is in heaven." 
 
The Treasures of the 
 Snow. 
 
 "Hast thou entered into the treasures (R.V. 
 treasuries) of the snow?" — Job xxxviii. 22. 
 
 YOU have come to church this 
 morning through a world that is 
 all white with snow ; and I do 
 not think that I could get a better subject 
 than the snow about which to speak to 
 you to-day. I am sure you were all 
 surprised yesterday morning, when you 
 got up and looked out of the window, 
 to see that the snow had been falling 
 through the night. The ground was 
 
ii8 The Treasures of the Snow, 
 
 deeply covered with it, and the trees were 
 heavily laden, and the world was as 
 beautiful as fairyland. Those of you who 
 are strong and healthy were glad that the 
 snow had come on Saturday morning, 
 because there was no school to go to, and 
 so you expected to have a long day's fun, 
 making snow-houses and snow-men, and 
 having splendid snow-fights. 
 
 But now I want you to turn from these 
 pleasures of the snow to think of some of 
 its spiritual treasures. Everything in God's 
 world has some good lesson to teach us. 
 A great poet tells us that we may find — 
 
 " Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 And that is just what the Bible says, only 
 instead of "good in everything," it says 
 " God in everything." It tells us that we 
 may learn about God from the lilies of 
 the field, from the birds of the air, from the 
 trees and rivers and mountains, from the 
 
The Treasures oj the Snow. 1 1 9 
 
 blue sky and the dark clouds and the 
 shining stars. And the snow also, accord- 
 ing to the Bible, brings us a message from 
 God. Let me tell you of three things about 
 God which are found in "the treasuries of 
 the snow." 
 
 I. The snow speaks to us of God's purity. 
 
 It comes down out of the sky, and it 
 says, '* How pure is God who lives up 
 there, and who makes the beautiful snow- 
 flakes, and scatters them abroad upon the 
 earth." There is nothing in all the world so 
 white as snow. If newly washed clothes 
 are hung out to dry when snow is on the 
 ground, how yellow and dirty they look 
 beside it. Now, that pureness of the snow 
 is like the purity of God. God is pure 
 because He never did anything wrong ; 
 and heaven is pure because it is God's 
 home. Nothing that defileth can enter 
 there. And Jesus is pure because He is 
 God's Son — the " Lamb without blemish 
 and without spot." And God wants us 
 
120 The Treasures of the Snow, 
 
 to be pure also, so that we may come and 
 live with Him. "Blessed are the pure in 
 heart, for they shall see God." But how 
 are we, with our sinful hearts, to get 
 God's holy purity? Well, God Himself 
 can make us pure. You have seen how 
 the dirty muddy streets and the black 
 ploughed fields become perfectly pure and 
 white when God sends down the snow 
 from heaven. And God who makes the 
 black earth white, can make our black 
 hearts white and pure. 
 
 We read in the book of Revelation of 
 a great multitude before God's throne, 
 "clothed with white robes, and palms in 
 their hands." And how was that multi- 
 tude all clothed in white ? It was because 
 they had "washed their robes, and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb." 
 Jesus can give us clean hearts, and clothe 
 us in His own pure robe of righteousness. 
 Would you like to have a clean heart and 
 a pure snow-white robe ? Then you must 
 
The Treasures of the Snow. 121 
 
 learn to pray this beautiful prayer, which 
 a little boy of my acquaintance calls his 
 " Snow Prayer," " Wash me, and I shall be 
 whiter than snow ! " 
 
 2. But the snow speaks to us not only 
 of God's purity, but of God's power. 
 
 Did the snow ever make you think how 
 great and powerful God must be? How 
 is the snow made ? God makes it out of 
 the salt waves of the sea. His winds and 
 sunbeams lift millions of tons of water 
 high up into the air. This water, in the 
 shape of clouds, is carried for hundreds of 
 miles over sea and land. At length God 
 changes the innumerable particles of water 
 ftito beautiful snowflakes, and then down 
 comes the snow, falling, falling, until the 
 whole land is covered with it. And how 
 awful is the power of God's snow ! Gentle 
 as a feather, and yet mightier than all the 
 might of man. In some countries there 
 are great glaciers and avalanches, that 
 speak with a loud voice of the tremendous 
 
122 The Treasures of the Snow, 
 
 power of the snow. But even in our own 
 land we sometimes get proofs of its 
 wonderful power. It falls heavily for one 
 night, and next day the streets are blocked 
 up, the horses cannot go along the roads, 
 even the great railway trains are perfectly 
 helpless. And if that happens when snow 
 falls for a single night, just imagine what 
 would happen if God made it fall for a 
 whole week without ever ceasing. The 
 earth would be buried as under an aval- 
 anche, and people would die for want of 
 fire and food. How easily, you see, God 
 could destroy the earth by snow, as He 
 once destroyed it by water. And so the 
 little snowflakes speak to us of God's 
 almighty power. 
 
 3. Once more the snow speaks to us of 
 God's promise. 
 
 There is a passage in the Bible where a 
 great prophet puts this beautiful saying 
 into the mouth of God : " As the rain 
 Cometh down and the snow from heaven, 
 
The Treasures of the Snow. 123 
 
 and returneth not thither, but watereth 
 the earth and maketh it bring forth and 
 bud, that it may give seed to the sower 
 and bread to the eater ; so shall My word 
 be that goeth forth out of My mouth." 
 You see what that means. Just as surely 
 as the snow from heaven does not fall 
 uselessly down, but helps the earth to 
 bring forth its flowers and fruit, so surely 
 shall the snowflakes of God's promise be 
 followed in due season by the flowers and 
 fruit of plentiful fulfilment. 
 
 And thus the snow becomes a beautiful 
 sign to us that God's word of promise is 
 sure. How full the Bible is of beautiful 
 and precious promises, promises for the 
 young and old, promises for this world 
 and the next. Now, these promises can 
 never fail ; that is one of the secrets which 
 are whispered by the snow. But as the 
 snow comes down to make the earth bring 
 forth and bud, so shall the word be that 
 our God hath spoken. 
 
The Form of a 
 Servant. 
 
 " Christ Jesus, who . . . took upon Him the 
 form of a servant."— Phil. ii. 5-7. 
 
 DOESN'T it seem strange to think 
 that Jesus Christ was a servant? 
 He was the greatest and best 
 man that ever lived. He was not only 
 the best of men, but the very Son of 
 God, the King of kings, and Lord of 
 lords. And yet He " took upon Him the 
 form of a servant." You remember some- 
 thing that Jesus did the very night before 
 He died. He rose from the supper table, 
 
The Form of a Servant. 125 
 
 and took a towel, and tied it round His 
 waist ; then He poured some water into a 
 basin, and began to wash His disciples' 
 feet. Peter was ashamed to see Jesus 
 doing such lowly work, and tried at first 
 to prevent him. " Thou shalt never wash 
 my feet ! " he said. And we also are apt 
 to feel, as Peter felt, that Jesus is too 
 great and too good to do the work of a 
 humble servant. But what Jesus did that 
 night was only a symbol of what He did 
 all through His life on earth. " He came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minister," 
 i.e.^ He came not to be served, but to be 
 a servant. He never thought of His own 
 comfort or pleasure, but spent all His 
 time in serving others, and trying to 
 make them both good and happy. He 
 fed the hungry, and cured the sick, and 
 comforted the sad, and forgave the sinful. 
 And by all this Jesus has taught the 
 world a new way of looking at service. 
 It is no degradation to be a servant. It 
 
126 The Form of a Servant. 
 
 is the highest of all honours. "Who- 
 soever will be chief among you," Jesus 
 said, "let him be your servant" 
 
 If you should ever go to London, you 
 will be sure to visit Westminster Abbey. 
 There you will see the monuments of 
 the Kings and Queens of England, and 
 of many great men who have distinguished 
 themselves in the history of our country. 
 And among the others you will see a 
 beautiful statue of white marble, with a 
 very short inscription upon it — just these 
 two words, " Love ! Serve ! " 
 
 That statue is the statue of Lord 
 Shaftesbury. He was the son of an earl, 
 and the heir to a great estate. Many a 
 young man in his position would have 
 lived a life of selfish pleasure, and would 
 never have troubled himself about the 
 sorrow and suffering that lie all around 
 us. But when he was only a boy, little 
 Lord Ashley (for that was his name 
 before he succeeded his father as Earl of 
 
The Form of a Servant. 127 
 
 Shaftesbury) gave his heart to Jesus 
 Christ, through the faithful teaching of 
 his nurse, Maria Millis ; and very early 
 in life he heard the voice of Jesus call- 
 ing him to be a humble and devoted 
 servant of his fellows. He was a pupil 
 at Harrow School. And one day, as he 
 was standing at the foot of Harrow Hill, 
 a pauper's funeral passed along the road. 
 There were no mourners at that funeral. 
 The coffin was nothing but some rough 
 boards loosely nailed together. The men 
 who were driving it along in a cart were 
 laughing and joking all the while. No 
 one cared for this wretched pauper, and 
 so his body was driven to the grave as if 
 he were only a dead dog. In the ears of 
 the sensitive boy who stood and watched 
 this ghastly funeral, the jolting cart wheels 
 were saying something like this : — 
 
 "Rattle his bones 
 Over the stones ; 
 He's only a pauper 
 Whom nobody owns." 
 
