YOU CAN CONSIDER


 "THE LILIES."



“UNCLE Charlie," said Harry, 

"Can you remember the text on Sabbath? I think it's very hard. I try and try, and say it over and over; and when I get home, it has just gone. Do big men remember?"

"Not always, Harry," said Uncle Charlie, smiling; "but they would if they tried so hard."

"I can remember, most always," said Julie, "but Harry is so little; when he can read it in the Bible, he will remember better. I think the text is just the easiest part to remember. I don't always know what the minister says in the sermon except some ministers," added Julie. "The one that preached to us last Sabbath was real easy all through."

"That was the best sermon I ever heard," said master Harry. "I think he is just the greatest preacher that ever lived. I know his text; it was 'God is love.'"

"Some texts are easier to remember than others," said Uncle Charlie, "because we understand them better. 

Then there are some texts you can see, and those are the easiest to remember of all."

"How can you see a text, Uncle Charlie?" cried both the children at once.

"I will show you one," he answered, which was preached upon by the greatest of all preachers eighteen hundred years ago, in a land far away from this."

"It must have been Jesus," said Julie, softly; "but I did not know that he preached sermons with texts to them, like the ministers."

"Look around you now, Julie," said her uncle, "and tell me if you do not see the text of one of our Saviour's sermons."

They were in the garden, and close by them was a lovely bed of "lilies of the valley." The spikes were bending over, laden with pure blossoms. Uncle Charlie raised one of the drooping sprays and pointed to the pure white petals and the delicate stamens within.

"Oh, I remember," said Julie, looking up into his face. "Jesus said, 'Consider the lilies of the field.' Was that a text? I never thought of that." 

"The lily was the text," said her uncle. " Now think what the sermon was; even the little children around could understand."

Julie thought a moment, and then repeated, "'They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"'

"That was a very short sermon, uncle," said Harry; "anybody could remember that."

"That was a very long sermon to come from one text, Harry; for the lilies have been preaching it ever since. All these hundreds of years the lilies white, red, and yellow have been calling upon us to consider their beauty and remember how God cares for them, and how much more he cares for us. Every time one of God's children sees a lily, he has before his eye the same text from which Jesus taught that beautiful lesson, and his heart must go up in love and trustfulness to him."

"I like the lilies better than ever, Uncle Charlie," said Julie. "It is nice to think that Jesus liked to look at them."

"He told us to consider them, to think about them and admire their beauty, and then, when our hearts are full of their loveliness, to remember that they were made by the hand of our Father. Is it not pleasant to say, 

'My father made them all'?"

Then while the children listened and looked, Uncle Charlie showed them the different parts of the flowers, and explained to them the use of each, that they might see how much care God bestows upon even a frail flower. He showed them, too, how coarse the finest silk is beside the delicate texture of a lily's dress, so that even King Solomon, in his richest robes, could have nothing so beautiful as that in which God clothes the flowers of the field. Then he bade them remember that it was Jesus himself who told them that his Father's care for us was far, far greater than for these.

Aunt Nellie had joined them in the garden as they stood by the lilies; and now, as she held Julie's hand, she said, softly, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?" 



S. S. Visitor.