An old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all
soiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and
went for the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back to
consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got back on his feet. What do
you think he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He
climbed the ladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered
up his tools, put them into his basket, took them down, and when
he got to the ground again fainted dead away.
Just then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously
wrong, and carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some
time. I am glad to say he got better.
What was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty.
He was not thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master.
First, the Kingdom of God.
But there is another arithmetic word. What is it? "Added."
You know the difference between ADDITION and SUBTRACTION. Now,
that is
A very important difference
in religion, because--and it is a very strange thing--very few
people know the difference when they begin to talk about religion.
They often tell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of God, everything
else is going to be SUBTRACTED from them. They tell them that they
are going to become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything
that makes a boy's life worth living--that they will have to stop
baseball and story-books, and become little old men, and spend all
their time in going to meetings and in singing hymns.
Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that.
Christ said we are to "Seek first the Kingdom of God," and
Everything else worth having
is to be ADDED unto us. If there is anything I would like you to
remember, it is these two arithmetic words--"first" and "added."
I do not mean by "added" that if you become religious you are all
going to become RICH. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the
shop tomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well,
nobody has missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to
burn a hole there. by breakfast time he wishes that money were
in his master's pocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He
says (to HIMSELF, and not to his master), "I was at the Boys' Brigade
yesterday and I was told to seek FIRST that which was right." Then
he says to his master:
"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor."
The master puts it in the till. What has the boy got in his pocket?
Nothing; BUT HE HAS GOT THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN HIS HEART. He has
laid up treasure in heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than
the quarter.
Now, that boy does not find a dollar on his way home. I have known
that to happen, but that is not what is meant by "adding." It does
not mean that God is going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays
in better coin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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