"We are sowers, and full seldom reapers,
For life's harvest ripens when we die,
'Tis in death alone God gives His sleepers
All for which they sigh.
Cast thy bread upon the waters: after
Many mornings, when thy head is low,
Men shall gather it with songs and laughter,
Though thou mayest not know."
[1] Hugh Macmillan's Bible Teachings in Nature, to which work I am indebted for the structure of this Sermon.
SERMON LXIII.
GOD'S JEWELS.
(Schools.)
MALACHI III. 17.
"They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels."
There is a legend of old time which tells us how a certain Jewish Rabbi returned to his home after a long absence. His first question was—"Where are my boys?" for his wife had greeted him alone. Then, instead of answering her husband's question, the wife asked his advice. She told him that some years before someone had lent her something very precious, and she would know whether after fourteen years the loan became hers. The Rabbi gently reproved his wife, and assured her that the treasure thus lent could not become her own. Then the wife told him that on that very day He who had lent the treasure had returned and claimed it. "Ought I to have kept it back, or repined at restoring the loan?" she asked. The Rabbi was astonished that she could ask such a question, and again enquired anxiously for his two boys. Then the wife took him by the hand, and turning back the sheet upon the bed, showed him the two boys lying dead. "The Lord who gave hath taken. They are dead."
My brethren, we who are parents should learn to look upon our children as a precious loan from the Lord. They are God's treasures, His jewels, and He lends them to us for a little while. Now, to-day, I have to speak to you about schools, and the duty of supporting a Christian, as opposed to a mere secular education. But, first, I want to speak about another kind of education, the teaching of home. I would speak most earnestly to you mothers, because as you are the earliest, so are you the most powerful teachers of your children. It is a tremendous responsibility which God has laid upon you. He has lent you a precious jewel, an immortal soul, which will be saved or lost mainly through your influence. Well says a writer of the day, "Sometimes mothers think it hard to be shut up at home with the care of little children. But she who takes care of little children takes care of great eternities. She who takes care of a little child, takes care of an empire that knows no bounds and no dimensions. The parent who stays at home and takes care of children is doing a work boundless as God's heart." O mothers! never grow weary in well-doing, never think the children a trouble and a weariness, but a precious loan which God will ask one day to have restored. May none of you ever have to say—