A CHILD FOR SALE

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.