articlesforchristians

The Children’s Six Minutes: Marbles in the Pocket

MARBLES IN THE POCKET

Do you know what a Missionary Box is? Well, I will tell you. It is a box or barrel sent from a missionary society in a city or town to a missionary family or school on the frontier. The box contains clothing, bedding, and sometimes toys, dolls and picture books if there are children at the frontier end of the journey.

In a certain city one Christmas season the children of the Sunday School brought gifts to fill a box. Some brought clothes they had outgrown. Some who had two coats decided they could give one. Others brought books. One little girl brought a beautiful doll. She had other dolls, and this one she dearly loved, but she said, “I want some other little girl to be happy, and I think I can get along without this doll, though I shall miss her dreadfully.”

One day the committee came together to sort the gifts and pack the box. One woman picked up a boy’s coat. She felt something, hard in one of the pockets. Another woman said, “Better look all through those pockets; you can never tell what a boy will use his pockets for.” So, she went all through the pockets. In one of them she found a soiled handkerchief tied in a knot. With much pulling, for it was a hard knot, she loosed the little package, and there she found five marbles. With the marbles was a note scrawled in a boy’s hand—

Now what do you think of that? Isn’t it glorious? To give more to the other fellow than you keep for yourself, especially when that other fellow is some one you have never seen, is Christlike.

The Children’s Six Minutes: The First Month

THE FIRST MONTH

What month is this? December. It is the first month in the year. “No, no,” you say, “December is the last month.” I cannot entirely agree with you. December is last on the calendar but first in importance. Now you agree with me, do you not?

How many days has December? One day. “No, no,” I again hear you say, “December has thirty-one days.” I think we can reach an agreement on this point too. There is one day in December of unexcelled importance and loveliness; that day is the twenty-fifth. Yes, we all say there is but one day in December. How readily we agree when we understand one another!

What is the twenty-fifth? It is the pivotal day in the history of the world. It is the day upon which the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords was born. Jesus, son of man and son of God, came into the world as we all come, as a tiny babe. It brings him much nearer to us, does it not, to think that our Saviour was once as we are? He grew up as a child, a boy, a youth, a man. It is the birthday of Christ the Saviour we celebrate on the twenty-fifth of each December.

To whom did Jesus come? He came to a lowly people. He was revealed first of all to the shepherds. The shepherd’s task was not an enviable one. He was out in the open, subject to storms and winds and wild beasts. His business was to shepherd the sheep, to lead them to good pasture, to protect them from all harm and danger. The shepherd’s task was lonely as well as lowly. His days and nights were passed in solitude. Occasionally a group of shepherds would come together, but for the most part they were alone with their flocks. God chose these people, whose minds were clear, whose lives were pure, to be the first messengers of the glad tidings of great joy.

The Children’s Six Minutes: One by One

ONE BY ONE

Here is this great church building. It is a beautiful structure, is it not? It is so substantial, it has stood here so many years, we take it so for granted that it seems as though it had always been here. But there was a day when the ground upon which this building stands was vacant ground. Then men came with picks and shovels, wagons and plows, and set to work. They laid the foundations, stone upon stone. Then the walls rose, stone upon stone. Then the spire, stone upon stone, until the very peak was reached, for our church is stone from the foundation to the top of the spire. How were these thousands of stones put in place? One by one.

Think also of the roof of our church. It is a tile roof. How in the world did they get all those tiles up on the roof and fitted in place? Did some man who was very strong stand back and throw a handful of tile at the roof? No, it was done one by one.

To-day it is snowing outside. Someone has figured that in a square mile one foot of snow would weigh 65,000 tons. If you should take sleds and horses, and put a ton of snow on each sled, and arrange the horses and sleds in a procession, the sleds carrying the snow from that square mile of territory would reach from Philadelphia to New York, and beyond New York, straight up the Hudson, almost to Albany. That is only one square mile, and there are thousands of square miles every winter covered with snow. How does this snow come? In tiny flakes, one by one.

It is the same with life. God gives us many days, but he sends them one at a time. He also sends us many duties, but they do not come en masse. He is good and sends them one by one.

The Children’s Six Minutes: Thanksgiving

THANKSGIVING

What does Thanksgiving mean to you? I hear one boy say, “It means a big dinner.” I think we all agree with him. Who does not welcome and enjoy a good dinner! I hear Mary say, “Thanksgiving means a day off from school.” I guess you are right too. School is not such a charming place that girls and boys are unwilling to have an occasional holiday.

Now I am going to ask some of the older people what the day means to them. There is a young woman. She is a stenographer. She says, “Thanksgiving means a day away from the office. I am at the office every day except Sunday, and I do appreciate, now and then, a day that is really my own.” Yonder is a traveling salesman. What does Thanksgiving mean to you? He says, “It means a day at home. Last year I spent one hundred and sixty-nine nights away from home. I have three children. I should like to see them every day. There are times when many days pass and I do not see them. Thanksgiving week I plan to be at home.”

There are others I could ask. Each has his answer. But Thanksgiving has a special meaning for us. It is the Harvest time. I have here an apple. Isn’t this a beautiful apple? What color! Who mixed the paints, who handled the brush to give such color to this apple? God. He, in his infinite love and wisdom, has provided, through the unfailing laws of nature, for the growth, sweetness, coloring and beautifying of all the products of the fields. This apple is but one of many kinds of fruits.