128 The Form of a Servant, 
 
 Young Ashley was so shocked and 
 pained by what he saw that day, that 
 he made a vow to God, then and there, 
 that he would give up his whole life to 
 the service of the poor and the suffering. 
 Not long since I was reading his life, 
 and it was wonderful to see how nobly 
 and completely his vow was fulfilled, 
 until the name of Lord Shaftesbury 
 became familiar throughout the length 
 and breadth of the land, as the willing 
 and loving servant of those who most 
 needed to be pitied and helped. He 
 spent his days and nights, both in and 
 out of Parliament, in anxious toil for 
 the boys and girls who worked in the 
 factories, for the little chimney-sweeps 
 who in those days had to climb up the 
 narrow, dark, and dangerous chimneys, 
 for the women who toiled like slaves or 
 beasts of burden in the deep coal mines, 
 and especially for the ragged children 
 who ran about the city streets. On the 
 
The Form of a Servant. 129 
 
 morning after his death, a gentleman 
 was walking along a street in London, 
 when he passed two very ragged boys 
 who were staring into a shop window ; 
 and as he passed he heard this conversa- 
 tion. The one said to the other, "Lord 
 Shaftesbury's dead." "That's not our 
 Lord Shaftesbury?" asked his companion. 
 "Yes," replied the first, "it's our Lord 
 Shaftesbury." The very city arabs, 
 you see, knew that he loved them, and 
 that he wished to be their ser j,nt and 
 friend. 
 
 *'Love! Serve!" Is not that a splen- 
 did epitaph to have upon one's tomb? 
 Wouldn't you like to deserve that words 
 like these should be applied to you? 
 Then you must do as young Lord 
 Ashley did. You must first take Jesus 
 into your hearts, and then try to walk 
 in His blessed footsteps. Will you not 
 try this plan ? Let love be your daily 
 
 motive, and service your daily aim. 
 I 
 
I30 The Form of a Servant. 
 
 "Let this mind be in you which was 
 also in Christ Jesus, who . . . made 
 Himself of no reputation, and took upon 
 Him the form of a servant.' 
 
The Peace = makers. 
 
 " Blessed are the peace-makers ; for they shall 
 be called the children of God." — Matt. v. 9. 
 
 THERE are three great classes, I 
 think, into which people might 
 be divided — the peace-breakers, 
 the peace-keepers, and the peace-makers. 
 I. First there are the peace-breakers. 
 Sometimes in the newspapers you will 
 see that a man has been taken up by the 
 police, and brought before the magistrates, 
 for a breach of the peace ; and that just 
 means for being a peace-breaker. He has 
 been fighting on the street, or he has 
 
132 The Peace-makers, 
 
 made such a noise, and gathered such 
 a crowd, that the police have had to 
 arrest him. But there are other ways 
 of breaking the peace with which the 
 police do not interfere, and which never 
 get into the newspapers ; and it is these 
 other ways of which I am thinking at 
 present. Here are two ladies who are 
 very good friends ; Mrs A. and Mrs B., 
 we shall call them. But another lady, 
 called Mrs C, says something to Mrs A. 
 about Mrs B. ; and then she says some- 
 thing to Mrs B. about Mrs A.; and 
 after that the two old friends will hardly 
 speak to each other any more. And the 
 reason of it all is this, that Mrs C. is one 
 of the peace-breakers. 
 
 Little girls sometimes begin to be 
 peace-breakers at a very early age. There 
 were two girls called Jeanie and Mary, 
 who went to the same school, and played 
 out on the road together on the summer 
 evenings. But one day a little misunder- 
 
The Peace-makers. 133 
 
 standing arose between them, It was 
 not a thing of much importance, and 
 they would soon have forgotten it and 
 been fast friends again. But some other 
 girls who knew about it, told Jeanie 
 that Mary was " a horrid thing " ; and 
 they also told Mary that if they were in 
 her shoes they would never speak to 
 Jeanie again. And so the little tiff 
 grew into a great quarrel, and all because 
 there were some girls who chose to be 
 peace-breakers. 
 
 And there are peace-breakers among 
 the boys also. You may have seen a 
 ring of boys standing on the road, with 
 two little fellows in the middle. The 
 two little boys were both looking rather 
 frightened, as if they would have liked 
 very much to run away to their mothers. 
 Certainly neither of them was very anxious 
 to fight. But the boys on one side said, 
 "Hit him, Willie!" and the boys on the 
 other side said, " Hit him, Johnnie ! " and 
 
134 '^^^^ Peace-makers. 
 
 by-and-by the two little fellows went 
 home to their mothers with bloody noses, 
 all because some other boys were among 
 the peace-breakers. 
 
 Now, boys and girls, don't be peace- 
 breakers whatever you are. Of all 
 wretched and contemptible persons, the 
 peace-breaker is amongst the worst. If 
 the peace-makers shall be called the 
 children of God, must we not say of the 
 peace-breakers that they are the children 
 of the devil? Sometimes I think that 
 the people who are taken up by the 
 police and brought before the magistrates 
 for disturbing the peace, are not nearly 
 so worthy to be put in jail as other peace- 
 breakers who escape without punishment, 
 although they have broken up old friend- 
 ships, and planted roots of bitterness in 
 loving hearts, and ruined the happiness 
 of many peaceful homes. 
 
 2. But pass now to the second class — 
 the peace-keepers. 
 
The Peace-makers, 135 
 
 These are people who do not like 
 quarrelling and fighting. They prefer 
 always to be at peace. It gives them 
 no pleasure to see other people unhappy. 
 And how pleasant it is, in a world that 
 is full of strife and noise, to meet with 
 people who love to be peaceful and kind. 
 Remember, boys and girls, that it takes 
 two to make a quarrel. If you try, as 
 far as in you lies, to be lovers and 
 keepers of peace, you will save both 
 yourselves and others from a great deal 
 of wretchedness and pain. 
 
 3. But there is something still better 
 than being a peace-keeper, and that is 
 to be a peace-maker. 
 
 Even people who love to keep peace 
 are not always willing to make peace. 
 It is not easy, when two of your friends 
 have quarrelled, to go in between them 
 and try to make them friendly again. 
 If you do so, both of them are apt to 
 be offended, and to think that you are 
 
i^b The Peace-makers. 
 
 favouring the opposite side. It is much 
 easier to pretend to be on both sides, 
 and not to interpose at all ; or else to 
 keep as far as you can from both sides, 
 saying to yourself, I don't want to get 
 into hot water, I want to be at peace, 
 and not to be mixed up with these miserable 
 quarrels. But that is not the way which 
 one of the true peace-makers will follow. 
 He will run the risk of trouble to himself 
 for the sake of healing a misunderstanding. 
 He knows that neither party is quite so 
 bad as the other thinks, and therefore he 
 will try to make each side see how much 
 can be said for the other side, how simply 
 the misunderstanding arose, how easily 
 it might have been explained at the first, 
 and how much less black their neighbours 
 are than their fancies have painted. 
 
