With the Children on Sunday Part 18

QUESTIONS.--Who wrote the book of the Bible called the Psalms? Can you tell what the first Psalm is about? What is the covering called which is about the grain while it is growing? How are the chaff and grain separated from the straw or stalk? After being threshed, how is the chaff separated from the grain? Are there many necessary things in life which, after all, do not const.i.tute our character?

What are tribulations like? Does G.o.d separate the essential from the non-essentials in our life? Is character injured or helped by tribulations? Where does the farmer put the grain after it has been separated from the chaff? What is spoken of in the Bible as G.o.d's garner?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE HEART.

THE MOST WONDERFUL PUMP IN THE WORLD.

SUGGESTION:--The objects used are a tumbler of water colored red, a small gla.s.s syringe such as can be purchased at any drug store for five or ten cents, also a six-ounce bottle of water colored red. This red coloring can be easily done with red ink. If that is not available, a drop or two of black ink will answer.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS: In the 139th Psalm, 14th verse, David says, "I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Now I want to talk to you to-day about our wonderful bodies, in the creation of which G.o.d has so marvelously displayed His infinite wisdom.

I suppose you have been either near or inside a factory. You have heard the noise of the shafts and the pulleys and machinery. You have seen the carding machines, and listened to the noise of the great spinning jacks which twisted the cotton and the wool into yarn or thread, and heard the deafening sound of a great many looms as the shuttles flew backward and forward, while the many threads were being woven into cloth. A factory is quite wonderful, but do you know that in your bodies are found the elements of almost all the kinds of machinery that are used in the world? G.o.d has so created us that we do not hear the noise of the machinery of our bodies, but if you will place your fingers gently in your ears you will hear a peculiar roaring sound. That sound which you hear is the noise of the machinery of your body, which is in constant motion.

Now, the heart, which pumps the blood into all portions of the body, makes the greater portion of this noise. Do you know where your heart is located? I supposed that most of you would point to your left side, because you have so frequently heard it spoken of as being located there. You have seen public speakers and others, when referring to their heart, place their hands upon their left side. But if you will bend your head forward so as to press your chin against your breast, as far down as possible, the heart will be under and a few inches below your chin.

It is in the center of the body, and the lower portion of it comes near to the ribs on the left side, and when it beats we can feel it throb by placing our hand upon our left side; but the heart is more nearly in the center of the body, and not wholly at the side. If you were to close your hand as the boys do when they say they make a fist, the size of your closed hand will be somewhat smaller than the heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Water and Syringe.]

In this tumbler I have some water which I have colored with red ink, so as to represent blood. Here is a small gla.s.s syringe, such as can be bought for a few cents in any drug store. Now, when I draw this little handle up, you will see how the syringe is filled with this red water, and when I press it down how the water is forced out of the syringe back into the gla.s.s. This very clearly ill.u.s.trates the principle upon which all pumps and steam engines which pump water are made. Even the large fire engine, which throws water such a great distance, is made largely upon this principle.

You may possibly have been in the engine room, where the huge pumps force the water into the reservoirs which supply the city with water for drinking and other purposes. From the pumps and the reservoirs there are great pipes which lead the water under the streets to many thousands of houses which compose the city. After the water has been used it is turned into the sewers, runs down into the river and back to the sea, where it is evaporated, rises again in the clouds, and by the wind is carried hundreds of miles over the country. Then it descends again in the form of snow and rain, soaks down through the earth and finds its way again into the springs and great veins of water under the earth, from which it is carried back once more to the city. Thus it is made pure again and again, to be used over and over by the people whom G.o.d has created and whom He supplies with water in this way.

Now, in somewhat the same way, the heart, which is both an engine and a pump, forces the blood out through the pipes or tubes of our bodies called the arteries, distributing it to every portion of the body, furnis.h.i.+ng the materials for building and renewing the muscles and the bones and every portion of our system. Then gathering up that which is worn out and no longer of service, the impure blood returns through the veins back to the right side of the heart, where it is pumped into the lungs and purified by being brought into contact with the air we breathe. The blood is then returned to the left side of the heart, pumped again into the arteries and distributed through all parts of the body, and so it goes on circulating. Thus the blood is pumped by the heart into the arteries and is distributed to all portions of the body, and returned again to the heart, from fourteen to twenty times each hour of our life.

In this bottle, which holds six ounces, I have placed some of this colored water, which represents about the quant.i.ty which is pumped out of the heart of an adult each time the pulse beats. As I have already intimated to you, the heart is double, and at each throb about one-half the quant.i.ty in this bottle is pumped out by the right side, and the other half by the left side of the heart. Now, if the heart were to pump different blood with each pulsation, instead of pumping the same blood over and over again, in twenty-four hours the heart of a man of ordinary size would pump 150 barrels of blood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Wagon Load of Barrels.]

