Fifty-Two Story Talks to Boys and Girls Part 8

I wish every boy, when he is tempted to do some unmanly thing, would remember his kings.h.i.+p, too. You are not the son of an earthly king, but you are each the son of a Heavenly King, and you, too, have the making of a king in you. You are too great to do mean things. There is an old hymn which runs like this:

"My Father is rich in houses and lands, He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands; Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold He has gone to prepare us a mansion untold.

I'm the child of a King, the child of a King, With Jesus my Saviour, I'm the child of a King."

And when you would do a mean thing, ask yourself if that is worthy of your kings.h.i.+p. Remember also that only those who live Kingly lives are worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

BREAD AND WINE

This is Communion Sunday, when the Church celebrates what is known as "the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." You remember that on the night before Christ was crucified He gathered His twelve disciples together that He might have a quiet meal and talk with them. And it is that Last Supper, as it is known, which we call to mind when we observe Communion Sunday.

The first Christians did not have communion on Sunday. They used to have a common meal together on weekdays, and at a neighbour's house. At these meals they would recall the sayings of Jesus and His loving deeds.

But Christ not only had the Last Supper with His disciples, and taught them to remember Him in the breaking of the bread: He also gave them the lesson about the bread and the wine by which to remember Him.

You know how bread is made. Grains of wheat are put in the ground by the farmer, and these grains give up their lives in order that other grains may grow on the stalk at harvest-time. Then these grains are gathered in, and finally ground into flour. Christ also gave up His life just as those first grains of wheat in the ground. And He meant to tell us by the bread at communion that if we are to help other people we must be willing to give up our own selfish desires for their sake.

By the wine at communion Christ meant to teach us that just as the branch of a grapevine must be attached to the stalk before there can be grapes, so you and I must keep close to Christ in order to be able to live the life of unselfishness which shows that we are His followers. He says: "I am the vine, ye are the branches. Without me ye can do nothing."

After Christ's death, whenever the disciples took their meal together, they would think of Christ, and they would forgive one another and become more gentle and loving. Whenever we see the communion-table prepared, we also must think of Christ, forgive those who have wronged us, and try still harder to be unselfish and kind.

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS CAROL

In England on Christmas eve boys and girls and men and women go about the streets singing Christmas carols, or songs, at the doors of people's houses, and the people for whom they sing give them tokens of their good-will. The first verse of one of the oldest and best Christmas carols is as follows:

"G.o.d rest you merry, gentlemen; Let nothing you dismay, For Christ was born of Mary Upon a Christmas Day."

That is a very beautiful carol, but there is one still more beautiful.

It is the one the angels sang the night that Christ was born:

"Glory to G.o.d in the highest, Peace on earth to men of good-will."

This means that people who have good-will in their hearts toward other people will have peace on earth. And how very true that is! People generally act toward us the same way in which we act toward them. If we are cross, others are cross; but if we are warmhearted and loving, then people are warmhearted toward us. It is just like seeing your face in a looking-gla.s.s. If you frown, the face in the mirror will frown. If your face is smiling, the one in the mirror will be smiling. That is another way of saying that you get what you give.

Christ came into the world to teach us how to have good-will to men, and from our good-will to get happiness. Any boy or girl who faithfully tries to be like Christ, and to do as he believes Jesus would do if He were in his place, will grow to have this good-will in his heart. Then some day he will sing as the angels did, "Glory to G.o.d in the highest,"

for he will know G.o.d's peace. Christ said, "Blessed are the peace-makers."

Here is a verse for you to take as a motto:

"Where are you going? Never mind.

Just follow the road that says, 'Be kind,'

And do the duty that nearest you lies, For that is the road to Paradise."

A HINT FROM A CARIBOU

This is an animal-story. It is about a caribou. A caribou is a kind of reindeer, and lives in Canada.

One day a man was out in a stumpy pasture-field beside a woods in Canada, and he saw a mother caribou and her little calf feeding quietly down in a valley nearby.

