planet, or the moon, you would have considerable difficulty in directing
it so as to be able to see the desired object. Even with this small
spy-glass it is very difficult so to direct it as to find a particular
star in the heavens at night. It is not easy, even to find a distant
object upon the earth. But with these wonderful eyes, with which God has
endowed us, you and I can look almost instantly from one star to any
other star, and find instantly upon the earth any object which is
distinctly pointed out to us. It takes a very experienced person
successfully to operate a telescope, but the smallest child can direct
and control and use his own eyes successfully.
The large telescopes have to be turned and adjusted by machinery, and
when it is desired to direct them from one star to another star on the
opposite side of the heavens, they even have to turn around the entire
roof or dome of the observatory. But you and I do not need any ponderous
machinery to adjust our eyes, or to turn them about in order to look in
a different direction. We can easily turn our heads by bending our
necks, or, if necessary, we can turn our entire body around and look in
an opposite direction. In looking from one object to another, our eyes
change their direction so quickly that we are not conscious of any
effort upon our own part.
[Illustration: Small Telescope.]
If you were to look through a large telescope, or even one of these
smaller spy-glasses, you would immediately discover that when you desire
to look at objects at different distances, or in different degrees of
light and shade, you would have to constantly adjust the telescope or
spy-glass to these different conditions. If you would look at objects
which are near, and then turn the spy-glass to look at those which are
distant, you would not be able to see distinctly until you had adjusted
the lenses to suit the distance. With our eyes the same adjustment has
to be made, and yet it is done so quickly and without any conscious
effort upon our part, that it seems as if it were not done at all. When
we look at an object which is only a few inches from our face, and then
turn and look at a distant object, instantly our eyes are adjusted to
the difference of distance and varying degrees of light and shade.
But what makes this all still more wonderful is the fact that we have
two telescopes, two eyes instead of one. Both of these little
eye-telescopes instantly adjust themselves, and both adjust themselves
to precisely the same necessity. If they adjusted themselves differently
we would see two objects instead of one; the same as a drunken man who
has lost the use of his muscles and faculties, whose eyes do not work in
harmony, and therefore, instead of seeing only one object, he sees two
objects and sees them in a confused way.
Did you ever think how wonderful it is that when you close your right
eye, and look at something with your left eye, that you can see the
object distinctly? Now, if you close the left eye, and look at the
object with the right eye, you again see the same object distinctly.
When you open both eyes and look at the same object, instead of seeing
the object twice, or seeing two objects, you see only one object. That
is because the eyes work in such perfect harmony, and that is what the
Scripture means when it says that you and I should "see eye to eye" in
everything that is good.
Now there is another thing to which I desire to call your attention, and
that is the size of the eye. If you owned one of these very large
telescopes which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, you would be
regarded as a very wealthy person, but you could not carry that
telescope with you from one place to another. It would be of no service
to you in looking upon the beautiful scenes which surround you from day
to day. If you wanted to use the telescope you would have to stay where
the telescope was, instead of taking the telescope with you where you
desired to go. But God has made these little eye-telescopes so perfect,
and yet so compact and small, that wherever we go, on land or sea, we
can take them with us, and they can be in constant use and give us the
most perfect delight and satisfaction.
I am sure there is not a single boy or girl who would trade off one of
these perfect little telescopes--yes, I will call it a telescope and an
observatory also--for God has beautifully encased our eyes, and shielded
and housed them more beautifully and satisfactorily than the most
perfect observatory which was ever built for any man-made telescope. We
would not trade away one of our eyes for one of the finest telescopes in
the world, and we would not be willing to give both of our eyes for all
the telescopes which have ever been made.
But one of these large telescopes and observatories would cost a great
deal--even hundreds of thousands of dollars; yet God has _given_ you and
me these telescopes, our wonderful eyes. But because God has given them
to us they are none the less valuable on that account, and I think
therefore that I was correct when I addressed you to-day as little
millionaires.
