A LOST HEART AND WHERE IT WAS FOUND
OBJECTS: A Child's Bank and a Paper Heart
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
A little girl, daughter of a Western banker, was anxious to bring her father to Jesus, but he always said, when she talked with him on the subject, that he was too busy at the bank and did not have time to think of religion. This troubled the little girl greatly, because she knew her father's soul was in danger if he did not give his heart to Jesus. It seemed to her as if he had given his heart to the bank and not to God.
One night the little girl went to bed with a troubled mind, and in her sleep had this strange dream. She thought her father came down-stairs one morning and said that when he awoke he discovered somewhere that during the night he had lost his heart. He could not feel it beating in his breast, and therefore was sure some power had taken it away from him, and he was without a heart. The little girl thought, in her dream, that she heard all the family laugh at this strange story of Daddy, and they said, "Father must have lost his mind," if he thought he had lost his heart, but he only said, putting his hand upon his breast, "My heart is not here, I have lost it somewhere." The little girl was greatly troubled because she thought it was a sure sign that her father would soon die, because he could not live without a heart. Then in her dream a good angel came to her and said: "Dear little girl, your father is right. He has indeed lost his heart. He loves his gold, he loves it so much that he has given himself to the bank and forgotten God. Now, little girl, you can help your father find his heart again, for I am going to tell you where his heart has gone." The angel said: "On yonder shelf you will see a little iron bank; open it up, and you will find buried beneath the coins of this bank your father's heart." She did as the good angel directed, and there, sure enough, amidst the copper and silver coins, she found her Daddy's heart. She was very glad indeed at this find, and in her great joy she awoke from her dream. The next day she told her father this dream which she had had the previous night. He listened to it thoughtfully and said something about foolish little girls who think out strange things in their sleep, and then he turned toward his bank and spent another day, amidst his banking books. But all day long his thoughts were upon his little girl and her foolish dream, but the more he thought about it the less foolish it seemed to him, and at last he said to himself: "Dear little dreamer, God was talking to you in your sleep and was talking to me also. It is true I have lost my heart. It is buried under the gold of my bank. I have loved my gold more than God, and have given my bank my heart. The Good Book says, 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' My treasure is in my bank. There is my heart also." This message from Dreamland caused him to give his heart to God, and he became a Christian, and then he let God keep his heart for him, and so Jesus found the father's heart and kept it for him forevermore.
To illustrate this, secure a small toy iron bank such as children use for the safe keeping of their pennies. Cut out a piece of cardboard the shape of a heart, and put this inside of the little bank, and at the proper time in the story draw it out and show the children that the bank contained the father's heart, covered up with the money. This money stands for the treasure of the people, and there you will find the people's hearts also. You can also paste upon this heart a number of pennies, so that when you take the heart out it will be literally covered with the treasures. What must be done with this heart that it may be separated from the treasures of gold which will separate the heart forever from heaven? It must be brought to Jesus and a new heart will be given in exchange. Although this heart covered with the gold of this world is therefore very attractive to most people, it is as black as night in the sight of God and the angels.
There was once a boy named William. He was in the habit of doing wicked things. Once he told a great lie about his classmate because he was angry at him, and the teacher punished this classmate, believing that what William said was true. At the next recess William noticed that the scholars kept away from him and looked at him as if they were frightened, but he did not think much of this. When he went back to school that afternoon he saw his teacher looking at him very strangely, and when he went home his mother looked at him and burst into tears. William then ran up into his little room to look himself over and stood before the mirror to see if he could determine what was the matter, and there he saw a terrible sight. By some mysterious power he had become so transparent that his heart showed right out from his body through his thick clothing, and it was a dreadfully black one. His coat was black, but it looked quite white compared with the blackness of his heart that was piercing through his coat, and when he saw this he was ashamed to go out, and hung his head whenever he passed any of his classmates, He tried to run into dark corners where people could not see his heart, but he could not find any hiding-place dark enough to hide his black heart. At last with tears in his eyes he ran to his mother and asked what he should do. He confessed to his mother the big lie he told about his classmate. His mother now led him to the mirror when he had finished his sad story. She said: "See, William, now that you have made this confession, your heart is less black than it was before. I think it will become entirely white if you pray to Jesus to forgive you. Tell your classmate and teacher and the scholars how sorry you are." William said to himself, "I will." That night he prayed long and earnestly and when the morning had come he was astonished to see how much lighter his heart had grown. This pleased him very much and he said: "I don't think I will trouble any more about my heart. It is growing so much lighter that I think the last remnant of the blackness will pass away in a day." So he ran off to school very gladly, but his teacher looked at him very strangely, and the classmates all shrank and ran away from him and he said he was ill and must go home. When he got to his room and looked in the mirror he saw his heart with more intense blackness than ever before. So that night he prayed very earnestly to Jesus to take away his black heart. In the morning he ran off to school in great haste. As soon as the school was opened, he arose before all the scholars and told what a dreadful thing he had done and asked their forgiveness. They all forgave him gladly, and at recess everybody was kind to him and played with him, and best of all when he got home and looked in the mirror he found that there was no great black heart showing through. He was a happy boy again, just as he had been before he told the terrible lie. This little story teaches the big lesson that the sinful black heart can only be made right by bringing it to Jesus.
To illustrate this you open the Bible to some great promise of forgiveness of sin, and place the heart on that promise, and close the Bible. So the sinful heart is now taken away. You open the Bible again at another promise of forgiveness of sin, and there take out of it a white heart, which you have put in there previously, and say, "This represents the heart of forgiveness." You place it back in the Bible and close the Bible tight, and say, "My heart have I hid in his word, and it is safe there forever more, and in his keeping it can never be lost again."
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