He was on a little hill some distance away, but the wind was blowing in the direction of the caribou. Presently the mother caribou raised her head, sniffed the air, and looked in the direction where the man was hidden behind a stump. She had caught the scent of a human being. That meant danger to her calf. Soon the mother caribou, leaving her calf in the valley, started in the direction of the man. He slipped from his hiding-place to another stump. On came the caribou till she reached the very stump behind which the man had first hidden. There she smelled the ground, and then a strange thing happened. She called her calf to her, had it smell the ground, too, so as to get the scent of the man. When that was done, she got behind that little caribou and b.u.t.ted it down the valley as fast as it could go. Why did she do that? It was to teach her calf that whenever it got that scent on the air, there was danger, and it must get away as quickly as possible.

Ever after that, even before the calf knew that this scent belonged to a man, or had seen a man, it would run away from it.

Your parents are constantly doing for you what that mother caribou did for her little one. When they tell you that such and such a thing is wrong, and you must not do it; when again they tell you there is danger in going to a certain place, or in chumming with a particular boy or girl, they are again doing the same thing for you. And when they punish you, as that mother caribou did her calf, it is because they know the danger far better than you, and they know that your safety depends upon keeping away from such things.

Then, bye and bye, perhaps, as you grow older, you will begin to see for yourself what the danger meant, just as the little caribou might some day see a hunter for itself. And then you will no longer think your parents cruel or strict; you will be thankful that they were so wise and kind.

THE REPENTANCE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON

When you begin to study English literature you will hear a great deal about Samuel Johnson, who wrote one of the first English dictionaries, and was a great scholar. Johnson's father was a bookseller, who used to have a little shop in the market-place, where he sold books on market-days. One day, when Johnson was a boy, his father took sick and asked Samuel to go to the market-place and sell books for him. Johnson was ashamed of such work, and refused to go.

But many years afterward, when he had become an old man and was back on a visit to his native village, he was missed from breakfast one morning by the friends with whom he was staying. On his return at supper-time he told his friends how he had spent the day. It was fifty years ago that day when he had refused to help his father. He says: "To do away with the sin of this disobedience, I this day went in a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of standers-by and the inclemency of the weather; a penance by which I trust I have propitiated Heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy to my father."

That is a story worth remembering when you are ashamed of doing something which your parents have asked you to do, perhaps to carry a parcel on the street or to mow the lawn. You will see sometime, I hope, that all honest work, if it is well done, is a thing to be proud of, instead of to be ashamed of. But it may be too late then. Your parents may have died, and you, like Johnson, will come back with deep sorrow to think how you had disobeyed and forsaken them when they needed you. The way to save yourselves such heartache is to be obedient to your parents as long as they live.

EASTER

Once upon a time a Persian king was marching westward with a great army to fight against Greece. In the evening, after the army had encamped for the night, someone found the king looking over the host of people spread out before him, and he was in tears. When he was asked the cause of his sadness, he replied that he had been thinking that one hundred years from that time not one of all these men in his army would be alive.

That was long before Christ lived, and had risen from the dead on Easter morning. These people had no Easter. They did not believe in the sort of everlasting life in which we believe. And even long after the resurrection of Christ there were many people in Greece and Rome who had not heard the wonderful news. Here is a letter that someone wrote over a hundred years after that first Easter to a mother whose son had just died:

"I was much grieved, and shed as many tears over your son as I did over my own, and I did everything that was fitting, as so did my whole family.... But still there is nothing one can do in the face of such trouble. So I leave you to comfort yourselves. Good-bye."

If these people had known about our Easter they would not have felt so hopeless and sad. For since Christ has risen from the dead, we know that all who love Him and try to be like Him shall also rise from the dead, and be with Him in a life beyond the grave.

He said to His disciples before He was crucified: "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." When we know this, then to die is not so terrible as it was to the Persians and Greeks. It is like going to sleep in our home, and waking up in a place much more beautiful than we had ever dreamed of, and being with Christ, the Friend of little children, forever. But we must know Christ in this life if we are to enjoy His friends.h.i.+p in the next.