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October 21, 1914.
A FAMILY PAPER.
Inthe Sabbath School
Lesson VI. November 8, 191-1.
SOWING AND REAPING (World's Temperance
Lesson.)
By Rev. Owen F. Thompson.
Golden Text.—Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. Gal. 6:7.
Lesson Text.—Gal. 6:1-10.
Time.—A. D. 57.
Suitable Psalms.—120, 129, 37, 7.
Exposition.—It is not hard to make a temperance
lesson out of Sowing and Reaping. There
are too many sad examples about us everywhere
to let us escape the application.
So many times you hear persons talking about
the young folk sowing their wild oats just as
though it were a thing that everyone had to do
and so they might as well go through with it.
They forget that the wild oats that are sown
must be reaped sometime and that it is often a
sad reaping.
How many young people there are in the world
who are strong and bright and who seem to think
that their only object in life is to have a good
time. They seem to think that the price has
nothing to do with it. We are all ready to talk
about the rich young men who spend thousands
of dollars every year on their pleasure, but we
are liable to forget that those who have a station
in life such as most of our members have,
often pay just as high a price for their pleasures.
They pay it in character and strength and wasted
opportunities. You cannot put a price upon them,
but how often those things are bartered thoughtlessly
for a good time.
A young man may start to college with a
chance to fithimself for a place of great infiuence
in life. He gets into bad company. He negle:ts
his studies and spends all the time in
fun. He is not only losing the training that the
course would give him, but he is missing something
that would have meant more to him than
that in the years to come. It is the formation ol
character and habit and the acquiring of an aim
or purpose in life. These things mean more than
all the knowledge that he can get in four years.
If you could slip a Greek grammar and an algebra
book and a study in psychology and any number
of school books into a young man's bead so that
he would know every word of them he might
still be as worthless as a hole in the ground—
that is he might still be a place where God could
pul; something. But if you flx a great purpose in
a young man's soul he is going to mean something
to the world whether be has a book learning
or not.
Now then, that is what I meant when I was
talking about the young people sowing and reaping.
If they miss the chance to get the really
great things out of the period of training they
are paying a price for their fun that can never
be valued. And they will reap empty stalks of
wheat when the harvest time of life comes.
Or you can speak of a young person, a boy or a
girl who starts out in life, either in school or in
business, or anywhere, and he gets to using tobacco
and drinking and gambling, and going into
impurity, and before long he has burned out his
body, soul and mind, and only the power of God
can rebuild him. ' What is his outlook when he
looks ahead into what ought to be the best part
of life It is empty and worthless. That is sowing
and reaping, and there are rules for the game
and God sees tbat tbe broken rule always receives
its penalty.
Or it may be that young men and ladies say
that they are not doing any of these things. Then
It may be that you are sowing selfishness and that
you are paying that price for what you get out of
lite. Perhaps you spend all you make on yourself.
Perhaps you are not doing anything that has any
real value either to the world or God Are you
allowing yourself to drift into improper actions,
or the use of wrong language or too much thougnfor
your own appearance Are you doing anything
for Christ Are you doing anything to
lighten the loads of otbers Are you growing any
more Christlike as tbe weeks pass By tbe answer
you give to these things you will be able to
judge what price you are paying for your pleasures
and what kind of a reaping you will have
later on in your life. Remember, Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also reap.
So many these days are planting their time,
their strength, their Intellect, their personality,
their characters, their money, and all that they
are getting out of it is pleasure, and it is often
a cheap sort at best. It is like sowing wheat in
the fall for winter pasture and then never getting
the harvest in tbe summer. Through all the early
part of life they are sowing and getting nothing
off it but this ligbt stuff called pleasure, and then
when the time of reaping comes, they will flnd
tbat it has been eaten off too close and tbey wil!
come in weeping with their empty sheaves.
So many persons complain that everything that
they put tbeir hand to goes wrong. They never
make more money from tbeir crops or cattle. Their
.neighbors are always unfriendly and the world always
seems to go against them. A man may lail
on account ol drouth or sickness or some unavoidable
cause, but taking lile as a whole, you
get out of life what you put in with a fair increase.
If you sow poor seed or if you plant corn
or any other crop in a country where it seldom
makes anything on account of the climate, then
you must not blame it on God. Adapting your
crops is part of the sowing and that belongs to
man's part.
A man who has good neighbors all around him
is a man who is neighborly to everyone and a
man who does not get along with his neigh oors
is a man who is not neighborly. You might misa
it with one man, but when they are all down on
you, you better go to the repair shop and get tbe
Lord to make you over.
These things show us Sowing and Reaping applied
to everyday life. That is the place that it
ought to apply, for if tbe Bible does not flteveryday
life then it would be hard to make it flt men
and women at all.