The Bible says that the days of our years are three-score years and ten, or, in other words, that the allotted period of an ordinary life is 70 years. Now, in 70 years the heart would pump 164,389,786 gallons; or, to give it to you in barrels, it would make 4,566,382 barrels. If you were to place six barrels on a wagon, and this would make a good load for two horses, you would have 761,063 loads of these barrels. If you were to place these teams, with the wagons containing six barrels apiece, with 36 gallons each, at a distance of 25 feet apart, it would make a string of teams stretching away 1,778 miles, or as far as from New York City to Des Moines, in the state of Iowa, or from New York City down to the Gulf of Mexico.

I think you will now be able to understand what a wonderful little steam engine and pump each of us has within our own breast. And it may surprise you when I tell you that Dr. Buck says that the heart at each throb beats with a power equal to 100,000 pounds.

An ordinary engine or pump would soon wear out, but this little engine of the heart goes on beating day and night from the time we are born until we are 70 years of age, if we live to be that old, and even while we rest in sleep, the heart never stops for a moment. Is it any wonder that David said that "We are fearfully and wonderfully made"?

I might tell you many other wonderful things about the heart, but this will have to suffice.

If the natural heart in these bodies of ours is so wonderful, how much more wonderful still is that heart which is the seat of the moral life and character? As the natural heart is hidden away in these bodies of ours, so the spirit or the soul is spoken of in the Bible as the heart, because it is hidden away in the life which we have in these bodies of ours; and it is this moral character and spiritual life to which the Bible refers when it says, "Keep thine heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."

QUESTIONS.--How did David say we are made? Does the machinery in a great factory make much noise?

Are our bodies like a factory in this respect?

How can we hear the noise inside of our body?

Where is the heart located? What does the heart do? Can you tell how water is supplied for a great city? Is the blood carried to all portions of our body in a similar way? How much blood is pumped by the heart in twenty-four hours? What does the Bible say is the allotted years of a person's life? How long a string of teams would it require to carry all the blood which the heart ordinarily pumps in seventy years? Does the heart keep on pumping while we sleep? What is still more wonderful than the physical heart? Can we see either the physical heart or the spiritual heart?

Does the fact that you cannot see them prove that you do not have them? Are both necessary to your complete being and existence?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE EYE.

THE MOST VALUABLE AND MOST WONDERFUL TELESCOPE.

SUGGESTION:--The objects used are a field-gla.s.s or opera-gla.s.s, spy-gla.s.s and sun-gla.s.s.

MY DEAR LITTLE MILLIONAIRES: You know that when people are very wealthy, have hundreds of thousands of dollars, they are spoken of as millionaires. Oftentimes these rich people do not have any more actual money than poorer people, but they have property which is supposed to be worth a great deal of money. Now, I want to show you to-day that each one of you possesses that which is worth millions of dollars.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Field-gla.s.s, Spy-gla.s.s and Sun-gla.s.s.]

I want to talk to you about your eyes, and I hope that you will be able to understand that they are worth hundreds and thousands, yes millions of dollars to each of you. In order that I may better ill.u.s.trate a few of the many wonderful things about the human eye, I have brought this field-gla.s.s, and here is a small spy-gla.s.s, and also a magnifying lens, or sun-gla.s.s, as boys sometimes call them. Inside of this spy-gla.s.s and these field-gla.s.ses are lenses or magnifying gla.s.ses, similar to this sun-gla.s.s. They are, however, more perfect, and are so adjusted or related to each other, that when I place this smaller lens of the spy-gla.s.s to my eye I also look through the larger lens which is at the further end of the instrument. When properly adjusted, it enables me to see objects which are at a great distance, and to so magnify them as to cause them to seem much nearer to me than they really are.

Now, if you take this spy-gla.s.s and look at the stars, it will not make them appear any larger than they appear to the eye without the spy-gla.s.s. It will a.s.sist the eye when I look at the moon or the planets, but not at the stars which are so much further removed from the earth than the moon and the planets. Astronomers have desired something larger and more satisfactory, and so have made the great telescopes, which are simply large spy-gla.s.ses. The telescope and the spy-gla.s.s, and the field-gla.s.ses, are all imitations of the human eye; the same as many of our greatest inventions are only copies of that which G.o.d has already created, and which we have but feebly imitated. The eye is a more wonderful instrument than even the largest telescopes which have ever been made.

If you desired to look through a telescope at one of the stars or a 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-gla.s.s 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 G.o.d 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Small Telescope.]

If you were to look through a large telescope, or even one of these smaller spy-gla.s.ses, 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-gla.s.s to these different conditions. If you would look at objects which are near, and then turn the spy-gla.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d has beautifully encased our eyes, and s.h.i.+elded 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 G.o.d has _given_ you and me these telescopes, our wonderful eyes. But because G.o.d 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, G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 seash.o.r.e have experienced the glare while walking along the beach; or, to some extent, like the bright sunlight s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sing by, just the same as when the blind man sat by the roadside near Jericho, when Jesus was then pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 pet.i.tion of our hearts, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." I pray that G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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?

[Ill.u.s.tration]