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,
nobody 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 GOD 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 God 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 God, 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:
"Boy, what have you got?"
The boy looked him in the face and said:
"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat."
The robber laughed and wheeled around his horse and went away back.
He would not believe the boy.
Presently another robber came and he said:
"Boy, what have you got?"
"Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat."
The robber said: "The boy is a fool," and wheeled his horse and
rode away back.
By and by the robber captain came and he said:
"Boy, what have you got?"
"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat."
The robber dismounted, and put his hand over the boy's breast,
felt something round, counted one, two, three, four, five, till he
counted out the forty golden coins. He looked the boy in the face
and said:
"Why did you tell me that?"