With the Children on Sundays / Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate into the City of Child-Soul

by Sylvanus Stall

There is not a person living who has not at some time felt this same drawing and desire to do right and to be good. The results, however, have been very different with different people.

I shall seek to illustrate this drawing power to you to-day, and to do so have brought this magnet. I have also brought these tacks and nails of different sizes; and here are also some old, rusted, crooked nails. Let these several kinds represent the different kinds of people.

When I take this magnet, and move it around among these small tacks, and then hold it up, you will see that very many of these tacks cling to the magnet. They hold on by some unseen power. Sometimes the tacks are even not able to touch the magnet, but are drawn through the influence which extends through other tacks, and so large clusters hang on to the magnet. If I shake the magnet you will see that some fall off. These small tacks represent the youngest children. In the early years of our lives we are more easily drawn to the Lord Jesus. It is then more easy for us to come to Christ and give ourselves fully to Him. It is much easier to be Christians when we are young. Yet many put it off till they are older, when it is much more difficult and they are less likely to be successful in living a Christian life.

Magnet and Small Nails.

Now, if I remove these small tacks, and place the magnet among these small nails, you will see that several of the small nails cling to the magnet, and I can lift them up. There are not as many, however, as there were of the tacks clinging to it. In like manner, as boys and girls grow older, they find it more difficult to come to Christ.

Magnet and Larger Nails.

Here are some larger nails. When I place the magnet among them, but very few are attracted to it. And when I attempt to lift the magnet, most all of these large nails tall off. Only one, sometimes two, hold on successfully.

Here are some nails that are still larger. Now, when I attempt to lift one of them with this magnet, you see that I can only lift one end of the nail. That is due to the fact that while the magnet draws these nails, the earth also draws them. That is the reason why these smaller nails, when they fall from the magnet, fall to the earth; because the earth draws them. The earth draws with so much greater force and power upon these large nails than the magnet draws that I cannot raise them by the magnet. It is on this account that they continue to hold fast to the earth rather than to the magnet.