1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



717 



Every girl or boy, under 15 years of 

 age, who writes a letter for this depart- 

 ment, CONTAINING SOME VALUABLE lACT, 

 NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, ON BEES O ■ OTHER 

 MATTERS, will receive one of David Cook's 

 excellent flve-cent Sunday-school books. 

 Many of these books contain the same 

 matter that you find in Sunday-school 

 books costing from Sl.OO to S1..50. If you 

 have had one or more books, give us the 

 names that we may not send the same 

 twice. We have now in stock, six different 

 books, as follows: Silver Keys, Sheer Oft, 

 The Giant Killer, The Roby Family, Res- 

 cued from Egypt, and Ten Nights in a Bar- 

 Room. 



" A chiel's amang j'e, takin' notes; 

 An' faith, he'll preut it." 



f PRESUME, children, you all go to Sun- 

 day-school. If you do not, I wish you 

 — ■ would commence right off next Sunday. 

 If you have any confidence in my judgment 

 or wisdom, please listen to me in this ; and, 

 by the way, it does not make any difference 

 how old you are. Of course, if you are 

 'grown up it would hardly be proper to call 

 you children ; though in one sense we are 

 children, all of us, or ought to be. Well, 

 now, I hope you all go to Sunday-school, 

 both old and young ; and if you do not, I am 

 sure that nothing in this world will contrib- 

 ute more to your happiness eventually, than 

 a constant and regular attendance at the 

 Sabbath-school nearest you. If there is not 

 any near you, by all means start one. Even 

 if you can not have more than two families, 

 have a Sunday-school of those two families, 

 and then get as many more as can be found. 

 So much for Sunday-schools. 



Now, in our lessons for some time past we 

 have had a great deal about Samuel. Samu- 

 el was a good boy, you know; and, by the 

 way, I believe all boys are good when they 

 are small. Nothing tickles little Peter so 

 much as to call him "dood boy," and he al- 

 most always deserves it too. All along through 

 these lessons about Samuel you will notice 

 how intimately acquainted he seemed to be 

 with God. He talks to God in prayer, and 

 God in those times used to answer back in 

 words. God would say, " Thus say unto the 

 people," and then when Samuel spoke to 

 them he would say, " Thus saith the Lord." 



Well, there is one thing that struck me as 

 remarkable about Samuel. He seemed to 

 be always in a line with God's work. God 

 was working for the salvation of the children 

 of Israel, and so was Samuel, just as you 

 and I are working to save the bad boys and 

 men all around near our homes. You see, 

 Samuel's whole end and aim in life seemed 

 to be for the saving of mankind, or his little 

 flock. Just remember his constant and un- 

 tiring exhortations to them to leave off wick- 

 edness, and do right. He says it over and 



over so many times that it gets to sound al- 

 most monotonous. But Samuel knew, doubt- 

 less, that it needed line upon line and pre- 

 cept upon precept, just exactly as we need 

 the same nowadays. We do not anywhere 

 tind that Samuel had any other plan or pur- 

 pose. He might have got rich, but he did 

 not care a cent about riches. He might have 

 got to be king, but he did not want to be 

 king. He was not an office-seeker in any 

 respect. He simply wanted the people to be 

 good. We know that God loved him, be- 

 cause God honored him. In our lesson we 

 are told that Samuel, after one of these ear- 

 nest exhortations, said to the people, "Now 

 therefore stand and see this great thing, 

 which the Lord will do before your eyes." 

 Of course, the people looked, and wondered 

 what was coming ; and then Samuel told 

 them (to prove to them that he was right, 

 and that God would really do as he said), he 

 was going to call on God to make thunder 

 and rain ; and this was right in the dry time 

 of the year, when they never had rain. Do 

 you think that Samuel was in any way afraid 

 it would not work V Not a bit of it. My lit- 

 tle friends, he was just as sure the thunder 

 would come promptly, as you are sure the 

 sun will rise to-morrow morning ; and when 

 it did thunder awfully he was not a bit sur- 

 prised nor frightened. God and Samuel 

 were almost one. You see, he and his Fath- 

 er in heaven were in such relationship that 

 the thought of one was that of the other ; 

 and Samuel had no thought in his mind that 

 was not in a line with God's thoughts and 

 God's wishes. 



Now, I wonder if it has occurred to you 

 while I have been talking, that Samuel stood 

 almost where Jesus did many years after- 

 ward, like father and son. Is it not true, 

 children, that the life of poor old Samuel 

 was in many respects almost a type of Jesus 

 our Savior V We have a beautiful little 

 hymn in one of our Sunday-school books 

 that brings out this thought so strikingly 

 that I wish you could all hear it sung. I can 

 give you tlie words to-day, but I can not 

 very well give you the music ; but I hope to 

 be able to before very long. May be you 

 can sing it to some tune you know. And 

 when you read it, please to just remember 

 this sentence in the middle verse : " I and 

 my Father, purpose have one." 



Oh to be like him, tender and kind: 

 Gentle in spirit, lowly in mind; 

 More like to Jesus day after day. 

 Filled with his spirit now and alway. 

 Chorus.— Yes, to be like him we must abide 



Near to our Savior, close by his side. 

 Oh to be like him! quick to obey. 

 Childlike and truthful, ready to say, 

 " I and my Father, purpose have one; 

 Thine, liot my will, ever be done." 

 Oh to be like him !— tempted in vain. 

 Dwelling with sinners, yet without stain; 

 Giving our life-AVork sinners to save, 

 triumphing over death and the grave. 



These words, which we take the liberty of 

 copying from Sweney and Kirkpatrick's 

 " Wells of Salvation," can be sung to No. 16 

 of " Gospel Hymns." 



Pa has 7 swarms of bees. He didn't get very 

 much honey this year. My sister and mother were 

 out feeding the bees one morning, and a bee stung 

 mamma on the arm. Kate Dotterrer. 



Uoss Run, Pa., Oct. 3.J, 1883. 



