Selected Gems | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 31, 1884

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 5

Selected Gems.

BUTTERFLIES are merry things, Gaily painted are their wings, And they never carry stings. Bees are grave and busy things, Gold their jackets, brown their wings. And they always carry stings. Yet—isn’t it extremely funny?— Bees, not butterflies, make honey.

A HARD, cold heart is created by forcing back into it all the loving thoughts and words which spring to life therein; instead of having a nature full of them, they turn to stone. By giving expression to tender feelings, one seems to soften the soil of the heart, and charitable impulses thrive and increase the more.

IT IS a great deal better to lead a holy life than to talk about it. We are told to let our light shine; and if it does we shall not need to talk about it so much—the light will be its own best witness. Lamps do not talk, but they do shine. A light-house beats no drum, sounds no gong; yet far out over the waters its friendly light gleams, and the watching, eager eye of the mariner catches it, and by it guides his vessel safely into the haven.

A PROFESSOR in one of our seminaries felt embarrassed when he was called on to pray in chapel, and went to the principal to be excused. The principal said: “Practice in private, brother, practice in private. That is the secret of it.” David practiced in private when he killed the bear and the lion, then at his first appearing in public he killed Goliath. Those who are strong before men, first become valiant, like Gideon, before the Lord.

IT is vain to think of cultivating principles of generosity and beneficence by mere exhortation and reasoning; nothing but the practical habit of overcoming our own selfishness, and familiarly encountering privations and discomforts on account of others will ever enable us to do it when required. Indulgence infallibly produces selfishness and hardness of heart, and nothing but severe discipline can lay the foundation of a magnanimous character.

REV. DR. CUYLER says: “Disagreeable Sabbaths sift churches as honestly as the test of lapping water sifted the ten thousand troops under Gideon. Those who really want to get to God’s house on a wet or wintry Sabbath usually get there. For one, I honestly confess that all the trash of the skeptics, from Renan down to Ingersoll, does not inspire such misgivings for Christianity as are awakened by the spectacle of delinquent Christians in unfavorable weather.”

THE straightest and the simplest way is the best way. If you have a rebuke to administer, do it directly; use great plainness of speech; whether it be to your child, your servant, your clerk, or your congregation. If you have an estranged friend to reconcile, do no beating about the bush; go to him directly and tell him his fault or acknowledge your own. If you entertain a suspicion, judge not till you have been to the suspected party and heard his defense. If you have an end to accomplish, go about it in a straightforward, manly fashion.

GOD does not ask us to help him paint the glowing colors of the sunset, but he does expect us to help touch with gold and rosy tints the declining days of those around us; does not bid us shower dew-drops on grass or flower, but has bidden us let the gentle dew of sympathy freshen the sorrowful lives which touch ours. The opportunity unheeded slips from us never to return. “I expect to pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, for any fellow-being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”—S. S. Times.

MY OWN BROTHER.—“Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” Matt. 12:50. A traveler having asked the governor of Khaifa to furnish him with a good guide, received the polite reply, “I will give you my own brother.” “That, thought I, was too much, and I told my servant to intimate this to the governor. But the lad quietly remarked, that the expression, ‘my own brother,’ was not to be understood so literally, inasmuch as it was a mere Arab form of speech, meaning, in this case, ‘some one in whom I should place as much confidence as in my own brother.’ Such is the figurative mode of Eastern speech, that it requires much habit before a European can readily catch the precise value of many expressions; but the natives understand it at once.

GRASS FOR FUEL.—“If God so clothe the grass of the field which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.” Matt. 6:30. The grass in most Eastern countries grows very high and strong. A traveler in Syria reports having seen it three or four feet in height. It is never gathered for hay; instead of which corn-straw is used when necessary. When the grass, therefore, has ripened, it becomes quite dry in the field during the scorching heat of summer, so that it is quite ready for burning. In this state it is often gathered to heat ovens, and our Saviour’s observation that it is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, was a literal statement of fact well understood by his hearers.

ABOUT the hardest of all graces is that of bridling one’s tongue; and success in it is an excellent test of Christian character. The one who does not do it can hardly be a Christian. James says his religion is vain.