 And now, boys and girls, I hope that 
 you will seek to be peace- makers rather 
 than peace-breakers. If you see others 
 quarrelling, don't try to put coals on the 
 
The Peace-makers. 137 
 
 fire, but rather to pour on some cold 
 water. Remember these beautiful words 
 of the Lord Jesus, " Blessed are the peace- 
 makers ; for they shall be called the 
 children of God." 
 
Entertaining Angels 
 Unawares. 
 
 ■HtH- 
 
 " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers ; for 
 thereby some have entertained angels unawares.'* 
 — Heb. xiii. 2. 
 
 THOSE of you who have Bibles 
 with margins, will see a note in 
 the margin opposite this verse, 
 referring you to the chapter in Genesis 
 which tells how Abraham one day enter- 
 tained three strangers with hospitable 
 kindness, and discovered by-and-by that 
 he had been entertaining angels unawares. 
 Perhaps you think that it is not likely 
 
Entertaining Angels Unawares. 139 
 
 that you will ever see angels coming to 
 your door. And if by angels you mean 
 such angels as Abraham saw, or such 
 angels as you have seen in your picture- 
 books, with white wings and shining 
 garments, I think myself it is not likely 
 that in this world you ever shall. It 
 may be that millions of spiritual creatures 
 walk the earth both when we wake and 
 when we sleep, and that the angels of 
 God are ever ascending and descending, 
 as Jacob saw them in his vision, on that 
 ladder of light. But just because the 
 angels are spiritual creatures, we cannot 
 see them with our eyes of flesh. They 
 would need to come to us in a human 
 form, as they came to Abraham, or our 
 eyes would need to be opened as Jacob's 
 eyes were opened whilst he slept, if we 
 were to see the angels of heaven. But 
 God has other angels besides the angels 
 who are invisible. These angels often 
 come knocking at our door. And we 
 
140 Entertaining Angels Unawares, 
 
 never know, when we are entertaining a 
 stranger, but we may be entertaining an 
 angel unawares. 
 
 Let me tell you a beautiful story 
 which is told in one of the books of a 
 great English writer. I hope that by- 
 and-by you will read the story for your- 
 selves. There was once a poor weaver 
 who lived not far from a quiet old- 
 fashioned village. He had had great 
 trials in his earlier years, and had been 
 treated very unjustly and cruelly by 
 other people. This had led him to shut 
 himself up in his cottage, and never 
 speak to his neighbours if he could 
 possibly help it. The only thing he 
 cared for was the money he earned by 
 his loom. All the money he got he 
 changed into sovereigns, and he kept the 
 sovereigns in a bag hidden in a hole 
 under one of the stone flags of his 
 kitchen floor. And every night when 
 his work was done he lifted the stone, 
 
Entertaining Angels Unazvares. 141 
 
 and took out his bag, and let the gold 
 run through his fingers, and counted it 
 over and over again. Oh ! how he loved 
 those sovereigns ! But there was nothing 
 else in the world that he loved. He 
 was very hard and cold and selfish ; for 
 he had shut the door of his heart against 
 all his fellow-creatures. 
 
 One night when he was out, a thief 
 came in and stole the bag with all the 
 money he had been gathering for so 
 many years. When the poor weaver 
 came back and found that his gold was 
 gone, the shock of his grief almost drove 
 him mad. Day after day he sat by the 
 fire quite dazed and stupid. But one 
 evening when he had been sitting for 
 a while half unconscious, he noticed as 
 he awoke from his stupor that something 
 just like yellow gold was glancing and 
 shining on the floor in the ruddy light 
 of the fire. He was very short-sighted, 
 and for a moment he thought that his 
 
142 Entertaining Angels Unawares, 
 
 money had come back. So he sprang 
 forward, and clutched at it with eager 
 fingers. But what do you think he 
 found? A little girl with golden hair 
 lying on the floor fast asleep. Her 
 mother was a poor woman who had 
 perished that night in the snow quite 
 near to the weaver's door ; and the little 
 girl, seeing the light of the fire shining 
 through the window, had wandered in 
 and lain down in the warm room to sleep. 
 Well, there was no one to claim this 
 little orphan, and so the weaver kept her 
 himself. And soon he came to love her 
 far more than he had ever loved his gold ; 
 and through her, after a while, he learned 
 to love his neighbours also. So she be- 
 came his ministering angel, turning his 
 hard and selfish heart to thoughts of 
 gentleness and kindness. Her little hand 
 was put in his "to lead him forth gently 
 towards a calm and bright land." 
 
 Now, I shall tell you another story ; 
 
Entertaining Angels Unaivares. 143 
 
 for I believe that you children like stories 
 best of all. 
 
 There was once a little orphan boy in 
 Germany, who lived in a home for poor 
 children founded by John Falk, a very 
 good man, somewhat like our Mr Quarrier, 
 who did a great deal for the poor orphans. 
 It was supper time. One of the bigger 
 boys was told to ask the blessing, and he 
 repeated the words which were used in 
 the home at meal time every night, 
 "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and 
 bless what Thou hast provided." And 
 then the little boy looked up and said, 
 " But why does Jesus never come ? We 
 ask Him every night to come and sit with 
 us, and He never comes." The teacher 
 said, " Oh yes ! my child, only believe that 
 Jesus will come, and you may be sure He 
 will come, for He does not despise our 
 invitation." "Then," said the little boy, 
 " if He is coming, I will put in this chair 
 for Him." Just with that there was a 
 
144 Entertaining Angels Unawares. 
 
 knock at the door, and a poor shivering 
 boy came in and begged for a night's 
 shelter. He was made welcome, and the 
 teacher told him to sit in the empty chair. 
 And then the little boy, who had been 
 thinking very hard all the time, said, 
 "Perhaps Jesus could not come to-night, 
 and so He sent this poor boy instead." 
 
 Don't you think that little boy was 
 right? If we are kind to the poor and the 
 strangers, we are entertaining, not angels 
 only, but Jesus Christ, the Lord of all the 
 angels. For Jesus has said, " Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 these My brethren, ye have done it unto 
 Me." 
 
 Will you boys and girls try to be kind 
 to the strangers and the poor? Some- 
 times when a new boy comes to school, 
 the other boys worry him just because he 
 is a stranger. And sometimes when a girl 
 is poorer than the rest, the other girls treat 
 her in a way which makes her miserable. 
 
Entertaining Angels Unawares. 145 
 
 But remember what Jesus says about 
 being kind to His poor friends, and 
 remember also the words of this beautiful 
 text, " Be not forgetful to entertain 
 strangers ; for thereby some have enter- 
 tained angels unawares/' 
 
 K 
 
Contentment. 
 
 ^•>^ 
 
 *'Be content with such things as ye have."— 
 Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 CONTENTMENT is a grace 
 which is often spoken about in 
 the Bible, and it is a grace 
 which greatly needs to be spoken about 
 still. There are multitudes of people 
 who possess many of the other Christian 
 graces, but cannot be said to " abound 
 in this grace also." How common it is 
 to meet with men and women who 
 are always discontented, and always 
 grumbling. Indeed, I'm afraid that in 
 
Contentment. 147 
 
 the world there are even a great many 
 discontented boys and girls. They are 
 discontented with their food, or with 
 their clothes, or w^ith their toys ; or they 
 are discontented with things in general, 
 they cannot tell you what or why. 
 
 Did you ever hear the story of the 
 discontented fish and the discontented 
 canary ? They lived in the same 
 parlour. The fish had a nice large 
 globe full of water to swim in, and the 
 canary was hung up in the window in 
 a beautiful cage. One hot summer day 
 they both began to grumble. The fish 
 said : " I wish I could sing like that 
 canary. I wish I lived up yonder in 
 that beautiful cage." And the canary, 
 who was feeling very warm, said : " Oh 
 how I wish that I lived down there in 
 that cool globe of water where the fish 
 is swimming to and fro." Suddenly a 
 voice said : " Canary, go down to the 
 water. Fish, go up to the cage." Im- 
 
148 Contentment. 
 
 mediately they exchanged places. And 
 how happy they were then ! How de- 
 lighted the fish was with the cage ! 
 How comfortable the canary felt in the 
 water ! I see you are smiling at the 
 fish and the canary ; but, after all, they 
 are just like some people who are never 
 content with what they have, and would 
 like to change places with somebody 
 else ; although, if they did, they would 
 certainly be much more miserable than 
 they were before. 
 
