(Show a picture representing a person or persons in the act of prayer. The well-known Angelus is perhaps one of the best for this purpose. Question on it, and get from the children, if possible, the story of the call to prayer.)
The sweet sound of the bell borne on the evening breeze from the steeple of the village church comes to the field where the workers are busy with their tasks. What do they do as they hear it? To whom are they speaking when they bow their heads?
Let us think for a moment of another scene. It is in another country far away from this, and the people look very different from those in our picture, but they too are bowing, not simply the head but the whole body, for they are kneeling and their heads are bowed to the earth. What do you think they are doing? Yes, they are praying, but to what? As we look toward the east we see that the sun is just rising above the horizon, and it is the sun that those people are worshiping. In that country and in others we could find people who worship the moon in the same way, and the reason why these things are done is that all people everywhere have a desire in their hearts to worship, and these people have taken the things that they see which seem to them to be the most wonderful and have made gods out of them. They know nothing about this greatest Book in all the world, which you and I know and love, and so they do not know of the great and good God to whom you and I pray, and whom we call our Father.
If we could see those people and talk with them what would we wish to tell them? It seems to me that for these people, the first story to tell from God’s Word would be the first story in that Book, one that we have heard, perhaps, many times, but which we never tire of hearing, and which we are to hear once more to-day.
The Lesson Story
It seems strange, does it not? to think of a time when there was no earth; but there was such a time and there our story for to-day begins. All was black darkness where this world now is, but God was in his heaven, for in his Word we read, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” So in the eternity of long, long ago God lived and ruled, and he was thinking of a people whom he would make in his own image to be his children, and of the home that he would make for them. Then it was that from the great black space of the universe darkness fell away, for God said, “Let there be light: and there was light. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” Under the almighty hand of the Creator, at his command, this planet that we call the earth began to swing in its orbit, but it was wrapped in vapors until God spoke again saying, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” At his words the clouds gathered together above, separating themselves from the waters upon the earth, “and God called the firmament Heaven.” (From this point try reading the story from the Bible, but have it so thoroughly in mind that if you find the attention of the pupils wavering in any degree you can return to the other method. Whether you read or tell the story of the six days, have the pupils open their Bibles and read with you the first three verses of the second chapter.)
“In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Exodus 20:11).
What a beautiful story it is, and how glad we are to know that all the wonders of the earth and sky and sea are the handiwork of our Father! “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s power display,