"A father's blessing" and other sermons for children

Front matter

ppKiPf^fiEfSPtS^

Shelf

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

Some time ago my dear Father asked me what he should take up as his next course of sermons to children. I suggested as a good subject the blessing of Jacob upon his twelve sons. His reply was, " I don't think that is in my line : you write a course on that subject, and I will take up a course on Bible animals/ 7 When I came to write the last sermon in this course, he had finished one half of the sermons laid out in his plan, and lay dying at his home at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

As I go on with the work he has left, and com plete his unfinished course, I take a sad satisfaction in bidding his little friends and readers farewell, in this last book of sermons which, strangely enough, was named long before he died :

"A Father's Blessing."

Pittsfield, Mass.

Jan. 1, 1888.

Contents

CHAPTER FAGH

1. The Blessing op Reuben, the Unsta-

ble Son 9

II

Secondly. — Instability of character keeps us from excelling, because an unstable person can never be trusted.

If we were going to sail for Europe to-morrow in one of the great ocean steamers, we should want to be sure that the vessel would sail in a direct course for the haven where we would be. Suppose a steamer should take upon itself in mid ocean to stop for a week, or to start up and go to Greenland or Brazil, regardless of the compass or the will of the man at the wheel, we would certainly be in a very bad fix. We should not know where we were, or whither we were going ! But being on board an unstable steamer is about the same thing as being bound to an unstable friend or adviser.

Sometimes strong and steady parents have weak and irresolute children; and sometimes it is the children who have unstable and uncertain parents. But in either case, the unstable members of a family can never be trusted* They "forgot," and they "didn't think," and they were carried away by the mere thought of the moment, and never once thought of their duty; and after trying these unstable people over and over again, after a while we learn to put no trust in them.

I suppose the old patriarch Jaccb had tried his boy Reuben very many times, and had found out that he could never be trusted, so that he would not think for one moment of letting him take charge of his son Benjamin, when he wanted to take him down to see his brother Joseph in Egypt.

Some years ago a family from the east moved out to the far west and began to clear the ground in order to have a farm. There was a boy in the family named Tom, who used to help his father on the farm in many ways. But he was an uncertain kind of boy, and never could be found when he was wanted.

One day his father and the men on the farm were moving logs. Tom was helping them in his way. His work was to pick up the rollers and put them under the logs, while his father and the men were bearing down on the other end of the log.

" Now, Tom," cried his father, as they all pressed down on their end of the log, " now be quick there, and slide the roller under the other end of the log."

" Yes, sir, yes, sir," called out Tom, "I'll be there in a minute. I saw a woodchuck, just now, and I'm going off to catch it."

So the farm hands had to do Tom's work for him, and got into the way of never counting upon Tom any more.

Some years after this, a friend of the family was passing by the house, and asked the man who was driving him what had become of the different members of the family.

The driver told the stranger the story about the boy Tom and the woodchuck, and then added, "and now the old judge, Tom's father, is dead, and Tom's a grown-up man, but stranger, he's been catching woodchucks ever since he was a boy, and he'll go on catching woodchucks all the w^ay to the end of his life."

Dear children, do not let us be mere w T oodchuck hunters through this life of ours. Do not let us spend our time in an uncertain and irresolute kind of life, throwing away our days over the mere accidents and trifles of life. The habit of catching ivoodchucJcs when we ought to be moving logs, will grow upon us if we do not keep it down.

And if we become unstable, irresolute characters, running after trifles when we ought to be doing our steady, solid work, people will leave us to ourselves, because they will feel that we never can be trusted.

III

Thirdly and Lastly. — Instability of character keeps us from excelling, because an unstable person has no power of endurance. The quality of endurance is a strong and conquering power. Sometimes we want strength to accomplish certain things. At other times we want strength to endure. The strength of endurance is at times a greater blessing than the strength of accomplishing things.

St. Paul says, in his Epistle to Timothy, " This one thing I do," as if he did this one thing at a time to keep himself from the great temptation of trying to do too many things.

At a certain point in the battle of Waterloo, before it was at all clear that victory was coming to the English, the Duke of Wellington was greatly annoyed by a certain general who sent word to him to know what he should do.