Now, God has given you, not simply one eye, but He has given you two
eyes, two wonderful telescopes and observatories. He has given you two,
so that if by any accident one should be destroyed, you would still have
the other to depend upon. God has given you two eyes, and two hands, and
two feet; but He has given you only one soul, and if by sin you lose
that one soul, then you have lost everything, for the Scripture says,
"What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
In Palestine, the country in which Jesus lived when He was upon the
earth, the sun shines with wonderful brightness and clearness; the land
also is very light in color, and consequently the eyes are oppressed by
the glare, just the same as those of you who have ever been at the
seashore have experienced the glare while walking along the beach; or,
to some extent, like the bright sunlight shining upon the snow in
winter. This light color of the soil and brightness of the sun in
Palestine are the cause of blindness to many of the inhabitants. When
Jesus was upon the earth, one of His greatest acts of mercy to suffering
humanity was to open and heal the eyes of those who were either born
blind, or who had become blind afterward.
Now, in this country of ours, and in all countries of the earth, there
are hundreds and thousands and millions of people who are spiritually
blind. Jesus Christ is to-day passing by, just the same as when the
blind man sat by the roadside near Jericho, when Jesus was then passing
by. As that blind man called upon Jesus and said, "Thou Son of David,
have mercy upon me," so you and I should call upon God and upon His Son,
Jesus Christ, that He would have mercy upon us and open our spiritual
eyes. We should make the language of the Scriptures the petition of our
hearts, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of
Thy law." I pray that God may give each of you to see and to understand
spiritual things.
QUESTIONS.--Instead of money, in what does the
wealth of millionaires often consist? Is the human
eye worth more than money? Would you take a
million of dollars for your two eyes? Are your
eyes worth more than telescopes? Which is the more
perfect, a telescope or the human eye? Are
telescopes adjusted like the eye? Which can be
adjusted more quickly? Where are telescopes kept?
Are your eyes kept in a little observatory? Why
has God given us two eyes instead of one? How many
souls has He given us? If the soul is lost, what
is the result? What causes so much blindness in
the country in which Jesus lived? Did Jesus open
the eyes of the blind and restore the sight of
people in Palestine? Are many people spiritually
blind? Does Jesus wish to give them spiritual
sight or vision?
[Illustration]
THE EYE
THE SMALLEST CAMERA, THE MOST VALUABLE PICTURES.
SUGGESTION:--The object used is a small camera of
any kind.
I AM going to address you again to-day as LITTLE MILLIONAIRES. Last week
I showed you how your eyes were more valuable than the most costly
telescopes, and to-day I want to show you how, in another way, you are
little millionaires.
Very wealthy people sometimes travel in different countries, and gather
very rare and beautiful paintings and pictures, oftentimes paying a
thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, and sometimes very much more for
a single painting. Then they bring these paintings all together in their
own homes and hang them on the walls, and as the result of the
expenditure of many thousands, and sometimes of hundreds of thousands of
dollars, they have a very beautiful and rare collection. But God has
made you and me the possessors of a vast number of pictures, more
beautiful, of greater variety, and infinitely more valuable, than all
the paintings that were ever hung upon the walls of any art gallery in
the world.
[Illustration: Camera.]
To illustrate my thought, I have to-day brought a camera. Sometimes such
a camera as this is called a Kodak or Snap-shot. As the finest
telescopes have been modeled after the human eye, so the camera is only
a very imperfect imitation of the human eye. As the spy-glass and
telescope have lenses, so does this camera have a lens, which you see
here in the front. Just back of this lens is the dark chamber in the
camera, and back of it is a ground glass, as you will see here. Now
whatever is directly in front of the camera is shown on the ground
glass, as you will observe, but in an inverted or up-side-down position.
So the eye has its various parts, and as the rays of light pass through
this lens and reflect the picture on this ground glass, so rays of light
coming from any object pass first through the small opening of the eye,
to the retina, where the picture is inverted just the same as upon the
ground glass. When this picture is thrown upon the rear wall of the eye,
which is called the retina, the seeing nerve, which is called the optic
nerve and is connected with the eye, conveys the impression to the
brain, and the result is what we call seeing.
