Such are the rewards of industry. How strange is it, that any persons
should be willing to live in idleness, when it will certainly make
them, unhappy! The idle boy is almost invariably poor and miserable;
the industrious boy is happy and prospered.
But perhaps some child who reads this, asks, "Does God notice little
children in school?" He certainly does. And if you are not diligent
in the improvement of your time, it is one of the surest of evidences
that your heart is not right with God. You are placed in this world
to improve your time. In youth you must be preparing for future
usefulness. And if you do not improve the advantages you enjoy, you
sin against your Maker.
"With books, or work, or healthful play,
Let your first years be past,
That you may give, for every day,
Some good account at last."
One of the petitions in the Lord's prayer is, "forgive us our debts as
we forgive our debtors." We do thus pray that God will exercise the
same kind of forgiveness towards us, which we exercise towards
others. Consequently, if we are unforgiving or revengeful, we pray
that God will treat us in the same way when we appear before him in
judgment. Thus God teaches the necessity of cultivating a forbearing
and a forgiving spirit. We must do this or we cannot be Christians.
When I was a boy, there was another little boy who went to the same
school with me, who was a professed Christian.
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