WHAT GOD GIVES A BOY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 23, 1896

WHAT GOD GIVES A BOY.

A BODY to live in and keep clean and healthy, and as a dwelling for his mind and a temple for his soul.

A pair of hands to use for himself and others, but never against others for himself.

A pair of feet to do errands of love and kindness and charity and business, but not to loiter in places of mischief or temptation or sin.

A pair of lips to keep pure and unpolluted by tobacco or whisky, and to speak true, kind, brave words, but not to make a smoke-stack of or a swill trough.

A pair of ears to hear the music of bird and tree and rill and human voice, but not to give heed to what the serpent says or to what dishonors God or his mother.

A pair of eyes to see the beautiful, the good, and the true—God’s finger prints in the flower and field and snowflake—but not to feast on unclean pictures or the blotches which Satan daubs and calls pleasure.

A mind to remember and reason and decide and store up wisdom and impart it to others, but not to be turned into a chip basket or rubbish heap for the chaff and the rubbish and sweepings of the world’s stale wit.

A soul to receive impressions of good and to develop faculties and powers and virtues which shall shape it day by day, as the artist’s chisel shapes the stone, into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.—Morning Guide.