" Stand firm," replied the Duke.

Presently another courier rode up to the side of the English commander with a second message from the division general. " We are being shot to pieces," wrote the general. " What shall we do ? "

The Duke took out a card and wrote on it the words " Stand firm."

Half an hour afterwards a third courier came galloping up to the Duke.

He brought still another message to the English leader. The message was this: " The enemy are turning our flank, and are pouring bullets into our side. What shall we do ? "

The Iron Duke wrote on a scrap of paper his third message, "Stand firm."

After this the General sent no more messages to the Duke, for he knew beforehand what the orders would be. And it was because this division stood firm and wore out the attacks by Napoleon, that the English were enabled a little while later to reap the great victory of Waterloo. But if the Duke of Wellington had been a Keuben, he never would have been victorious, for of all the Reubens in the world the words of the old dying Jacob are true, "Unstable as water thou shaft not excel."

There was a minister once who was ordained with high hopes of success. Every one predicted that he would have great success, and be a very useful minister, But he had one hidden defect, which did not come out in life until the hard experiences of life brought it out.

1 He was a Eeuben. He was an unstable son, but he did not know it.

He gave up the first parish he had because they had limewater there. Then he gave up his second church because they had bad butter in the place. His third parish did not suit him because of the salt air; and he couldn't get on in his fourth parish because of a certain Captain Crooks who was warden in it. At last, after moving about twelve or thirteen times, and wearing his poor wife and family out, he found that there was bad butter, or limestone water, or bad air, or a Captain Crooks in every parish, and that the trouble was not with his surroundings, but was with his own poor, weak, miserable, unstable self.

He was a Eeuben. He was an unstable son, and because of this great defect in his life, the prophecy of Jacob was fulfilled in his case — " Unstable as water thou shalt not excel."

Now, my dear children, remember the lessons of this sermon to-day upon Eeuben, the unstable son.

Instability keeps us from excelling.

Firstly. — Because an unstable person has no standard of living.

Secondly. — Because an unstable person can never be trusted.

Thirdly. — Because an unstable person has no power of endurance.

Bemember this sermon on poor Eeuben. His father could not say very much that was good about him when he came to die. So his blessing was changed into a judgment and stands on the page of Scripture as a Bible warning against

"The Unstable Son."

n.

SIMEON AND LEVI; or, THE CRUEL SONS.

" Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret : unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel : I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." — Genesis xlix. 5, 6, 7.

£11 T is a terrible moment to us when we are (*mk sitting in a dentist's chair waiting for him to find the right instrument with which to take out our aching tooth. If the tooth were not so cruel, it would not drive us to that dreadful place. If the dentist's instruments were not so cruel, we would not mind sitting there. But it is the choice of evils which troubles us so much. While the tooth is throbbing away with its nerves and roots (its instruments of cruelty), the dentist stands before his cabinet debating with himself which of all his many instruments of cruelty will best do the work for us. And thus it comes to pass that we are in a bad plight either way ; for whichever way we turn, we see Simeon and Levi about us, with instruments of cruelty in their hands.

Cruelty is a remnant of the beast-nature within us. If we were left to ourselves, without any moral or religious restraint or guidance, w r e would become as cruel as the beasts about us.

We cannot read the pages of history without seeing at every turn the signs of human nature's cruelty. Think of the way in wdiich people in the name of God and for the sake of what they called " the truth," persecuted their fellow-men. Fox's Book of Martyrs is a book which we all love to read when we are young. It is filled with stories and pictures of the most terrible persecutions that it is possible to imagine. When I was a little boy I used to read this book on Sunday afternoons, after a comfortable Sunday dinner, and used to feel very thankful that I did not live in that far-off Simeon and Levi age.

Animals are cruel by nature. There is an old hymn, by Isaac Watts, in the nursery primers, which begins in this way :

'* Let dogs delight to bark and bite, For 'tis their nature to ; Let bears and lions growl arid fight, For God hath made them so."

