Part 7 (2/2)

”First.” Boys, FIRST the Kingdom of G.o.d; make it so that it will be natural to you to think about that the very first thing.

There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made telegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself.) One day this boy was up on the top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing up a telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was getting late, and the men said they were going away home, and the boy was to nip off the ends of the wire himself. Before going down they told him to be sure to go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with his master's tools.

”Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do,” said the foreman.

The boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the wire. It was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering.

He lost his hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then over and over to the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across the ”green” on which he was just about to fall, caught him on the chest and broke his fall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay unconscious among some clothes upon the green.

An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and went for the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back to consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got back on his feet. What do you think he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when he got to the ground again fainted dead away.

Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some time. I am glad to say he got better.

What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty.

He was not thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master.

First, the Kingdom of G.o.d.

But there is another arithmetic word. What is it? ”Added.”

You know the difference between ADDITION and SUBTRACTION. Now, that is

A very important difference

in religion, because--and it is a very strange thing--very few people know the difference when they begin to talk about religion.

They often tell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of G.o.d, everything else is going to be SUBTRACTED from them. They tell them that they are going to become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything that makes a boy's life worth living--that they will have to stop baseball and story-books, and become little old men, and spend all their time in going to meetings and in singing hymns.

Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that.

Christ said we are to ”Seek first the Kingdom of G.o.d,” and

Everything else worth having

is to be ADDED unto us. If there is anything I would like you to remember, it is these two arithmetic words--”first” and ”added.”

I do not mean by ”added” that if you become religious you are all going to become RICH. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the shop tomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well, n.o.body has missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to burn a hole there. by breakfast time he wishes that money were in his master's pocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He says (to HIMSELF, and not to his master), ”I was at the Boys' Brigade yesterday and I was told to seek FIRST that which was right.” Then he says to his master:

”Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor.”

The master puts it in the till. What has the boy got in his pocket?

Nothing; BUT HE HAS GOT THE KINGDOM OF G.o.d IN HIS HEART. He has laid up treasure in heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than the quarter.

Now, that boy does not find a dollar on his way home. I have known that to happen, but that is not what is meant by ”adding.” It does not mean that G.o.d is going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays in better coin.

Yet I remember once hearing of a boy who was paid in both ways.

He was very, very poor. He lived in a foreign country, and his mother said to him one day that he must go into the great city and start in business, and she took his coat and cut it open and sewed between the lining and the coat forty golden dinars, which she had saved up for many years to start him in life. She told him to take care of robbers as he went across the desert; and as he was going out of the door she said:

”My boy, I have only two words for you--'Fear G.o.d, and never tell a lie.'”

The boy started off, and towards evening he saw glittering in the distance the minarets of the great city. But between the city and himself he saw a cloud of dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw that it was a band of robbers.

One of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, and said:

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