Suggestions:—A lantern of any kind may be used. If one of the old-fashioned tin lanterns, perforated with holes through which the light was to shine, is available it would add greatly to the curiosity and interest of the children, although these are now very rare, as they were in use a half century ago.
After "driving to church", and after preaching by the children and the reading of the following sermon on lanterns, a few Japanese lanterns—one for each of the children—would enable the parents to form a little torch-light procession (although no lighted candles need be in the lanterns). After marching through the different rooms, give the children a talk upon the conditions existing in heathen lands like China and Japan, and the changes which are being wrought through the introduction of Christianity and the work of the missionaries.
Old Lantern.
I DO not believe that there is a boy or girl here to-day who could tell me what this thing is, that I hold in my hand. It is a lantern, a very different lantern possibly, from those which any of you have ever seen. This is the kind of lantern that your grandfather and my grandfather used many years ago, in the days when they did not have lamps, and gas, and electric lights, and such things as we enjoy to-day. When I was a small boy in the country we used to have only candles. Later on in life, I remember when they first had fluid lamps, and then kerosene oil, and then gas, and then, as we have it now, electric lights.
In the second congregation to which I ministered, there was an old gentleman who had one of these lanterns. He lived some distance from the church, and very dark nights you could always see him coming across the hill, carrying this strange lantern. After the candle was lighted and placed inside, the light shone out through these small holes, and if the wind blew very hard, the light was liable to be blown out.
Now, here is a better lantern. David says of God's Word, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." On a dark night in the country, you could not go out of doors and move about without running up against a tree, or the fence, or falling into the ditch, or soon finding yourself involved in serious difficulties; and on this account people in the country carry a lantern at night. In the Eastern countries where Jesus lived, where they did not have gas and electric lamps to light the streets, when people went out at night they always carried a lantern. And so David said, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." (Ps. cxix: 105.)
"Coming Across the Hill Carrying this Strange Lantern."
When people go out of doors into the darkness with a lantern they do not hold it way up high, but hold it down near their feet, so that they can see the path, and it enables them to walk with security and safety. Sometimes there are men who have gone to college, and have learned Latin and Greek, have studied the sciences and philosophy, and they think they have learned a very great deal. Perhaps afterwards they have studied medicine and become physicians, or have read law and become lawyers, and they think that they are able with all they know to find the true path of blessing through life. They think they have light enough of themselves. They do not seem to know that all about them there is a darkness of great mystery; that sin and death and destruction lurk all along their way through life, and that their pathway is full of snares, and pitfalls, and dangers, but they try to walk with the little light that there is in the human understanding.