 I might give you many reasons for 
 seeking to have contentment. Let me 
 mention only two. 
 
 One is because contentment will make 
 you beautiful. That is a reason especi- 
 ally for the girls. You would like to 
 be beautiful, I am sure. Well, Christian 
 contentment is one great secret of 
 beauty. There is a kind of beauty 
 which soon fades away ; it is only skin- 
 deep. But there is another kind of 
 
Contefitment. 149 
 
 beauty which lasts. I read in a paper 
 lately that a lady who is one of the 
 most famous singers in the world, and 
 who always looks both fresh and youth- 
 ful, although she is no longer young, 
 was asked how it is that her face seems 
 never to grow old. " I cannot tell," she 
 said, "unless it is because I have made 
 it a rule of my life 7tever to be cross 
 and never to be discontented." Now, I 
 cannot promise you that contentment 
 will keep your faces from growing old ; 
 but I am sure of this that it will keep 
 them from ever growing ugly. No 
 person with a contented heart ever had 
 an ugly face. The older such persons 
 grow, their faces only get the more 
 beautiful, as all the pleasant thoughts 
 and kindly feelings in their hearts get 
 written down upon their features. 
 
 But another reason why you should 
 be contented is, because co7itentme7it will 
 make you happy. Nothing in the world 
 
1 50 Contentment 
 
 can make discontented people happy. 
 All kinds of gifts and blessings may be 
 showered upon them ; but they persist 
 in thinking not of what they have, 
 but of what they have not. They are 
 like the boy I have read of who only 
 wanted a knife, but when he got the 
 knife he only wanted a ball, and when 
 he got the ball he only wanted a top, 
 and when he got the top he only wanted 
 a kite; and when he had knife and 
 ball and top and kite, still he was not 
 happy, because he was not contented. 
 To try to be happy without content- 
 ment is like trying to carry water in a 
 sieve. You may dip the sieve into the 
 water, but the water all runs through 
 the holes. While a heart that is con- 
 tented cannot help being happy. It has 
 no holes for the water to run through. 
 It keeps all it gets, and so it is full of 
 joy. 
 
 Rut how are we to get contentment? 
 
Contentment. 1 5 1 
 
 Well, here is one way. We must look 
 on the bright side of things. It's not 
 what we have, so much as our way of 
 looking at it, that makes us contented or 
 discontented. Two pitchers were once 
 going to the well. Said the one to the 
 other, " How black and dismal you seem 
 to be this morning." "Ah!" the other 
 pitcher replied, " I was just thinking how 
 useless it is to come to the well day 
 after day, for however full we go away, 
 we always come back empty." " Dear 
 me ! " said the first pitcher, " how strange 
 to look at it in that way. Now, I was 
 just thinking how good it is that though 
 we come here perfectly empty, we always 
 go away again filled up to the brim." 
 
 That's the way to be contented. There's 
 a bright side and a dark side to every- 
 thing. Look on the bright side. Don't 
 keep saying to yourself, How selfish people 
 are ; how unkind everybody is ; how many 
 troubles I have to bear. Think rather, 
 
152 Contentment. 
 
 How good God is ; how loving is Jesus 
 who came from the sky ; how many kind 
 friends I have ; how many comforts and 
 blessings. And then, like the contented 
 pitcher, your heart will always sing for 
 joy. 
 
The Rock that is 
 Higher. 
 
 " Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." — 
 Ps. Ixi. 2. 
 
 THE Psalm from which these words 
 are taken was written by David, 
 the shepherd boy who became a 
 king. For a long part of his life David 
 was an outlaw. King Saul had put a 
 price upon his head, and cruel men were 
 hunting for him everywhere throughout 
 the land. Some of you have read about 
 the Covenanters, Peden the Prophet, and 
 Donald Cargill, and James Renwick, and 
 
154 '^h^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Higher. 
 
 Richard Cameron, and Captain Paton of 
 Meadowhead whose Bible and sword may 
 still be seen at Lochgoin farmhouse. You 
 know how those men were hunted on 
 the moors and mountains, and how to 
 this day the country people in Ayrshire 
 and Dumfriesshire will show you the 
 caves in which some of them are said to 
 have hid. 
 
 Well, David had to flee to the moun- 
 tains ; but the mountains were not like 
 most of our Scottish mountains. They 
 were not beautiful slopes and heights 
 covered with grass and heather, but an 
 awful wilderness of bare jagged rocks — 
 not a beautiful sight to look at, nor a 
 comfortable place to live in. But David 
 loved these rocks, because they had been 
 his hiding-place, and had saved him 
 from the cruel hands of his enemies. 
 And because David loved the rocks 
 so much, he came to think that God 
 was like a rock. Again and again, I 
 
The Rock that is Higher. 155 
 
 don't know how often, we find him in 
 his Psalms calh'ng God a rock. " The 
 Lord is my Rock," he says. " The Lord 
 liveth, and blessed be my Rock." " He 
 only is my Rock and my salvation." 
 And when he says in this verse, " Lead 
 me to the Rock that is higher than I," 
 he means, by that Rock which is higher, 
 no other than God Himself. 
 
 Let me tell you of three reasons that 
 David had for calling God his Rock : — 
 
 I. In the first place God was a Rock 
 of Refuge. 
 
 Sometimes when David awoke in the 
 morning, he saw far away down in the 
 valley the glint of the morning sun on 
 the spears of a body ot soldiers ; and he 
 knew that those men were going to hunt 
 for him all day long, and try to capture, 
 or to kill him. If David had been in a 
 wide plain, he would have had little 
 chance of escape ; he must soon have 
 been seen and caught. But the rocks 
 
156 The Rock that is Higher, 
 
 were his refuge. He climbed higher and 
 higher, until he came to some dark cave 
 known only to himself, and there he 
 found a refuge until the danger was 
 past. 
 
 Now God is a Rock of Refuge to 
 every one who trusts in Him. If we are 
 in danger or trouble, we can always go 
 to God, and He will help us. When our 
 hearts are overwhelmed and in perplexity, 
 we can cry, as David did, " Lead me to 
 the Rock that is higher than I." And 
 then we shall find, as David found, that 
 God is our Rock and our salvation, and 
 our " very present help in trouble." 
 
 2. But, again, God was not only a 
 Rock of Refuge from the enemy, but a 
 Rock of Shadow from the heat. 
 
 We can hardly understand in our tem- 
 perate climate the heat from which men 
 sometimes suffer in a land like Palestine — 
 the sun blazing like a ball of fire, not a 
 cloud in the sky to screen its scorching 
 
The Rock that is Higher. 157 
 
 rays, not a breath of air to temper them ; 
 until at length strong men feel as if they 
 would faint away, or even fall down and 
 die. How pleasant it must be in such a 
 land, when one is walking through a 
 wilderness of sand, or climbing up a 
 mountain side, to come to a great high 
 rock that stands straight up and casts a 
 deep cool shadow. David had often felt 
 the delight which comes from " the shadow 
 of a great rock in a weary land " ; and 
 so he came to think of God as a shelter 
 and shadow from the heat. Is it not a 
 beautiful thought, that God is not only 
 our refuge from special dangers, but also 
 our refreshing shadow from the burden 
 and the heat of every common day? 
 Sometimes our hearts get very hot and 
 flustered amidst all our daily tasks and 
 toils. Let us go then in thought and in 
 prayer to the Rock that is higher than 
 we, so that coolness and calm and peace 
 may come back to our souls. 
 