How the tiger teases its prey ! How the cat plays with the poor, frightened little mouse before she kills it ! How the spider seems to gloat over the fly which it has caught in its web ! " Instruments of cruelty " are plainly visible at every turn in the animal world. The shark's tooth, the lobster's claw, the bull's horns, the cat's claws, are the weapons of warfare by which the animal creation make war on one another and defend themselves.

But the beast nature has nothing to do with the kingdom of Heaven, and can never enter it.

And whatever we have of the beast nature must be thrown off before we can be where our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed saints are.

Simeon and Levi were cruel sons. We do not know much about them, but what we do know is bad. The old patriarch Jacob could not find anything good to say about these hard-hearted boys of his, and so he turned his blessing into a judgment, and uttered these words of our text:

"Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret : unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."

There were four distinct things which the dying Jacob mentioned about bis cruel sons — Simeon and Levi. And tbe Bame four things are found to be connected with all cruel children.

I.

First of all :

Cruel children always seek for instruments of cruelty. It is hard to be cruel if we have nothing to be cruel with. But if we have a club, or a whip, or a pair of spurs, or a bowgun, then we will seek to find some animal to try our weapons on.

But it is hard work to be cruel if we have no instruments of cruelty. A nation that has got no standing army will not seek to go to war. But a country which is filled with soldiers will always be wanting to fight. Some time ago I was in a police court where a young man was being tried for a stabbing affray. He had tried to stab another young man, and when he could not succeed in do ing this he fired a pistol after his enemy and wounded him in the leg.

The Judge asked the prisoner what induced him to carry such weapons as those. The boy replied that he had seen these daggers and pistols in the window of a cutlery shop, and that after looking at them in the shop window every night on his way home from work, he saved up his money and bought them ; and that when he had bought them, he was not happy until he had used them in some way.

Now, my dear children, depend upon it, instruments of cruelty around us educate us in the art of being cruel.

It would not have occurred to this boy to want to stab if he had not owned a dagger. We can save just one-half of the consequences of our sins by avoiding the temptations which lead to them. Many a murderer would have been saved his shameful death upon the gallows, if he had not had about his person, at the time of his anger, some weapon or instrument of death. Cruelty grows upon us before we know it. One of the noblest societies of our land is the great Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. This society can arrest angry teamsters for beating their horses unmercifully. It establishes fountains for the poor, thirsty horses to drink at, and in many ways takes away the instruments of cruelty out of the hands of those who do not know how to be kind to dumb animals.

One of the first blessings which Jesus uttered in his Sermon on the Mount, is the blessing on the merciful. " Blessed are the merciful," he said," for they shall obtain mercy." Implements of kindness teach us to be kind: but instruments of cruelty will make us as they made Simeon and Levi — hard-hearted, cruel sons.

II.

Secondly. — Cruel children always go together into cruelty.

It is a very singular thing how children always love to have "secrets." Sometimes these secrets are good, and sometimes they are bad. Sometimes they lead the way to a pleasant surprise, as the secret of a birthday '

present, or the secrets of Christmas time; and at other times they lead the way to mischief and sorrow.

Now it is very evident that Simeon and Levi had got, at a certain period in their life, into some great trouble. They had some plot or intrigue, some scheme of mischief or secret conspiracy which they kept to themselves, and out of this plot there grew a quarrel, and the result of it all was that they killed a man and digged down some stone wall over which they had been struggling.

There is an old saying that it takes two to make a quarrel. It is very difficult for a person to have a secret plot or conspiracy all to one's self. When we go into mischief and cruelty, we always go in company. It is very hard to be cruel without some instrument of cruelty in our hands, and without some companions, to share the blame of sin with us.

Cruel people always have an instrument of cruelty, and some secret of cruelty, and some cruel companions to help bear them out in their wicked ways. This was the way it was with Simeon and Levi. And this is the way it has always been with cruel people in the world.

In the days of James the First of England, there was a plot among*.certain nobles to blow up the House of Parliament, and bring in new rulers of the kingdom. One of the principal characters in this conspiracy was a noble names Catesby. He wanted to blow up all the members of the House of Lords, with the exception of a certain friend of his named Lord Monteagle.

