OBJECTS: A Child and a Number of Prepared
Business Cards=
Call a little boy to the platform and ask: "What is a child worth?
Not long ago in the great city of Philadelphia a little girl was
fatally hurt by a trolley-car. The jury awarded a verdict of $5,000
for damages. Five thousand dollars was the legal value of a child.
Would you sell your little girl for that figure? Is that what your
child is worth? Are children for sale in this world of sin and
unbelief? This child is for sale, and the world, the flesh, and the
devil bid for him. Who bids first for this child?"
A man then walks up to the platform saying, "A business man makes the
first offer." Read the card and say: "Mr. A. Cigaret, representing
the Smoke and Brownleaf Co., bids for the child. He offers good
fellowship, the thrills of the happy smoker, and the name of a jolly
good fellow." This card you have prepared before the service, and
placed in the hands of one of your assistants who delivers it to you
at your call; after he presents the card he takes his seat. In reply
to this bid you say: "This bid is rejected. King Tobacco cannot have
this boy with the pure life and happy smile. The bid is rejected for
the following reasons.
"It is a deadly poison. 'In a cigaret there are five poisons: the oil
of nicotine, the oil in the paper, saltpetre to preserve the tobacco,
opium to make it mild, and the oil in the flavoring.'
"It leads to insanity. Dr. Forbes Winslow says, 'Cigaret smoking is
one of the chief causes of insanity.'
"It is a crime-maker. A New York City magistrate says: 'Yesterday I
had before me thirty-five boy prisoners; thirty-three were confirmed
cigaret smokers. Tobacco is the boy's easiest and most direct road to
whisky.'
"It is the highway to disease. 'Tobacco is the admitted cause of
upward of eighty diseases, including blindness, and cancers of the
lower lip and tongue, and is credited with killing twenty thousand in
our land every year.'
"It is an agent for death. Dr. J. J. Kellog says: 'I had all the
nicotine removed from a cigaret and made a solution of it. I injected
half of it into a frog, and the frog died almost instantly. The frog
was full grown and average size. A boy smoking twenty cigarets in a
day inhales enough poison to kill forty frogs.'
"A cigaret smoker is slain before he is dead. Slain to all the good
chances for success in life.
"E. H. Harriman, former head of the Union Pacific R. R. System, says,
'We might as well go to the lunatic asylum for our employees as to
hire cigaret smokers.'
"The cigaret is a deadly thing. You are seeking the young child's
life. Your bid is therefore rejected."
The next bid is brought to the platform by an assistant who hands you
the prepared business card marked: "Mr. Pool-room. I will give a
jolly evening for years to come in my game-room. There will be a
bunch of happy lads there, full of glee, happy all night long. I will
give him the thrill of making money easy. Will preserve him from hard
work. Will help him drive away dull care."
You reply: "This bid is rejected for the following reasons:
"The poolroom is the place of the gambler's table. It will teach him
to get dishonest money, tainted and yellow with sin. He will meet the
depraved, and they will be his companions. He will lose the purity of
heart God has given him. It will steal the roses from his cheek and
paint his face with the lines of dissipation. It will take him from
his father and mother, and some day toss him up against the door of
the old homestead a human wreck. You cannot have him, Mr. Pool-room.
He shall not walk in the sinners' way. I reject your offer."
Another prepared card is brought to the platform with the words: "His
Highness, Lord Ignorance. I bid for this lad, and for him I offer an
open mind. Let him do his own thinking, live as he pleases. I will
not let him go to school or trouble about knowledge. The less he
knows the happier he will be. I will just let him do as he pleases.
That will be his religion and education."
Then you reply, saying: "Your bid is also rejected. Your card has on
it the stain of the blackness of the Dark Ages. You would make merely
an animal of my boy, just feed him and turn him loose like a beast.
You would bring down on him all the misery of the Dark Ages. You
would cover him in a dense cloud of ignorance. You would starve his
mind and feed his body, and so make a monster of him. You would lead
him astray, and he would not know the deadly thing you were doing.
You would put out the eyes of his mind so they could not see God's
way. No, you cannot purchase the soul of this lad for such a price.
Back, Lord Ignorance, into the Dark Ages; that is where your castle
of sin is built. You are a black dragon of shadows and dwell in the
shades of blackness. Your bid is therefore rejected."
You then say, "Who will bid for the soul of this boy?" You can have
various cards prepared with the words, Mr. Profanity, Mr. Infidelity,
Mr. Highwayman, etc. After you have worked it out according to your
liking you say, "I am now open for the last bid." A card is sent up
with the words "The Church." The bid reads as follows:
"I, the Church of the Lord Jesus, will now bid for the soul of the
boy. I will put him into the ranks of the Sunday-school children. He
will be in the army of 'the millions.' He will be taught to sing
God's praises, and his lips to speak white words. He will be taught
the way of the heavenly life from the Bible, God's book of wonders.
He will be taught to stand upright in all life's tasks. God will lift
him to a high station of life and give him great success, and at last
God will take his soul to heaven through his faith in the Lord
Jesus."
You then say: "O Church Militant, I accept your terms of the sale.
The boy is yours for this world and for the next."
Before he leaves the platform you present him with a New Testament
which you tell him is life's great lantern to guide him to the end.
You give him a little cross which, you say, is to remind him of his
faith in the Son of God, and last, give him a church conquest flag to
remind him that the Christian life is a battle, and he must fight his
way onward, as he is a Christian soldier. Shake hands with him and
pointing forward say, "Onward, Christian soldier!" Let the organist
play this melody as he walks to his seat.
The address each bidder makes for the boy may also be all written out
and placed in a sealed envelope and presented to you with the card
announcing the bidder's name. You can then break open the contract
and read as noted in the body of this chapter.
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