158 The Rock that is Higher. 
 
 3. Once more David thought of God 
 as the ''Rock of Ages!' 
 
 Nothing gives us such an impression of 
 unchanging strength as a great mountain 
 peak. Some of you have been in Arran 
 for your holidays, and most of you have 
 seen the Arran hills from the Ayrshire 
 coast, or from one of the Clyde steamers. 
 Well, the peak of Goatfell is practically 
 the same as it was nearly six hundred 
 years ago, when King Robert the Bruce 
 stayed in Arran, and watched and waited 
 every night to see that beacon on the 
 Carrick shore, of which you have read in 
 your " History of Scotland." A mountain 
 is a symbol of strength that does not 
 change ; and so a mountain rock is a 
 symbol of God. His righteousness, and 
 His love also, are " like the great moun- 
 tains." He is "the same yesterday, to- 
 day, and for ever." He is the " Rock of 
 Ages." David had found that men are 
 always changing. Some of his friends 
 
The Rock that is Higher. 159 
 
 grew false, and deserted him. King Saul 
 first showed him great favour, and then 
 tried to take away his life. His beloved 
 Jonathan always remained faithful and 
 true; but death came and took Jonathan 
 away. But God was a strong Rock, a 
 Rock that could not be shaken, a Rock 
 to which David could continually resort 
 when his heart was overwhelmed. Will 
 you not put your trust, dear children, in 
 the everlasting God, and in Jesus Christ 
 His Son, our Saviour, that " Rock of 
 Ages" of whom we have been singing, 
 whose side was riven for our sakes, so 
 that we might find a hiding-place in the 
 "clefts of the Rock"? 
 
The Kingdom of God 
 
 I » I 
 
 " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's 
 good pleasure to give you the kingdom." — 
 Luke xii. 32. 
 
 WHAT a wonderful gift is pro- 
 mised in this text — the gift 
 of a kingdom ! We read of 
 some great conquerors who gave king- 
 doms to their friends, and Jesus says it 
 is our Father's good pleasure to give //j 
 the kingdom. 
 
 I wonder where that kingdom is. 
 Most of you are learning geography, and 
 if we had a map of the world here, you 
 would soon point out its states and 
 
The Kingdom of God. i6i 
 
 kingdoms — Great Britain, and France, 
 and Germany, and all the rest But 
 you would not find the kingdom of 
 which I am speaking on any map of 
 the world. This kingdom is the king- 
 dom of God, and no geographer has 
 mapped it out. You cannot point to it 
 in an atlas and say, " Lo ! it is here," 
 or " Lo ! it is there." 
 
 Where, then, is the kingdom of God? 
 Perhaps some one says it is up in heaven, 
 for Jesus often called it "the kingdom 
 of heaven." But where is heaven? Up 
 in the sky, you answer, far above the 
 stars, where Jesus dwells with the saints 
 and angels. Yes, the kingdom of heaven 
 is there ; but it is also here in this world 
 in which we live. 
 
 Do you little boys ever play at trains? 
 My little boy often does. A "puff- 
 puff," as he calls it, has a wonderful 
 fascination for him, as it has for most 
 
 boys. Well, a little boy and his younger 
 L 
 
1 62 The Kingdom of God. 
 
 sister were " playing train " one day. 
 He was the engine, and she was all the 
 passengers rolled into one. He was 
 determined to get a big enough place to 
 start from, and so he shouted " London," 
 and then went puffing, puffing, all round 
 the room. In a little while he stopped 
 and called out, "Edinburgh," and then 
 again he stopped and called out, " Glas- 
 gow!" But the next time he stopped, 
 his geography was quite exhausted, and 
 so, as he didn't remember any other 
 place, he shouted, " Heaven ! " Now, that 
 little boy was not thinking what he said 
 when he shouted " Heaven ! " ; and yet, 
 perhaps, he was not very far wrong, for the 
 kingdom of heaven is here in the world 
 as well as up above the sky. The king- 
 dom of heaven is in London, and in 
 Edinburgh, and in Glasgow, and also 
 here in Cathcart. For wherever there 
 are men and women, or boys and girls, 
 who love the Lord Jesus, God's kingdom 
 
The Kingdom of God. 163 
 
 of heaven is there. "The kingdom of 
 God," said Jesus, "is within you," — inside 
 of your heart. 
 
 And is not this the best kind of king- 
 dom? Earthly kingdoms may be taken 
 away, but this is "a kingdom which 
 cannot be moved." And again, earthly 
 kingdoms bring with them a great deal 
 of trouble and sorrow and care. " Un- 
 easy lies the head that wears a crown." 
 But happy are they who have got the 
 gift of the Father's kingdom, for this 
 kingdom, Paul tells us, "is righteousness 
 and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 
 But how are you to get this wonder- 
 ful gift of the kingdom of God ? Just 
 by taking Jesus Christ into your heart. 
 Let him in, and He will put the Father's 
 crown upon your head. Some of you 
 have admitted Jesus already. You are 
 kings and queens in the kingdom of your 
 Father. But Jesus wants you all to be 
 kings and queens. Won't you ask the 
 
164 The Kingdom of God, 
 
 Saviour in, so that you may receive the 
 
 Father's gift? Won't you say, in the 
 
 words of the beautiful children's hymn 
 
 we sometimes sing : — 
 
 " Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus, 
 
 There is room in my heart for Thee ! " 
 
 And now read the text over again : " Fear 
 not, little flock ; for it is your Father's 
 good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 Why did Jesus say, "Fear not, little flock?'* 
 His disciples were troubling themselves 
 about many things — about food, and cloth- 
 ing, and other worldly cares. But Jesus 
 said, Why trouble yourself about such 
 things, when it is your Father's good 
 pleasure to give you the kingdom ? If 
 God makes you kings and queens, He will 
 surely give you food and clothing. If He 
 gives you His own Son, how shall He 
 not with Him also freely give you all 
 things ? 
 
 The children of God should never be 
 afraid. Much less should they be filled 
 
The Kingdom of God. 165 
 
 with fear concerning little things. The 
 love which gives the greater blessing will 
 certainly supply the less. The Father 
 who gives us the kingdom, may be 
 trusted to give us "all good things." 
 
Burden = Bearing. 
 
 " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the 
 law of Christ." — Gal. vi. 2. 
 
 WHEN the apostle tells us to 
 bear one another's burdens, 
 he evidently takes for granted 
 that we all have burdens to bear. And so, 
 undoubtedly, we have. Did you ever see 
 a regiment of soldiers in full marching 
 dress, every one with his knapsack on 
 his back? They are just like the men 
 and women and boys and girls who are 
 marching on the journey of life. We 
 don't carry our burdens in knapsacks. 
 Perhaps no one sees the burdens that 
 
Burden-Bearing. 167 
 
 we bear. But every one of us has a 
 burden. And, more than that, every one 
 must carry his burden for himself. You 
 can't carry my burden, and I can't carry 
 yours. The apostle says in the fifth 
 verse of this same chapter, " Every man 
 shall bear his own burden." 
 
 If you have lessons to learn, no one 
 else can learn them for you. If I came 
 and learned them all by heart, it would 
 do you no good. You would be no 
 better off than you were before. You 
 would still have to learn them for your- 
 selves. 
 
 If you have suffering to bear, no one 
 else can bear it for you. Sometimes 
 when a mother sees her little child in 
 suffering she wishes, oh how much ! that 
 she could bear the pain and let the 
 little one escape. But she cannot do it. 
 The child must bear its own burden. 
 
 And, again, if you have done some- 
 thing wrong, you cannot lay the re- 
 
1 68 Burden-Bearing. 
 
 sponsibility upon other shoulders. Some- 
 times children try to do that. They say, 
 "It was not my fault ! " They wish to 
 put all the blame on somebody else, — a 
 brother or a sister or a playmate, just as 
 Adam wanted to put the blame on Eve, 
 and Eve wanted to put the blame on 
 Satan. But if you have done wrong, it 
 is you that have done it ; and you must 
 bear the burden of responsibility to God. 
 Perhaps others have done wrong too. If 
 so, they have their own burden of blame. 
 But that does not free you from your 
 burden. 
 
 And, yet, although every one must bear 
 his own burden, the apostle says, "Bear 
 ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil 
 the law of Christ." Now, what does he 
 mean by that ? How can we bear the 
 burdens of other people ? 
 
 We can do it by sympathy. It is true 
 that every man must bear his own 
 burden, and yet by sympathy we can 
 
Burden-Bearing. 169 
 
 make our neighbour's burden lighter, and 
 help him to bear it more bravely and 
 patiently and cheerfully than before. 
 
