John Adams

“ What is the explanation of these inimitable architectural powers? "Without thought or even the organ of thought, the bee can produce work which embodies thought." But to whom does this thought belong? Can there be thought without a thinker? Can there be the marks of intelligence without an original and creative mind? No! at the building up of a bee-cell, just as at the framing of a world, the thoughtful soul is face to face with Him whose mind is stamped on every part of creation—with Him who is the great and faithful Creator, whose tender mercies are over all His works. ”

“ But to the swallow no land is strange. The whole earth is its fatherland. And while it does wander to and fro over land and sea, it always observes its appointed seasons. All its wandering is guided by a purpose. Its freedom is regulated by unfailing instinct. It may speed its flight to far distant climes, but it comes back to the same nest. This is the law of its migration; and in obedience to it, the swallows appear in April and disappear in October with all the regularity of the seasons or the ebb and flow of the tide. ”

“ It has grown for itself a pair of wings—not a mere parachute like that of the flying squirrels or the flying fish, but a real pair of wings which enable it to laugh to scorn all the flying machines and balloons ever invented by man. How clumsy all these inventions are in comparison with a bat's wing. Four of its fingers are drawn out like the ribs of an umbrella, and then covered over with its own skin like the web of a duck's foot; and thus furnished with the necessary means of competing with the birds, it sails out like the swallow in pursuit of its prey. ”

“ It is glorious to have a lion's strength, but it is inglorious to use it like a lion. When this is not attended to, heroism degenerates into big-boned animalism, and courage into selfishness and ferocity. What might have been the glory of our expanding manhood and a tower of defence to the weak and defenceless becomes the Titanian arrogance of the bully and the senseless boast of the braggart. This is to imitate the lion in a bad sense, and "I'd rather be a dog and bay the moon than such a Roman." ”

“ We cannot, then, go back to the point from which we started, and say that the bee can only be regarded as a savage and dangerous annoyance. It fills a very important place in the economy of nature. As the maker of wax it is the prince of mathematicians; as the gatherer of honey it is the bringer of many choice blessings; and as the collector and distributer of pollen it is at once a sagacious nurse, and one who dispenses a harvest, "sowing the To-be." Well may we sit at its hive and learn wisdom. ”

“ Its sphere of usefulness is as striking and suggestive as the wondrous delicacy of its form and structure, and they both point us to the Great Creator whose greatness and goodness are manifested through all His works—
"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall." And if the boy be the father of the man, we may justly emphasise another lesson—that the law of kindness ought to rule in the least as well as in the greatest—that he who begins by torturing a fly may end with something far more solemn—a human heart. ”

“ They cannot fight with the lion, and they don't try. They run from the least appearance of evil, and so ought we. It is often one-half, and sometimes the whole, of the victory to know our own weakness. Discretion is always the better part of valour.
How many there are who have not this wisdom of the coney! They are feeble as he is, and yet they do not pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." They cannot turn aside the fiery darts of the evil one, and yet they carelessly play into his hands by dallying with that which is not good. ”

“ Let no one say that the swarms of flies bring the cholera and the fever. They are the camp-followers who tread on the heels of those dreaded foes, and they feed upon and do their best to remove the foulsome odours. We need not grudge the spider his savoury morsel, but it will be a dark hour for the earth if he should gain the mastery. If he should prove too much for the fly, we shall be left to the miasmas and pestilences from which the presence of the fly relieves us. ”

“ The coney knows what every good tradesman knows, that sharp tools are the secret of all high-class work. No boy ever cut his finger with a sharp knife, but always with a blunt one. And what a sharp knife is to the finger, a sensitive conscience is to the life. If the heart be kept true and tender, and the mind alert and keen, the conscience will never sting and lacerate the soul. It is only the wicked who flee when no man pursueth, and whose conscience is like the worm that never dies. ”