This passage teaches the spirit in which we
are to life and work more than the actual
regulations that we are to follow. If you
walk to your horse and strike it in the
face because it has its foot on the reins,
it is likely to pull back and break loose
and let you walk home. If you run your session
like the old-fashioned pedagogues ran their hickory
sticks, you are likely to make your congregation
or a least a good part of them pull back
and break loose and let you pull your load of service
for Christ alone. Kindness will do just as
much for a session or a congregation or a Sabbath
school or a young people's society or a wayward
person as it will for a horse, but it is too
bad that we have to learn such important lessons
from the dumb beasts. We ought to know.
The main object of discipline is to restore
"such a one" into the faith, but some seem to
think that it is a sort of vengeance tbat the session
has a right to inflict on anyone who transgresses.
Unless a session exercises ^iiscipllne in
meekness, it is liable to do more harm than good,
for the session is made up of men who have longer
experience in the difficulty of resisting temptation
than most of the congregation, and they ought
to be ready to remember their own weakness that
they had to fightagainst and that perhaps often
meant failure.
The second verse says "Bear ye one another's
burdens." The fiftbverse says "every man shall
bear his own burdtn."
speaking of our responsibilitiy toward otbers. The
second is speaking of our responsibility toward
God. We can bear another's burden of trouble
pastors if may one applications and gregation you, must cannot The you will teacnes the expect weakness but do next pay last sixth bear and shoulders keeping not that none and but verse a ofiicers that might another's get each lean while little much up if tbe us teaches of coming harvest. one you of is can to they Christ. church made burden all to good for sow help do their in are that yourself, about from sparingly Does connection it. support work. expenses of He own of the sin this can that pastor's flrstduty congregation.
A your verse. life bear preaching
of mean good else God. with tbe but pastor salary put it many You that con­
this you for we of it
Lesson VI. November 8, 1914.
LESSON FOR THE CHILDREN.
By Anna Pritchard George.
SOWING AND REAPING.
Galatians 6:1-10.
Elmer, when your Uncle wants to raise corn
does he plant just any kind of seed, wheat, oats
or barley "No, he plants corn." Today we
will talk about sowing the kind of grain you wish
to reap, and other things as well.
Divide tbis end of the table into four squares.
In this one place this box for the farm house,
this one for the barn. Here are cardboard
horses and here a toy plow. In the house these
clothespins are tbe father and mother and their
two sons.
It is early morning. The father and his boys
rise early, bitch the horses and go out in the field
to .plow. For several days they work early and
late in these fields, getting them all ready to
plant. Now the fields are all ready. "What
do you wish to raise in that first field,father"
asks John. "Corn." What will he plant, Charles
"Corn." So they start out this first day with
sacks of the corn and sow all day long. Next
day Tom asks, "What will you raise in the next
field, father" "Beans." What will they sow in
this field, Mary "Beans." " i want to raise oats
in that last field,"says the father. So in the
last field what will they sow,. Bud "Oats."
What will they do next, James Will it take long
for the corn and beans and oats to grow "All
Summer." So they keep the place well watered
and free from weeds. In the Fall they have their
reward. What do they flnd in the flrst field,
Helen "Corn." In the second field, George."
"Beans." And in the third field, Grace "Oats."
Yes, whatever they sowed in the Spring they find
growing, and reap in the Fall.
That Winter the boys are sent to the city to
school. At this other end ol the table these
boxes are for the houses in tbe city. These sticks
are the people. School opens and John and Tom
go •ft'ith the others. They live in a boarding house
as tbeir home is too far away to go home each
night, and at firstare homesick. Would you not
miss your folks if you had to live among strangers
all the time, Ellsworth That is the way
with our two boys. But they study hard the first
few weeks and all goes well.
Now they begin to make friends. W^hat kind
of friends are tbe best, Ethel "Good people. '
John chooses boys that have no bad habits and
study hard. Will they coax him to do wroag
Herbert "No." But Tom likes boys who do
not stick to their work. And sometimes they
smoke cigarettes and sometimes even go into
the saloon. "Those boys are no good, Tom," says
John one day. Tom answers, "They are only
having a little fun. They mean no harm." "But
don't you remember what Father planted when
he wished corn You sow whatever you wish to
get afterwards. Those boys will surely turn out
bad men." "This is different," says Tom. So off
he goes with the bad boys. Soon he smokes a
little too, and it is not long till he goes down to
the saloon with the other boys. At the end of
the year John goes on with his class and Tom is
sent home in disgrace. What kind of a man
will John become, Jeanne "A good man." Yes,
for he sowed good things when a boy. "But what
kind of a man will Tom grow to be, Gladys "A
bad, bad man." He sowed bad habits wben a boy.
Yes, just as the kind of grain the farmer sows,
tells him what he will reap in the Fall, so if a
boy or girl doss wrong when young and growing,
it will show in them when they are grown.
If a man never takes a drink, will he become a
drunkard, James "No, how can he" Before you
do anything, always ask yourself will this make
me good or bad And it it will make you bad,
what then, Reid "Don't do it." Who will tell
The flrstof the two is
us the right things to sow so we can grow up
good, Buster "Jesus." Follow Jesus^and aK
will be well.
Montclair, N. J.