[Illustration: The Human Eye.]
What I have told you is correct, and can easily be proven by a simple
experiment with the eye of some animal. If you take the eye of a dead
rabbit, and cleanse the back portion of it from the fat and muscles and
then hold a candle in front of it, you can see the image of the candle
formed upon the retina. If you take the eye of an ox and carefully pare
off from the back portion, so as to leave it very thin, and place the
eye in front of (or against) a small hole made in a box; then cover your
head to shut out the light you will see through the box the picture of
any object which is directly in front of this eye of the ox. In both
instances they will be in the inverted form. This experiment would fully
demonstrate to you that the camera is only an imitation, and a very poor
one too, of the human eye.
Now when pictures are taken by means of the camera, the negative can not
be exposed to the light, but must be taken into a dark room, and be
carefully developed by the use of necessary chemicals or liquids. Then
specially prepared paper must be used for printing the photographs. This
paper must also be kept in the dark until it has been thoroughly washed
and cleansed. But, with the pictures which are taken upon the retina of
the eye, no such delay and labor is necessary before you can look at
them. The moment the eye is turned in any direction, instantly the
picture is photographed upon the retina of the eye, and then stamped
indelibly upon the memory and becomes a part of ourselves.
There is no cost for chemicals, no delay in adjusting the instrument
with which the picture is taken, no necessity for carrying around a
large camera.
The camera has many disadvantages which are not found in the human eye.
The camera must be adjusted to objects near or far, and different
cameras have to be used for pictures of different sizes and for
different classes of pictures. These cameras are costly to purchase, a
great deal of time is consumed in securing a few pictures, they are
always attended with expense; and when pictures are to be removed from
one place to another, the owner is subjected to much trouble and
annoyance. Then, the camera also does not give us the colors of the
different objects which are before it. That is the reason why, in the
beginning, I spoke of these millionaires purchasing such costly
paintings, because in the paintings different colors are represented.
Now, in the hundreds of pictures which are constantly being taken by
your eyes, there are no delays, no expenses, no inconvenience when the
pictures have once been taken. Different shades and colors are all
clearly represented. And even though you were to stand on a high
mountain, where you could look off over one or two hundred square miles
of beautiful landscape, all that beautiful scenery would be pictured on
the retina of your eye; and the picture, complete and perfect, would not
be larger than one-half inch square. What would real wealthy people be
willing to give for a perfect picture only one-half inch square, in
which the artist had clearly defined every field and tree, the rivers,
houses, roads, railways and all the beautiful landscape contained in a
vast area of many square miles?
Our eyes are wonderful cameras, which God has given us so that we can be
constantly taking these beautiful pictures as we pass through life, and
look at them not only for the instant, but that we may treasure the
pictures up in our memories and make them the rich treasures and joyous
heritage of coming years.
The older we grow, the more we appreciate these memory pictures of the
past--memories of our childhood days, beautiful landscapes, foreign
travel, lovely sunsets, the glorious sunrise, green fields and orchards
of golden fruit. As you grow old, I suppose the richest treasures in
your picture gallery of the past will be the memories of your childhood
home, of mother and father, brother and sister. Possibly when you have
grown old, you will remember how one day your heart was almost broken,
when for the first time you were leaving home; how mother's eyes filled
with tears when she kissed you good-bye, and, following you to the gate,
how she stood and waved her handkerchief, while home faded from your
view as you rounded the turn in the road and realized for the first time
that you were launching out into real life for long years of struggle.
Just as the hearts of the parents go out in great tenderness toward
their son, who is leaving the Christian influences of his home to begin
service in a distant city, surrounded by evil influences, and oftentimes
by wicked people; so the heart of our Heavenly Father goes out in great
tenderness towards you and me, while we are separated from the great
eternal mansion of the skies. God's heart yearns over us in great
tenderness, and while we live in the midst of the evil of this world we
are constantly to remember that God has made us millionaires; not only
in the possession of the eyes, and other faculties with which He has
endowed us for use here upon the earth, but we are to remember that we
are children of the King of Heaven, and that we are heirs of everlasting
life and of everlasting glory. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with
Jesus Christ, to an inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled and
that "fadeth not away." We are not simply millionaires, but we are heirs
of everlasting glory.