“ By-and-by the poor boy died from smallpox, and the bear, utterly disconsolate, henceforth refused all food, and soon followed its little protégé to the grave.
But the bear is kind—effusively kind, even to its enemies. In the manner of its attack it does not fell them to the ground with one blow of its paw like the lion, nor seize them with its teeth like the dog. It hugs them. It embraces them with its powerful fore-limbs with a great: show of affection, and continues the squeeze so long that the poor wretched victims are suffocated. ”

“ Every lad in going forward to the work of his life should set up a high ideal. In all that he does he ought to aim at perfection. Like the spider's web, his work, whatever it is, should be a bit of himself—steeped in his own thought and shaped by his own effort. He may only be a weaver, but he must aspire to be a good one—one who plans as well as labours, and reads as well as plans. ”

“ The secret is love. That is the new commandment He writes upon the heart, and then the yoke He lays upon the neck is fur-lined—it is easy; and the burdens given us to bear are not grievous, they are light. No service can compare with His service. Any pleasure that would make us think lightly of His love is not pleasure, but wanton folly; and any liberty that would tempt us away from His yoke is not liberty but license. Therefore let every young heart learn this second lesson from the example of the ass's colt, that wildness must be tamed into usefulness. ”

“ And the lesson drawn by the preacher is sufficiently telling, "So doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom." The man himself is the ointment, his reputation is the perfume, the little folly is the dead fly, and his disgrace is the stinking savour. ”

“ If one could sow his wild oats and then run away and leave them, it wouldn't so much matter; but alas! a reaping-time is sure to be treading on the heels of the sowing. And as no one ever yet gathered grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, it will not do for any of you young people to expect to gather fruit where you have only sown weeds. No, no, this is a kind of wildness which ought not to be tolerated. This is a piece of folly which must either be tamed or punished. ”

“ Pleasure is never to be taken as the touchstone of duty, but duty as the touchstone of pleasure.
It is this that gives the evangel of Jesus its inestimable value. He can tame our wildness into usefulness, and make duty itself our pleasure. He can teach us the secret of His own example, and then all work is a joy, every duty is an inspiration. ”

“ For the bat is not able, like the swallow, to migrate to a warmer clime when the supply of insect food begins to fail. It must find another way of spending the long months of the winter. It must pass into a deep death-like slumber, from which it is awakened, as the flowers in spring are awakened, by the returning life of the summer. ”

“ But if there be one thing more than any other that throws the bear into an ecstasy of excitement it is the prospect of a feast of honey. A nest of ants is nothing in comparison. The long nose is thrust into the delicious comb, though it be stung and stung again by the infuriated inhabitants. ”

“ Of course, there is wildness and wildness. If boys are merely running over with fresh animal spirits, like the young lambs trying to jump over their mother's head, we cannot think there is any great harm in their mirth. It is thus that lungs are exercised and limbs made strong, and the whole body and mind kept healthy and happy. Black care, alas! will leap into the saddle behind them soon enough. And therefore, while the days of youth last, let all the young people run and jump like the wild ass's colt. Buoyancy of fresh young life is not to be regarded as exuberance in sin. ”

“ But the ants have no king or queen. There is no royal personage in their nest. They are rather to be regarded as staunch republicans, who carry on their labours without any "ruler," guided simply by that unerring instinct which imitates the actings of reason. The silly sheep may require a shepherd to take care of them, but the sagacious ants can take care of themselves.
And all boys who are worth their salt must try to learn the same lesson. They must learn to strike out a path for themselves, and not be content to eat the bread of idleness. ”

“ But in any form the thought is a solemn one, forcing even the Psalmist to wail, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." The fountain of the life is polluted, as well as the streams—"Her young ones also suck up blood."
But this is not the only way in which the eagle influences her young. Allusion is frequently made to the way in which she supports them in their first essays at flight. When the tired fledgeling begins to flutter downwards, she is said to fly beneath it, and present her back and wings for its support. ”

“ Even in its death the fly renders a most substantial service. It forms the food of innumerable song-birds, which, apart from the fly, would never be found in our land at all. How dull and lifeless would the months of the summer be without the swallow, the willow-warbler, and the fly-catcher. ”

