Part 22 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 114]

”'No,' replied the buyer, 'I can't use that tree. It is no good for our purpose.'

”'No good!' exclaimed the owner, 'why that tree looks to me to be a good deal better than some that you selected.'

”But the buyer was an expert and knew what he was talking about. To show the owner what was the trouble with it, he cut the tree down, and this is what they found: [Remove the paper from the drawing board; turn it one-fourth around, and reattach to the board; add lines to complete Fig. 115.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 115]

”What was the matter with the tree? Yes, it was hollow. The owner was a much-surprised man. The expert, by tapping the tree with the blunt side of his ax, could tell that the tree was not solid. We might call it a deceitful tree because it seemed to be better than it really was.

”Sometimes we hear of deceitful men and women--deceitful boys and girls. None of us wants to be called deceitful, for the world has no more use for a deceitful person than this man had for a hollow tree. Some may think that they may deceive their friends and everyone else around them, but they get found out sooner or later, and, worst of all, their lives are an open book to the Lord, who sees and knows their every thought. The hollow tree in the forest is certain to come cras.h.i.+ng to the earth when a severe storm breaks. The deceitful man or woman suffers a like fate when something happens to reveal their hollow lives to the world.

”On this Decision day, let us resolve anew to make our lives of solid worth through and through. We can do it only by coming close to the Master and learning from Him how to live.

”The trouble with the tree in the forest was that it was not sound.

It lacked _inside strength_. Even a slight tap of the ax proved that it was a sort of 'hollow mockery.' It was a good-looking tree on the outside, but its heart was not right. And isn't that exactly the case with a lot of good-looking, well-dressed people? Why, even a boy or a girl can be all wrong at the heart, though their faces and hands and clothes are clean and beautiful.

”Have you ever stopped to think what good eyes G.o.d has? He never needs a telescope or a microscope, for 'the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.' G.o.d never beholds evil where there is none, but no boy or girl, man or woman, can hide it so well in their hearts but that G.o.d sees it and knows it.

”Let us, therefore, on this Decision day, resolve never to let deceit come into our hearts, to make our lives hollow, but to be sound in character through and through.”

TWO MEN --Ideals --Error

Know Your Man Before You Trust and Follow Him--Our Ideals.

THE LESSON--That we cannot safely choose an example of true living from among those about us, without knowing their real character.

The accompanying ill.u.s.tration is offered for occasions in which children--especially boys--above the primary age are interested.

~~The Talk.~~

”There are a good many boys and girls who make a great mistake in trying to imitate older people; and there are a good many older people who make a great mistake when they try blindly to make a success of things just because other people have been successful in doing them. It is a splendid thing to want to have in our lives the same great governing principles which rule the lives of people who stand before us as splendid models of character; but it is not always a good thing to try to do the very same things that these people do. Why?

Because it is likely that we are not cut out to do their kind of work.

The Lord may have intended that we should follow an entirely different line of effort. Let us, therefore, cultivate in our own lives the great and true principles which we find in other people, but let us also try to find out what the Lord wants us to do, and then let us learn to do it just the very best we can.”

”'Blessed is he,' says Thomas Carlyle, 'who has found his work; let him ask no other blessing.' The surest way to find what our life work is to be is to '_do the common things uncommonly well_.' If we do this, our life-work will be pointed out to us clearly and plainly.

Therefore, in selecting our ideals in life, let us be careful how we choose.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 116]

”A boy, whom we will call John, worked in a certain downtown office. Two men used to pa.s.s the window of his place of employment very frequently. These two men were never together--in fact, they were not even acquainted with each other. Here is one of the men who pa.s.sed John's window. [Draw Fig. 116, complete.] He was evidently a laboring man, as John judged from his clothing, which showed the effects of hard work of a rather rough character. He carried a dinner bucket. John merely noticed that this man pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed his window every day, but gave him very little thought. But there was another man who did attract John's attention. Here he is: [Draw the second man, completing Fig. 117.] This second man was always well dressed, and he appeared to be a prominent business or professional man. Everything in his appearance and manner attracted the admiration of the boy. Without knowing it, John was selecting an ideal--he was studying the people whom he saw and hoping to be unlike this one and to be like that one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 117]

”'Some day,' he said to himself, as the prosperous, well-dressed man walked by, 'when I grow up, I hope I shall be just like him.' He had chosen his ideal. The man was one of the leading merchants of the city, and when John found this to be so, he was still more firmly determined to pattern his life after the man whom he admired.