CHARACTER AND WORTH.
Suggestion:—Objects used: A piece of old iron, some nails, broken clock and watch springs, and also a piece of native iron ore, if convenient.
MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: I want to show you to-day that there is a great difference in the value of things, even though they are made of the same material. In the second chapter of Genesis we are told, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." So, you see that all men and women are made of the same material, yet men differ greatly, both in character and works.
Iron Products.
I have here some iron ore, some old iron, some nails; here are some clock springs, and here are some springs of watches. This iron ore is as it is dug from the earth. It is called the native iron, but mixed with it there is much earth and stone and dross, which must be separated from it in order to make it pure. This is done by casting the ore, together with limestone and other materials, into a huge furnace, where the fire is so intensely hot that all are melted and thus the iron is separated from the dross, or stone and earth, which is now mixed with the ore. When the iron is thus separated and molded into large bars, it is worth from a fraction of a cent to two cents per pound, according to quality and market price. After it has been cast into great iron bars, and is known as pig iron, it is afterward bought and melted over again and molded into the form of stoves and wheels, such as are used in factories, and a variety of other forms for manufacturing and other uses.
Nail, Pen and Clock Spring.
Now, here I have some pieces of iron, such as boys call "old iron." They often find pieces of this kind of iron, which have been thrown away, and gather and sell them at a price varying from one-quarter to a cent or more a pound, according to circumstances. Then it is melted over again and made into stoves, or whatever the manufacturer may desire. Now, here are some nails, such as sell at five cents a pound, and here are some steel pens, which are worth from one to four and five dollars a pound. Here are some springs, such as are used in the construction of clocks. These are the springs which make clocks go. When you wind up the clock you simply tighten this spring, thus storing the power which is necessary to keep the clock in motion for twenty-four hours, for eight days, or even a longer period.
Now here are some springs, such as are used in watches. These springs are worth, according to their size and quality, from twenty to fifty or sixty dollars a pound. Here also are some little screws, such as are used in the construction of watches, and which are worth even a hundred dollars a pound.
While these different articles are all made of the same material, you see there is a great difference in their value. One is not worth a single cent a pound, and another may be worth one hundred dollars a pound. Now this difference in value is due to two things. One is, difference in quality, and the other is the use which is made of the article into which the iron is manufactured.
Watch Spring and Screws.
I suppose, if these different pieces of metal could think, and had the power of speech, this piece of old iron would complain to the other pieces which are of more value, and say to the watch spring, "I am just as good as you are, we were both dug from the same ore bank. I remember the time when we were both cast into the hot fire and melted in the furnace; after that I was taken to the foundry, and made into a stove, and after a few years of use I was rejected and cast into the alley. I have had to lie about in the mud and in the cold and snow, and men have passed me by and scorned me as though I were of no value. But I want you to understand, Mr. Clockspring and Mr. Watchspring, that I am just as good as you are, and there is no reason why I should be cast out into the mud and cold, while you are placed in a gold case and carried in a gentleman's pocket."
The nail also would cry out, and say that he was just as good as the little screws which are used in the watch, and would complain against being driven violently into a board, where it is compelled, year after year, to hold a board on to the side of a building; to have putty placed over its head, and then paint over the top of that, so that nobody could even so much as see where it was, or know what it was doing.
Now, the old iron, and the nail, and the others have no right to complain. There is a vast difference of quality, and there is also a difference of work.
The higher grades and better qualities of metals are secured by refining processes. Again and again the metal is cast in the fire and melted. Sometimes it is beaten on the anvil into such shapes and forms as will render the metal of greater service, and consequently of more value.
Suppose this metal had feeling, and the power to express its wish. Do you not see how it would cry out against being cast into the fire, and being beaten with great hammers upon the anvil? I am sure the fire, the hammers, and the anvil bring no sense of pleasure to the metal while being refined and being beaten into such forms as render it of greatest value.
Just so, in some senses at least, are all boys and girls alike. If they were all permitted to grow up in neglect, without being governed by thoughtful parents, without being educated and refined, without being sent to school and required to attend church, without being taught at home and being instructed in the Catechism and in the Bible, and without being shown their duty to God and their fellow men, they would all be pretty much alike. It is the difference in the influences that are made to refine some boys that causes them to differ so much from others who are about them. The boy who has only been taught to pick stones, or sweep the streets, or dig ditches, may cry out against the boy who is gentlemanly, and obliging, and obedient, and truthful, and reliable, and who has a position of great responsibility in a bank, or in the office of some man who occupies a very responsible position; yet oftentimes, and quite universally, there is a very great difference in the merit and value of these two boys. One has been disciplined and governed and controlled, educated and taught, while the other has likely been neglected, and consequently has not learned the importance of these things.
God designs to refine all of us, and therefore He desires that all should be taught to study, should learn to read and write, should learn all they can from the schools, should be taught to work, should be taught to expect trials and self-denials, and should be led to expect sickness and disappointments, and all these things by which God designs to make us better from year to year. But, just the same as the iron would cry out against being cast into the fire and being beaten upon the anvil, so do boys and girls, and men and women also, cry out against the providences by which God is refining them and making them better for this world and fitting them for the world to come.
If we desire to be of largest service in this world, and to occupy a place of honor in the world to come, we must expect that God will deal with us, as He has told us in the ninth verse of the thirteenth chapter of Zechariah, in which He says, "I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried." And in the book of Malachi He says that He, that is God, is "like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap, and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and purge them as gold and silver."
When the gold and the silver is cast into the crucible to be purified, the fire is made very hot, and the metal is left in the crucible until the man who is refining it and who sits looking into the crucible can see his own image reflected in the metal. So we are cast into the fires of affliction, and God looks down upon us; but when we become like Him, so that God sees His own self reflected in our character, and in our disposition, and in our temper, then we shall have been refined as God desires, and He will then be ready to receive us into His own home on high.
Questions.—Can you name different things made from iron? Is a horse shoe as valuable as a watch spring? What makes the difference in their value? How are iron and steel refined, or made more valuable? Are unrefined and untaught boys and girls all quite alike? What makes them become different? Do some boys and girls become more useful and valuable in the world than others? What causes the difference? Would the iron cry out against being refined? Do boys and girls object to being taught and disciplined? How does the Bible say that God refines us? Can the refiner see his image in the melted metal? Does God want to see His own image reflected in us?
"Joseph in the Pit."