“ The blackest locks will yet whiten with the frosts of age, for lustre, youth, and virility will all alike perish. But this change is only the outward symbol of what ought to be an inward, spiritual fact. If the locks whiten, so ought the conscience, the soul, the heart. As youth passes into manhood and manhood into age, the man within should "aye be gettin' whiter"; until when the locks have grown grey in the service of righteousness, the children may "rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Lev. xix. 32) . ”

“ And the children will remember that the ten plagues which fell upon Egypt included "swarms of flies" in all the houses of the Egyptians. These little insects were used as the scourges of mankind to wreak the vengeance of a broken law on the heads of the transgressors. And especially is this the case with the law of cleanliness. The one sin that the fly will not tolerate is the sin of laziness and dirt. Wheresoever the filth is, there will the flies be gathered together. Those who despise this first law of their being will not offend with impunity ”

“ The sin, the sacrifice, the feast. The golden calf, the slain calf, the fatted calf. The first is ours, the second is Christ's, and the third is designed for both. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." Nay, Jesus Himself is both sacrifice and feast. He could turn to the Jews and say, "Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life." "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." ”

“ I.—THE WISDOM OF WORK.
If it be the hand of the diligent that maketh rich, the ants deserve to flourish; for there are few sluggards in their nest. The great mass of the teeming population is called "the workers." There may be a few males and females in each community dressed in four beautiful gauze wings, and no doubt regarding themselves as very superior members of the society—the veritable aristocracy of ant life—but they never touch the work with one of their little fingers. ”

“ And it is to this Saviour that all you young people must look. "Neither is there salvation in any other: there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Looking unto Jesus, loving Him, and resting on Him—that is the way we enter into life. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
This is the second lesson we learn from the Bible imagery of the calf. Sin is followed by sacrifice. The molten calf gives place to the calf that was slain. ”

“ Were we in search of design in nature, or an illustration of the wonders of the microscope, no better example could be suggested to us than the form and structure of a fly. Its tiny body is even more wonderful than the body of a man. ”

“ In this passage from the Book of Proverbs, Solomon advises the sluggard to go back to school that he may learn wisdom, for his folly is quite equal to his idleness. He is too lazy to drive in a nail, and as the old jingling rhyme has it, "For want of a nail a shoe came off, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a man was lost, for want of a man a battle was lost, and for loss of a battle a kingdom was lost." Because of the sluggard's first idleness in refusing to drive in the nail the whole kingdom comes down about his ears. ”

“ So that Carlyle was well within the mark when he wrote: "Thought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it not the daughter of pain?" Yes, every thorn may be a blessing in disguise. Every pain may become a pearl.
There is one gem in the character of Jesus that all you young people would do well to imitate. I mean the pearl of obedience. Though He knew that God was His Father, and the temple was His Father's house, He went down to Nazareth with Joseph and Mary, and was "subject unto them." That was the keynote of His life. To obey was better than sacrifice ”

“ It is quite evident that when Æsop wrote this fable, he was not sure what to call the bat—whether to describe it as a bird because it had wings, or to place it among the beasts because it had fur. But what then is the tiny creature? A mammal, of course. A whale is not a fish because it swims in the sea, and the bat is not a bird because it flies in the air. They both suckle their young, and therefore are true mammals. Nay, Linnæus has actually placed the bat in the highest order of the mammals—in that of the primates beside the monkey and the man. ”

“ Are you in loving subjection to your parents on earth, and are you learning to be in subjection to your Father in heaven? That can only be obtained in one way—the way Jesus won it—the way of self-sacrifice and self-denial. Every pearl is the product of a pain. ”

“ The disciples of Jesus are here told not to talk too freely of their spiritual enjoyments before men of debased tastes. Religion is brought into contempt, and its professors insulted, when it is forced upon those who cannot value it and will not have it. "Throw a pearl to a swine," says Matthew Henry, "and he will resent it, as if you threw a stone at him; reproofs will be called reproaches." Such men cannot appreciate the jewels of Christianity, and like swine, which prefer peas to pearls, they will trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. ”