 Sometimes in the evening your father 
 comes home from business worried and 
 tired. If you choose you can make 
 his burden heavier still, by being noisy 
 and quarrelsome and disobedient. But 
 instead of that you say to yourself: 
 " Father looks tired to-night. I will try 
 to be as good as possible, and to make 
 the evening as pleasant as I can." And 
 if you really try, you have no idea what 
 a blessing you can be to your father, 
 and how he often thanks God, when he 
 is bearing the burden and heat of the 
 day in the great city, that he has a 
 bright and happy home to come to at 
 night. 
 
 And has not your mother a burden 
 also, with a whole household to look 
 after? Is she not sometimes quite worn 
 out with all her daily burden - bearing ? 
 
170 Burden-Bearing. 
 
 And couldn't you do a great deal, if you 
 chose, to make her burden lighter by 
 your sympathy and help? 
 
 Sometimes at school there is a scholar 
 who has to bear a heavy burden. Per- 
 haps it is a boy who is lame, and who 
 cannot run about like other boys. Per- 
 haps it is a girl who is poor, and who 
 is not so nicely dressed as other girls. 
 Some boys, and girls make the burden 
 heavier for their less fortunate com- 
 panions, by laughing at them, or avoid- 
 ing them, or saying unkind things about 
 them. Will you make up your minds to 
 do to others as you would like them to 
 do to you, and try to show special kind- 
 ness to those who need your kindness 
 most of all ? 
 
 What a beautiful thing sympathy is ! 
 How it brightens the world to those who 
 are sad and weary, falling on them like 
 the sunlight of a bright morning, which 
 makes our day's burden seem easier to 
 
Burden-Bearing. 171 
 
 bear. And what a hideous thing selfish- 
 ness is ! How it hardens the heart, until 
 there is no place left for sympathy at 
 all. Sydney Smith once said of a man 
 he knew : " That man is so hard that 
 you might drive a broad-wheeled waggon 
 over him, and it would produce no im- 
 pression. If you were to bore holes in 
 him with a gimlet, I am convinced that 
 sawdust would come out." 
 
 I am sure you would not like to be- 
 come like that. Well, if you wish to 
 be saved from becoming like that, you 
 should begin when you are young to 
 practise " the law of kindness." There is 
 a society which is called " The Guild oi 
 Kindness." It is made up of young 
 people who have pledged themselves to 
 do a kind act, or speak a kind word, 
 every day of their lives to some fellow- 
 creature. Is it not a splendid idea ? 
 Would it not be a good thing for us 
 all, even though we do not belong to 
 
1/2 Burden- Bearing, 
 
 " The Guild of Kindness," to resolve to 
 keep " the law of kindness " every day, 
 so that we might make the lives of 
 others brighter, and their burdens easier 
 to bear? 
 
 " Bear ye one another's burdens, and 
 so fulfil the law of Christ^ That is the 
 great reason for doing it, because it is 
 Christ's law. His golden rule. Will you 
 ask God to give you more sympathy, 
 so that you may be able to " fulfil the 
 law of Christ " ? Will you make these 
 beautiful words of one of our beautiful 
 hymns a part of your daily prayer : 
 
 " I ask Thee for a thoughtful love, 
 Through constant watching wise; 
 
 And a heart at leisure from itself, 
 To soothe and sympathise"? 
 
A 
 
 Scholar of Conscience. 
 
 -^•^^ 
 
 " But so did not I, because of the fear of God.** 
 — Neh. v. 15. 
 
 IN the afternoons I often meet boys 
 and girls coming home from school 
 with their books in their hands, 
 and if I stop and speak to them, I find 
 that at the school they are learning a 
 great many different things from differ- 
 ent lesson-books. One of their books is 
 a reading book, and another a geography, 
 and another an arithmetic ; and the older 
 scholars have French and Latin books as 
 
174 -^ Scholar of Conscience. 
 
 well. Those are the lessons you have to 
 learn at school ; and sometimes, I fancy, 
 you are glad to think that by-and-by your 
 schooldays will all be over, and you will 
 have no more lessons to learn. 
 
 But there is another school in which the 
 scholars are men and women as well as 
 boys and girls. The scholars here can 
 never lay their lesson-books aside ; for 
 the name of the school is the School 
 of Life. And in this school there is a 
 teacher about whom I wish to tell you. 
 His name is Mr Conscience. And Mr 
 Conscience has two favourite lesson-books, 
 one of them called " Do ! " and the other 
 called " Don't ! " from which, to the very 
 end of our lives, we all have lessons to 
 learn. 
 
 Nehemiah, the author of this book from 
 which the text is taken, was a scholar 
 in the school of Mr Conscience. And 
 a very good scholar Nehemiah was. Mr 
 Conscience had put into his hands the 
 
A Scholar of Conscience. 175 
 
 lesson-book called "Don't!" He had 
 taught him that there were some things 
 which for God's sake he must not do; 
 and Nehemiah is able to say: "So did 
 not I, because of the fear of God." 
 
 Now, you boys and girls have to learn 
 the same lesson as was learned by Nehe- 
 miah. Conscience tells you that there 
 are some things which you must not do. 
 Perhaps you would like very much to do 
 them. But Conscience holds up his book 
 before your eyes and says: "No! no! 
 you must not do so, for God would be 
 displeased." 
 
 There was something which made it 
 specially noble for Nehemiah to keep 
 from doing the things he speaks about, 
 and that was that other men round about 
 were doing those very things. It is not 
 easy when every one about us is doing 
 wrong to keep from doing it ourselves. 
 It is always hard to stand alone. But 
 if we would be true scholars of Mr 
 
176 A Scholar of Conscience. 
 
 Conscience, that is what we shall often 
 have to do. Other boys may do a thing, 
 other girls may do it ; but if Conscience 
 says ''Don't!'' we must stand bravely out 
 like Nehemiah, who said, "So did not I, 
 because of the fear of God." 
 
 Some of you have read that splendid 
 book for boys, "Tom Brown's School- 
 days." You remember that when Tom 
 Brown went to Rugby the boys who 
 slept in his dormitory never said their 
 prayers. Some of them when they first 
 came to the school, would have liked to 
 kneel down and pray, as they had been 
 accustomed to do at home; but no one 
 else did it, and they were afraid to begin. 
 But one day a new boy came to the 
 school, a little fellow called Arthur, a 
 pale-faced, delicate child. And that little 
 boy had the courage to do what bigger 
 and stronger boys had not done. He 
 was not ashamed to show his colours. 
 On his very first night at Rugby he knelt 
 
A Scholar of Conscience. 177 
 
 down beside his bed, and prayed to his 
 heavenly Father. A big, brutal fellow 
 in the middle of the room shied his 
 slipper at the kneeling boy ; but Tom 
 Brown, as you know, took Arthur's part 
 that night, and, more than that, Tom 
 Brown knelt down himself next morning 
 to pray to God, and by-and-by nearly 
 all the boys in the room followed the 
 lead which Arthur and Tom had given, 
 and said their prayers every morning and 
 every night. 
 
 One day some boys were playing with 
 a ball near to a window, when somehow 
 or other the ball went crashing through 
 a pane. In a moment the boys made 
 for the corner, and when the man whose 
 window was broken got to the door they 
 had all disappeared. No, not all. There 
 was one boy who stayed behind. He 
 would have liked, oh so much ! to run 
 away too. It was terribly hard to stay 
 when he saw all the others vanishing 
 
 M 
 
178 A Scholar of Conscience. 
 
 round the corner. But his conscience 
 would not let him. It said, "To run 
 away would be a mean and cowardly- 
 thing, and you must not be a coward." 
 And so he bravely stayed behind, and 
 gave his name, and promised that he 
 would help to pay for the broken glass. 
 
 Now, boys, I want to ask you two 
 questions. What would you have done 
 if you had been one of those boys? 
 Would you have run away, or would you 
 have stayed behind ? That's my first 
 question. And my other question is 
 this — What was the right thing to do? 
 I don't know what your answer to the 
 first question would be ; but I am sure 
 of this, that if you think about the matter 
 for a single moment, you will feel that 
 the brave thing and the right thing was 
 — not to run away, but to stay and 
 confess the truth. 
 