Praise, then, is the great meaning of Thanksgiving. God, our heavenly Father, sends us every good gift. From his bountiful hand come our daily and nightly mercies. We should praise him every day. But the day for the united chorus of praise is Thanksgiving.

The Children’s Six Minutes: If I Were a Boy Again

IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN

The Children’s Six Minutes: What Did You See?

WHAT DID YOU SEE?

A few days ago I made a trip on the train. When I returned home one of the first questions my little boy asked me was, “What did you see?” I shall tell you what I told him.

Looking out of the car window I saw an immense field, acres and acres, and in that field were planted hundreds, yes thousands, of little trees. I inquired of the man who sat next me, “What are those little trees for?” He said, “They are growing those little trees to reforest the desolate, burned over regions of the Adirondacks.” I said to myself, “That is just what we are doing in my church. We are growing girls and boys to reforest the needy places of the earth.” I inquired, “How long do they keep those little trees there?” “Not very long,” said he, “just long enough to give them a good start. Then they transplant them.” Again I said to myself, “That is exactly what we do. We keep the girls and boys only a little while, then they are transplanted.”

I had another question. “When they transplant these little trees how do they plant them, haphazard, every-which-way?” “No, indeed,” was his answer, “they are planted in rows, and close together.” Exactly what we are doing in our church, I thought. We are growing our girls and boys, and we are keeping them close together, because they are such a help to one another, and there is great inspiration in numbers.

Looking out of the train window at those trees of future forests, I thought of the verse in Isaiah, “The mountains and the trees shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” I can hear the mountains and the hills of the Adirondacks singing because of the growing trees, and I hear the mountains and the hills of earth singing because of the millions of growing girls and boys who shall reforest the desolate places of earth.

The Children’s Six Minutes: The Human Kodak

THE HUMAN KODAK

I wonder how many of you have a kodak. Yes, many of you own one. What a wonderful little machine a kodak is! First we buy a film, then we open the kodak and place the film. Now pull the paper over to the empty roll and fasten, close the kodak and begin to wind. Oh, here you are, No. 1. The day is clear, for we must have a clear day to get the best picture. We hold the kodak very steady, then snap, we have it. Next we pull a little slide in the back, take a pencil and write down the date and name. Let me see, what was that picture? Oh, yes, “Chrysanthemum (is that the way to spell it?) exhibition.” Next the films are developed, and the kodak pictures are complete, all but pasting them in a big book.

For all that the kodak is a whole lot of fuss, isn’t it? But, do you know, each one of us has a kodak God has given him which works itself. We have the open circle through which the pictures are taken, our eyes, and beyond the eyes, in the brain, are thousands of films. We start out in the morning and the moment we open our eyes we begin exposing those films. We do not have to do any clicking for these pictures, one after another, click, click, click, and they are developed as fast as they are taken.

If you should say to a man who has reached three score years and ten, “Tell me the clearest picture you can remember,” he would not show a picture that was taken yesterday, or last week, or last year. He would turn back the pages of his memory book fifty, sixty years. The clearest pictures he possesses are those that were snapped in his boyhood. Every day you are taking pictures that are going to remain with you as long as you live. Let us resolve, girls and boys, that as we go out each morning and our human kodak begins clicking, we shall take only pictures that are true, pure and clean.

The Children’s Six Minutes: CHEAPEST AND BEST

Note: The prices have changed greatly since this was written. However, the idea is still good.

The Children’s Six Minutes: Worship and Toil

WORSHIP AND TOIL

One day about one hundred years ago a little boy named Jean stood by his father’s side watching the setting sun sink into the waves of the sea. The glory of the scene stirred his boyish enthusiasm and he poured out his heart in an ecstasy of joy. The father reverently took off his cap and said, “My son, it is God.” The boy never forgot that word, “It is God.”

Jean came of a peasant family, so he had to take his place in the field and earn his bread “by the sweat of his brow.” On Sundays the fields were forsaken, and the family went to the village church where the father was the leader of the choir. After church friends and relatives sometimes came home to spend the afternoon with the family. One Sunday, soon after the return from church, the bent figure of an aged peasant slowly made his way along the road. There was something about the figure that struck the boy Jean. He took a piece of charcoal and hurriedly drew a sketch upon the wall. Every movement and attitude was so perfectly depicted that everybody laughed—everybody but the father. He sensed the gift possessed by his boy, whose growing talent he had been watching. “My Jean,” he said, “I will no longer hinder you from learning that which you are so anxious to know.”

Jean Francis Millet, for such is his full name, became the artist of peasantry. He never made any other boast. His character was of the highest. He had a firm faith in God. He believed in the Bible as the Word of God. He looked upon his use of the brush as preaching upon canvas the purity and truth he believed.

“The Angelus” is the name of the best-known picture that he painted. It shows two workers in a potato field, a man and a woman, who hear from the near-by village the faint tones of the Angelus bell calling them to prayer. They pause, stand erect, bow their heads and worship. It is a beautiful picture. I hope you have a copy framed in your room.