You have heard of other beautiful sights and sounds in the Story Lessons that have gone before ([87], [88]), and in the Story Lesson which follows you will learn why it is good to love all these beautiful things.
XLII. ON DESTROYING THINGS.
91. Beauty and Goodness.
Why do we hang pictures on the walls, and put plants in the windows? Because we want to make the room look pretty.
Why do we love the flowers and the trees, the bright green fields and the waving yellow corn? Why are we so glad to be near the sea, with its glorious, rolling waves, and to bask in the warm, bright rays of the sun? Because they are all beautiful, and when we love what is beautiful it helps us to love what is good; and when we love goodness we love God, who gave us all this beauty.
Now you will see why it is so wicked to destroy beautiful things. When a boy carves his name on a tree, or breaks off its graceful branches, he destroys that which is good, instead of loving it; and how can he grow up gentle and true if he does not love beauty and goodness? Sometimes people put iron railings round their gardens, and you will have noticed that they are often finished off with a pointed pattern at the top, to make them look pretty. When a boy comes along and knocks off the points, he makes the railings look ugly instead of pretty. He would never think of destroying the pictures that hang on the walls of his home, or of throwing the plants away that stand in the window, yet he destroys things that are not his, and that other people have put there to make their houses look nice. I am sure you will say this is not right; it is downright wrong, just as wrong as it would be for me to go and break that boy's slate, or to snap his wickets in two when he is wanting a game of cricket, and it is all for want of thinking.
It is quite dreadful to know that so many cruel, unkind things are done, just because boys and girls do not trouble to think! But I hope that you, dear children, will think, and keep your little hands from spoiling anything.
(Blackboard.)
It is Wrong to Spoil and Destroy.