 God help you all to be good scholars 
 in the school of Mr Conscience, not afraid 
 
A Scholar of Conscience. 179 
 
 to say No! not afraid to stand alone; 
 but taking as your motto the brave words 
 of Nehemiah, "So did not I, because 
 of the fear of God." 
 
Christ our Master. 
 
 " Ye call Me Master (SiSao-KaAos) and Lord : and 
 
 ye say well ; for so I am." — John xiii. 13. 
 " Master (eTrto-Tara), we have toiled all the night." 
 —Luke v. 5. 
 
 IF you search the New Testament to 
 find out the different names and 
 titles which are given to Jesus, you 
 will hardly find any, I think, which is 
 more often used than the name " Master." 
 I looked up my concordance, and I found 
 that more than sixty times Jesus is 
 called by this name. Some of you know 
 that the New Testament was written in 
 Greek, and that our New Testament is 
 
Christ our Master. i8l 
 
 only a translation. Well, when we turn 
 to the Greek Testament, we find that it 
 is not always the same word in the Greek 
 which has been translated into " Master " 
 in the English version. There is one 
 Greek word which means master in the 
 sense of teacher or schoolmaster. But 
 there is another which means master in 
 the sense of overseer or commander. 
 And as Jesus is called by both of these 
 names, we must think of Him both as 
 our Schoolmaster, and our Commander, if 
 we are to understand all that His title 
 of "Master" implies. 
 
 I. Jesus is our Schoohnaster. 
 
 When you go to school you first learn 
 to read, and then when you are older 
 you are taught writing and arithmetic 
 and history and geography and many 
 other things. But Jesus teaches you what 
 is better than reading or writing or arith- 
 metic. He teaches you about God, and 
 He teaches you to be good. And that 
 
1 82 Christ our Master. 
 
 is the best knowledge in all the world. 
 It is very nice to be clever, no doubt, 
 and to sit at the top of the class, and to 
 get prizes when the examination comes ; 
 but to be true and honest, to be loving 
 and obedient, is better by far. 
 
 When you go to school, you mean to 
 go only for a few years. Soon your 
 childhood will pass away, and your 
 schooldays will be done. But Christ's 
 pupils are never done with their school- 
 ing. All through their lives their educa- 
 tion is going on. When you see an 
 old white-haired Christian sitting in the 
 church, you see an old disciple of Jesus 
 Christ, and a disciple just means a pupil. 
 Even old Christians have still much need 
 of the great Master's teaching. And even 
 in heaven we shall still have to go to 
 Christ's school ; for we shall still have 
 many things to learn. 
 
 When boys and girls are at school, 
 they need to have school-books. And 
 
Christ our Master. 183 
 
 school-books are needed also at the school 
 of Jesus. Can you tell me, I wonder, 
 what some of Christ's school books are ? 
 One is the beautiful world in which we 
 live. Our Master gives us lessons from 
 the lilies of the field, and the birds of 
 the air, and the trees of the wood, and 
 the clouds of the skies. All these have 
 messages to bring us, and if we listen to 
 Jesus He will tell us what their messages 
 are. Another lesson-book is the lesson - 
 book of experience. All our tasks and 
 toils, all our trials and temptations, all 
 our joys and sorrows, are lessons from 
 the book of experience. Sometimes these 
 lessons are very hard ; but Jesus can 
 always tell us what every lesson means. 
 Another lesson-book is the Bible. The 
 Bible is full of the most wonderful and 
 precious lessons, and so all pupils in the 
 school of Christ must seek to know their 
 Bibles. You boys and girls should read 
 the Bible every day, you should store 
 
184 Christ our Master, 
 
 up its golden texts in your hearts, you 
 should think about their meaning, and 
 listen attentively when your teachers in 
 the Sabbath school are trying to make 
 that meaning plain. 
 
 2. Jesus is our Commander, 
 We must think now of this other mean- 
 ing of the word Master. When you boys 
 go away from school and get into busi- 
 ness, you have a different kind of master 
 from the schoolmaster. In a warehouse, 
 or an office, or a workshop, you have a 
 master who commands you, whose servant 
 you are, and whose orders you are bound 
 to obey. And Jesus is our Master in 
 this sense also ; for we are not only His 
 pupils, but His servants. 
 
 When a boy leaves school and goes 
 into business, he generally feels quite 
 proud of his promotion. He feels that 
 now at length he is going to be a man. 
 He takes a great pride in the business 
 with which he is connected, and when 
 
Christ our Master. 185 
 
 he refers to it, talks about "our firm," 
 and "our house," and "our shop." Some 
 of you, no doubt, are wearying to begin 
 business, and hoping to get into the 
 service of a good employer. Well, here 
 is a Master whose service you can enter 
 immediately. You don't need to wait 
 until your schooldays are done. There 
 are thousands of schoolboys and school- 
 girls who are engaged in Christ's service 
 already, and are trying every day, in 
 thought and word and deed, to do and 
 to be what will best please their Master. 
 Sometimes when a boy applies for a 
 situation, and goes to the office to see 
 the master, the master looks at him from 
 head to foot, and then says, " I'm afraid, 
 my boy, you are too young for this 
 place." But Jesus never says that to 
 anybody. " Suffer little children to come 
 unto Me," He says. " I want them all. 
 I have work in My kingdom for every 
 one of them to do." And so, if you are 
 
1 86 Christ our Master. 
 
 willing to be Christ's servants, you have 
 only got to apply for a place, and this 
 great Master will take you at once into 
 His employment, and show you how you 
 may glorify His name. 
 
SOME OPINIONS of the PRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 "GOLDEN NAILS" SERIES. 
 
 "The outstanding feature of the Addresses is their 
 simplicity and suitability for the minds and wants of the 
 little ones for whom they were printed. The language 
 is simple, the addresses are short, and the lessons taught 
 are illustrated by suitable stories, without which the 
 attention of the young cannot readily be sustained." — 
 Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 "Will delight those whose life is yet all before them ; 
 and more, will aid, pleasantly and quietly and surely, in 
 forming that groundwork of preparedness which goes so 
 far to make life worth living." — Liverpool Post. 
 
 " Conveying lessons of wisdom, kindness, and humi- 
 lity so attractively, that boys and girls, and their elders 
 too, will read with delight and profit, "—/"ray and Trust. 
 "Well planned, simple in language, pointed, and 
 filled with apt and telling illustrations."— iVbr//^ British 
 Daily Mail. 
 
 " Every volume has had a good reception, and every 
 new volume increases one's admiration for the enterprise. 
 We have always felt that if three things were made im- 
 perative—freshness, truth, and cheapness — there was a 
 great field for children's sermons, for we knew that there 
 were children and children's preachers who were hunger- 
 ing and thirsting after them as after righteousness itself. 
 The latest volume of the ' Golden Nails ' Series is as 
 happy as its happy title. It is worthy of its place."— 
 Expository Times. 
 
 "Written in a bright, easy, and popular style, and the 
 sound, practical advice that they give is appropriately 
 illustrated by a copious supply of anecdotes drawn from 
 history. Children should read them with interest." — 
 Scotsj)ian. 
 
 "Models of brevity, clearness, and attractiveness." — 
 Kilmarnock Standard. 
 
 "Characterised by simplicity of diction, suitable 
 illustration, and commendable brevity." — Hamilton 
 Advertiser, 
 
SOME OPINIONS of the PRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 "GOLDEN NAILS" SERIES. 
 
 ** Should prove a boon to Sabbath School teachers."— 
 Hawick Advertiser. 
 
 '* A worthy addition to a list of bright and interesting 
 addresses or sermonettes to children. The language is 
 simple, and the illustrations being drawn from everyday 
 life, bring the lessons easily within the grasp of quite 
 young children." — S.S. Chronicle. 
 
 " Simple, practical, and pointed, neither a * taking 
 down ' nor a * strain up.'" — Christian Leader. 
 
 *' The addresses are admirably suited to their audience. 
 The style is simple, the divisions are felicitous, and the 
 teachings are wholesome and practical." — Glasgow 
 Herald 
 
 " Containing twenty lovely addresses, in each of which 
 a father's heart tenderly yearns over the children to 
 whom he thus speaks. The stories, which form a pro- 
 minent feature in the most successful of such sermons, 
 are well chosen, and not by any means of an antiquated 
 type, and parent, preacher, and teacher may read with 
 pleasure and profit." — Methodist Recorder. 
 