QUESTIONS.--What instrument for taking pictures is
like the human eye? Which can take pictures
quicker, the eye or the camera? What is lacking in
pictures taken by the camera? Do our eyes show the
colors of the objects? Of what is the camera an
imitation? Is it expensive to take many pictures
with the camera? Why do people pay large sums for
oil paintings? Was there ever a picture painted by
an artist or photographed with a camera so
beautiful as the small pictures taken by the eye?
For size, color, variety and convenience, which
are the finest pictures in the world? Which
pictures are most treasured in old age?
FROGS.
THE PLAGUES IN EGYPT.
SUGGESTION:--Objects: Some paper frogs, which can
be purchased at any Japanese store for about five
cents each. They are often found also in toy
stores.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS: I am sure you will all be able to tell me what
this object is which I hold in my hand (voices: "Frogs, bullfrogs").
Well, it looks exactly like a bullfrog, and was made to imitate a
bullfrog. The bullfrogs I have here are made of paper, and were made in
Japan. I bought them that I might show them to you and preach you an
object sermon on the subject of the "Ten Plagues in Egypt."
[Illustration]
You all remember how Joseph was sold by his brethren into bondage in
Egypt, how he was cast into prison and afterward taken out and made
prime minister over all that land; how during the seven years of plenty
he laid up corn for the seven years of famine which followed, and
afterward his father and his brethren--in all the seventy persons who
constituted Jacob's family--came down into Egypt to be fed. After two
hundred and fifty years this family had increased until it numbered
nearly two millions of people. Pharaoh had made slaves of them, and
compelled them to work in the brickyards of Egypt. The task-masters were
very cruel. They beat them with whips, and demanded excessive labor from
them. These people were the chosen people of God, and their voice was
lifted to God their Father for deliverance from all the wrongs which
they suffered. God heard their prayer, and raised up Moses to deliver
them out of Egyptian bondage.
When Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh to request him to let the Children
of Israel go from Egypt to the land of Canaan, which God had promised to
Abraham and to his seed after him, Pharaoh would not consent to let them
go. He was a proud, wicked king, and God sent ten great plagues upon him
and his country, to humble him and cause him to do as God desired that
he should do.
In the first plague the rivers were turned into blood. This plague
lasted seven days, and at the end of that time Moses stretched forth his
rod, and all the rivers and ponds and lakes of water brought forth great
frogs throughout all the land. They came, not by hundreds, but by
thousands and millions, until the frogs covered all that land. They were
in the houses of all the people. The king's servants were busy sweeping
and carrying them out of the palace, and yet they stole into the rooms,
and at night when the king would go to lie down he would find these
frogs in his bed-chamber and upon his bed. When his bakers went to make
bread for the king, they would find them in the bread-troughs in which
they kneaded or mixed the bread, and in the ovens where they baked the
bread. The frogs were everywhere in the palace and in the huts of the
common people; upon the streets and in the roads; wherever the people
walked they stepped upon them, and the king's carriage could not be
driven through the streets without crushing thousands of them. The
plague was so great that Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and entreated
them to call upon their God that He would remove the frogs; and when God
heard the prayer of Moses and Aaron He caused the frogs to die. The
people gathered them up in great heaps and these dead and putrefying
frogs in the streets and the water of the river caused the air to be
loaded with a great stench that filled the nostrils of all the people.
After this plague of frogs came the plague of lice, when all the dust of
the country was turned into lice, and after that the plague of the
flies; and so on through to the last plague, which was the slaying of
the first-born, of which I will tell you in another sermon.