So he wrote Lord Monteagle a letter, telling him he had better keep away from the Houses of Parliament on a certain day. " For God and man," said Catesby in his letter, " have concurred to punish the wickedness of the times." This letter seemed so suspicious that Lord Monteagle showed it to some of his friends. They began to hunt about for suspicious-looking persons; and on going down into the cellar of the House of Lords, they discovered an evil-looking man, whose name was Guy Fawkes, about to light a slow match which communicated with a number of barrels of gunpowder. This plot was called the Gunpowder Plot. The 5th day of November, the day on which Guy Fawkes was discovered, was called " Guy Fawkes' day," and ever afterwards, the boys of England used to keep the day, as our boys keep the Fourth of July, by dressing up an image to look like Guy Fawkes. Then after marching Tibout with him for a time, they would take him to a bonfire to be burned.

Now this famous gunpowder plot in English history, shows us what is meant by a conspiracy of cruel people — such as the plot which Simeon and Levi had. There was " a secret and an assembly," and " instruments of cruelty," and " anger," and "self-will," and companionship in this cruel plot.

My dear children, let me beg you not to have " secrets," or " instruments of cruelty," or companions, if these lead you into anger and self-will.

Remember the second lesson of our subject to-day. It is like the old proverb, " birds of a feather flock together." Do not forget this lesson. Cruel children always go together into mischief.

III.

Thirdly. — Cruel children are always governed by their passions.

The older we grow the more truly we find that our passions are fearful companions. We must keep them under control all the way through life. If they ever get the mastery over us, they will act like runaway horses and will dash us to pieces.

A furnace to an engine makes it go, so long as the fires are held under control. But the moment the fires cease to obey the engineer, that moment there is danger ahead.

The volcanic outburst, the hurricane at sea, the cyclone on land are the passions of nature, and are pictures of the passions within us. What a description of our evil nature is this verse of our text to-day. " Cursed be heir anger for it was fierce, and their wrath for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." I suppose you have all read that old story of little Red Riding Hood. Well, you remember how the wolf, in the grandmother's clothes, disguised himself until the night-time came, in order to eat up little Red Riding Hood. He waited a long time for his prey, but at last the cruel wolf showed himself. And our fierce and cruel passions wait a long time until the right moment comes for them to bite and devour their prey. They may be disguised now, as a cat's claws are hidden under their velvety fur, when she purs under the stroking she receives, but when any sudden temptation comes, out will come the evil passions, as the cat's claws come out whenever a dog bounces into her presence.

There was once an old German father who tried to make something good and useful out of his boy. But the son was an artist, and liked to dream and paint and skip his day's work on the farm whenever he could do so.

At last, just before his son left him to go to Paris, where he was about to study art, the old father said to him : —

" Tony, my son, remember this last advice of your old father. Our passions are our greatest enemies. What we want to do is to be able to command them. The discipline of the human will is the secret of durable conquests and long happiness. Tony, I have always loved the crowing of the cock. It announces the day, and chases away the phantoms of the night. The sound resembles a war-cry. It admonishes us to spend our lives in fighting against ourselves/'

A year or two after this, when his .father had died, Tony, now a rising young artist in Paris, was tempted by his companions to join a band of gamblers, who were making money at the expense of foreigners in Paris. One night, when he was lying awake, thinking over in his mind whether or not he should go with these bad companions, he heard a cock crow. Like the crowing of the cock which brought to Simon Peter's memory the words of Jesus, the sound of the crowing brought back to Tony the last words of his honest old father. That morning crow sounded to him like a voice from his father's grave, and it turned the scale of his will. He said no, to his tempters, and gained the victory over the evil passions within him.

Let us learn the great lesson of Jacob's judgment upon his cruel sons, that cruel children are those who instead of riding their passions are governed by them.

IV

The fourth and last lesson of our subject is, that cruel children are always left to themselves. Jacob said of Simeon and Levi, who could not control their cruel tempers :

" I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." These sons of Jacob were not wanted by their brethren. The other sons would rather be alone than have these cruel fellows keep company with them, with their instruments of cruelty about them. Cruel children are always left alone. Boys who crowd, kick, pinch, tease and use their friends for pin cushions, into whom they can run twisted pins, are not agreeable companions.