 ** These addresses can be heartily commended, for they 
 art sure to exercise a healthy influence upon the minds 
 of juvenile readers. Not only are the thoughts and senti- 
 ments unexceptional, but they are clothed in graceful and 
 impressive language." — Dundee Courier. 
 
 " The sermons are such as children can understand 
 and value. The language is plain and direct, and not a 
 few incidents related are new in the connections in which 
 they are found. It is a wholesome book." — Youth. 
 
 " An admirable collection, which has done so much to 
 popularise sermons and addresses specially intended for 
 the young. The truths enforced are presented in a most 
 attractive manner." — Christian Commonwealth. 
 
Post ^vo^ neat cloth, is. 6d. 
 
 Golden Nails, 
 And other Addresses to Children, 
 
 By the Rev. GEORGE MILLIGAN, B.D. 
 
 Sixth Thousand. 
 
 "The outstanding feature of the addresses is llieir sim- 
 plicity and suitability for the minds and wants of the little 
 ones for whom they were printed. The language is simple, 
 the addresses are short, and the lessons taught are illus- 
 trated by suitable stories, without which the attention of the 
 young cannot readily be sustained." — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 "These are the work of a diligent man, who works as 
 conscientiously at his preaching to children as at his most 
 ambitious sermons. He plainly uses a commonplace book, 
 or has a memory which he can use for the same p>:rpose ; 
 and so on every possible subject he has store of anecdotes, 
 familiar and unfamiliar, which he tells with a fine sincerity 
 which could not fail to be impressive. The art of preaching 
 to children has not been fully studied yet, and some great 
 preachers have shown that incessant stories are not the only 
 way to the child's heart ; Dr Dods managed in his Glasgow 
 days to put a deal of solid thinking into his addresses, which 
 satisfied children just as much as their parents. But great 
 preachers are rare, and Mr Milligan has given a most 
 excellent collection of the commoner type of children's 
 sermon, which will be welcomed in many homes and used 
 by many hard-pressed preachers whose own stores of illus- 
 tration are exhausted. " — Christian Leader. 
 
 "Twenty attractive talks to the little ones." — Christian. 
 
 "A series of twenty excellent Sunday-School addresses. 
 These addresses are like good nails, straight and pointed, 
 full of illustrations, and such as children will delight to 
 h ear. ' ' — Sunday- Sch ool Ch ron icle. 
 
 " Ever)' sermon has a message that children can under- 
 stand, and the message is delivered in a way that children 
 love. The preacher has a good stock of illustrations, and 
 not by any means an ancient one. What Mr Milligan has 
 preached is sure to be preached again, and not in vain."— 
 Methodist Times. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIEJE 
 And all Books tiUrt. 
 
Post 8vo, Cloth Extra, Price is. 6d. 
 
 ^ * Silver Wings. " 
 
 And other Addresses to Children, 
 By the Rev. Andre^w G. Fleming. 
 
 " An admirable volume of addresses to children — simple, 
 practical, earnest, and above all abounding in appropriate 
 illustration . ' ' — New Age, 
 
 " Well planned, simple in language, pointed", and filled 
 with apt and telling illustrations. The book cannot fail to 
 be a great favourite with the young." — North British Daily 
 Mail. 
 
 ' ' Every volume has had a good reception, and every new 
 volume increases one's admiration for the enterprise. We 
 have always felt that if three things were made imperative — 
 freshness, truth, and cheapness — there was a great field for 
 children's sermons, fr :- we knew that there were children 
 and children's preachers who were hungering and thirsting 
 after them as after righteousness itself. The latest volume 
 of the ' Golden Nails Series ' is as happy as its happy title. 
 It is worthy of its place." — Expository Times. 
 
 " A delightful, readable book, and most suitable for young 
 folks." — British Messenger. 
 
 "Written in a bright, easy, and popular style, and the 
 sound, practical advice that they give is appropriately 
 illustrated by a copious supply of anecdotes drawn from 
 history. Children should read them with interest." — 
 Scotsman, 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER, 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
Post %vo, neat cloth, price is. 6*/. 
 
 K ingles s Folk, 
 
 And other Addresses on Bible Animals, 
 
 By JOHN ADAMS, B.D. 
 
 "The information conveyed concerning common things makes 
 the book instructive, the simplicity, yet beauty, of its style gives 
 it attractiveness, and the method employed in arranging the 
 parts of each proves the capacity of the writter for giving con- 
 structive proportion and plan to thought." — Educational News. 
 
 "The ' Kingless Folk' are ants, and the neat little volume 
 contains eighteen addresses to children on Bible animals. Bees 
 and bears, doves and coneys, eagles and oysters, lions and 
 cocks, are among the creatures selected for notice. The fresh, 
 bright style of the writer, the accuracy of his infornation, and 
 the usefulness of the religious and moral lessons he draws from 
 the birds and the other creatures he describes, will render his 
 book a treasure to young people in the nursery or schoolroom." 
 — The Record. 
 
 "The addresses are pithily written, the anecdotes are admir- 
 ably chosen, and the style is very fascinating. They are models 
 of conciseness, and combine practical information with healthy 
 religious sentiment." — Peoples Journal. 
 
 " Charming addresses to young people on Bible animals." — 
 Kilmarnock Herald. 
 
 "Just as pleasant as its predecessors, just as human and child- 
 like, just as outward and attractive, just as evangelical and 
 impressive, just as sure of complete success." — Expository Times. 
 
 "This is a delightful boy's book. It is bright all through, 
 but is occasionally made brighter yet by a bit of genuine humour. 
 Mr Adams takes his young friends out into the wide domain of 
 nature, and interprets to them the lesson taught by ant and bee 
 and bear, by the ass's colt and the calf of the stall." — Christian 
 Leader. 
 
 "A collection of simple addresses to children, founded on the 
 animals mentioned in Holy Writ. Teachers will find much 
 helpful matter within its pages." — Teachers Aid. 
 
 • ' Mr Adams writes simply and brightly in a way which children 
 are certain to appreciate." — S. S. ChronicU. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON : 
 
 OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER. 
 
 And all Booksellers. 
 
Post 8vo. cloth extra, price is. 6d. 
 
 Bible Stories without Names 
 
 By Rev. HARRY SMITH, M.A., Tibbermore. 
 
 "A delightful and original book for children." — Primi- 
 tive Methodist Magazine. 
 
 " The idea of the book is as ingenious as it is simple, 
 and it is sure to prove a source of widespread delight." — 
 Baptist Magazine. 
 
 "Mr Smith has hit upon a very happy thought, and 
 has worked out his idea with much skill." — The Christian 
 World. 
 
 **The book is excellently written, beautifully printed, 
 and artistically bound." — Evening Times. 
 
 "The idea of this book is novel and exceedingly well 
 worked out. The stories are well written in language 
 suited to children, and are thoroughly interesting." — 
 Church Family Newspaper. 
 
 " The value of this book can hardly be over-estimated. 
 Put into the hands of children for Sunday reading in the 
 home, with some older person to guide their study and 
 prevent discouragement in the hard places (especially if 
 kept simply for Sunday reading), it would make the Sab- 
 bath a day to be looked forward to, and would familiarise 
 those who used it with the location of the various Bible 
 stories. " — Ch7'istian Advocate. 
 
 "Altogether one of the best little texi-books for incul- 
 cating a knowledge of the Scripture which we have ever 
 seen." — Bookseller and Stationer. 
 
 "We like this new departure (as the author truly calls 
 it), and predict that it will be heartily welcomed and 
 widely used." — Record. 
 
 "The idea of the book is as ingenious as it is simple, 
 and it is sure to prove a source of widespread delight." — 
 Baptist Magazine. 
 
 "The stories (twenty in all) are well written in a 
 language suited to children, and are thoroughly interest- 
 ing." — Church Family Newspaper. 
 
 "The tales are told with quite remarkable pith and 
 power. " — Sabbath School Magazine. 
 
 Edinburgh and London : 
 
 OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER. 
 
 And all Booksellers. 
 
Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 
 
 1 1012 
 
 01231 2429 
 
 
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