We may receive much benefit from simply reading the Lesson-Sermons, but a time will come to each when he must not only read but study them, and then practise each lesson as it is learned.
I was teaching a small country school in a foreign settlement, and one morning, a little girl presented me with two needles. I folded a handkerchief in which I placed the needles, then carefully put them into my apron pocket. It was a rainy day, and the children were playing in the schoolhouse. Some of them were standing in the aisle, and as I wished to put some work on the blackboard, I passed through the group of children. In a few moments I was interrupted in my work by a child saying, "Look here, teacher, see what you did!" I looked, and saw an ugly red scratch the full length of her index finger. In my astonishment I told her that she must be mistaken, that I could not have done it, but she insisted that she was not mistaken, although she did not know exactly how it had occurred. Upon investigation I found a needle extending almost full length from my apron pocket. I apologized to her and resumed my work, while this line of thought suggested itself:—
Those needles were dangerous, nevertheless, I had, as I thought, carefully put them away, yet that innocent child had been injured by one of them. Now, if any one were to impart to me some malicious gossip to which I made no reply, yet carefully put it away for safe-keeping, might not the report creep out, just as the needle did, and cause trouble for others, — perhaps make a wound not so easy to heal as the one to which the child had called my attention? In such case should I not disobey the great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might"? How could I serve Him with all my mind and" keep a part of it open to malicious reports? This would surely add another wrong thought to the universal error, and rob myself and others of the true sense of man as the image and likeness of God. And what would be the result of this robbing? The eighth commandment says, "Thou shalt not steal." Jesus also said if we break any part of the law we have broken the whole law. Our text-book says, "If living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no security, although God is good and man is repentant" (Science and Health, p. 19).