I wish you would at your earliest opportunity turn to the second book in
the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus, and in the early chapters read
about these various plagues of Egypt. When you read the account of the
various plagues, you will see how after each affliction Pharaoh's heart
seemed to relent. He would consent for a time that the Children of
Israel might be liberated from their bondage, and depart from Egypt and
start on their journey to the land of Canaan. When he was in affliction
he would make good promises, but as soon as God had removed the plague,
and the sorrow of his people seemed to be ended for a time he again
hardened his heart against God, and refused to do what he had promised.
Again and again the king refused to do that which he had agreed, and
caused the unhappy Children of Israel to continue in their bondage.
We may think that we are not wicked like Pharaoh was. We may not be
wicked in the same degree, but we are wicked after the same nature and
kind; and so God brings upon us various providences, some of which are
not very pleasant. God is seeking to educate us by the trials and
sorrows and disappointments and afflictions which He permits to come
upon us, so that we will be more obedient, and more faithful, and more
Christlike. But I suppose you have seen people who were just like
Pharaoh. When they were sick they would promise to become Christians,
and live good and right lives, and join the Church and be faithful
followers of Christ all the rest of their lives. And yet when God would
raise them up from their beds of sickness they would forget all their
promises, and generally, as it always was in the case of Pharaoh, their
hearts became harder and harder. Instead of being better after God had
raised them up and made them strong and well, or removed some trial or
affliction, they became worse than before.
Have you not found something of this also in your own experience? When
you have desired something which you have asked your father or mother to
secure for you, you have promised that you would run all the errands
they asked, or that you would go to school and study your lessons very
faithfully, or that you would go to bed cheerfully at night without
complaining, or you have made your parents some other promises; and yet,
after you have received the object you asked for, you have failed to
keep your promise.
[Illustration: Moses Leading the Children of Israel Through the Red
Sea.]
Or, to go a step further, has it not been so with what you have promised
God that you would do? You may have entered into covenant with Him, made
certain promises, and then afterward forgot to fulfill those promises.
Let us always remember when we make promises to God, or to our
parents, that we are not to be like Pharaoh. After God has answered our
prayers we should not forget to be obedient to Him and to keep our
promises.
Pharaoh was a great covenant-breaker, but when at last he gave the
Children of Israel permission to leave Egypt, and then broke his promise
and followed them with his army that he might destroy them, God opened
up the waters of the Red Sea and the Children of Israel fled from before
Pharaoh. When this wicked king and covenant-breaker saw them, he pursued
after them with his horses, his chariots and his army; and when they
were all in the midst of the sea, God took away His restraining power
from the water which stood piled up on both sides of the way along which
the Children of Israel had marched safely, and the water came down in
great torrents and buried this wicked king and all his horses and his
chariots and his men. So God destroyed this great covenant-breaking
king, because after all of the judgments and wonderful miracles which He
had wrought before Pharaoh, in order to teach him that Jehovah was God,
Pharaoh's repentances were all mere shams.
This was a great object sermon which God did before the eyes of all
these thousands of the Children of Israel, and it should teach you and
me that we are to be honest in all our covenants with God, and be
obedient to the will of God in all that we do and say.
QUESTIONS.--Upon what king of Egypt did God send
the plague of frogs? How many plagues were there?
What effect did each plague have upon Pharaoh? Was
he honest when he repented? What did he do each
time after the plague was removed? What was the
last plague? After the death of the first-born,
did he allow the Children of Israel to go? After
they started, what did he do? How did God enable
the Children of Israel to cross the Red Sea? When
Pharaoh followed into the sea after them, what
occurred? Should we always keep our covenants,
both with God and men? If we do not keep our
covenants, whom are we like? Will we also be
punished?
BLOOD.
THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER.
SUGGESTION:--The object used is a bottle of red
ink to represent blood.
CHILDREN OF THE COVENANT-KEEPING KING: Last Sunday I talked to you about
Pharaoh, as the great covenant-breaking king. I showed you some paper
frogs, and told you how after all of God's long-suffering with Pharaoh,
He eventually destroyed him and his army in the midst of the Red Sea.