Every now and then, as we walk through the streets of our cities, we see in the various store-windows the sign, "Boy wanted." But boys who keep instruments and habits of cruelty about them are never wanted. Nobody cares for the company of those cruel sons except Satan. But they are just what he wants. Satan is always after the Simeon and Levi kind of children.

As we grow older, my dear children, life becomes a very lonely thing. We grow away from our friends ; and our friends die. Our parents are taken from us, and new people appear who do not care anything for us. We want above all things else to keep our friends, and not to lose them.

And there is no way by which we can keep our friends by our side so surely as by using kind words and doing kind deeds for them. But harsh words and unkind actions are never, never forgotten.

Eemember then, I beg yon, my dear children, these four lessons which we learn from the judgment of Jacob upon his cruel sons, Simeon and Levi.

Cruel children always seek for instruments of cruelty.

Cruel children always go together into mischief.

Cruel children are always governed by their passions ; and

Cruel children are always left to themselves.

Poor old Jacob could not say anything good about these two cruel sons when he came to die. What will our friends say of us when we pass away ? Will they utter a blessing over us for our kindness, or will they pronounce a judgment on us for our sins ?

ni.

THE BLESSING OF JUDAH ; or, "THE SUCCESSFUL SON."

u Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow down to thee." — Genesis slix. 8.

GREAT French wit once said, "Success always succeeds." We may say of course it does, but the wonderful thing about success is that we do not recognize it as such until it does succeed. There is something very singular about success. We cannot describe it. We cannot predict it. We cannot tell exactly in what it consists, but we can all see it and feel it. It is something which we can feel even if we cannot describe it. Judah was the successful son in his father's

family. Everything he did seemed to succeed. The tribe of Judah grew to be the most powerful of all the tribes, and finally stood for the entire Kingdom of Israel.

And it was because Jacob the father of this successful son Judah, saw by prophesy all his boy's future greatness, that he uttered these words of blessing over his head, "Judah, Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise* Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow down before Thee. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey my son thou art gone up ; he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion: who shall rouse him up?"

There is a successful son in almost every family. Somehow or other he manages to succeed while the others fail and flounder about in their efforts. No one can tell just how this is, or just why it is, but the fact remains that it is so. Brothers and sisters may criticise and find fault with this Judah, but still he goes on succeeding every time, while the rest of them only talk about success and strive in every way to secure it.

In the family of Jacob, Judah's brethren may have said that it was all luck on his part, and that he was peculiarly fortunate in everything he accomplished. But the old patriarch Jacob knew better than this. He said that Judah would not be lucky but successful. He saw in his boy before him, the elements of that success which in after years would make him famous. And so the old man uttered this blessing upon his boy :

" Judah, Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies. Thy father's children shall bow down to thee."

I want to speak to you to-day in this sermon on " The Successful Son," about the difference between luck and success.

I.

First of all I would say — Luck waits foi the opportunity to come to us; success goes and finds the opportunity.

For instance here is a colony of bees and a group of grasshoppers. It is summer time.

They are all alike, singing and buzzing in the meadow. The grasshoppers are lazy indolent fellows, while the bees are as busy as they can be. The grasshoppers take no care for the morrow ; the bees on the other hand are laying up honey all the day for the winter's use in the hive. The grasshoppers wait for the honey to come to them, and the consequence is they will starve in the winter time. The bees go hard to work to find the honey, and the result of their labor is that they will be fed in the hive while their neighbors, the grasshoppers, will be dying of starvation. That is the difference between waiting for luck to come to one, and going out to find one's luck in honest labor.

There were two boys once, named Jack and Kichard, whose father set aside a plot of ground for them to take care of. He promised them a reward, if their gardens looked well at the end of the season.

Jack used to go and look at his garden every little while, and resolve that by and by, when he saw anything to do in it he would do it. Kichard, on the other hand, trimmed every plant and tree; weeded the beds, cleared off all the potato bugs, and never let the weeds get a single week's growth in advance of him. At the end of the summer their father took a walk with the boys in their gardens. " Why Jack," said the father, u you are no kind of a gardener, look at the weeds in your garden bed ! "