Part 25

It was by means of the flower, too, that at last the prison doors were opened, and a message came to tell him that Napoleon had given him leave to go home.

It would take too long to tell this part of the story, but you will not be surprised to hear that, like the African traveller, he could not bear to part with his cherished flower. He carefully dug it out from between the stones, carried it home with him, and never forgot the simple but great lesson which he had learned while in prison.

We have been able to say very little about the "green earth," and the wonders of the work of God on the THIRD DAY of Creation, but perhaps you will understand something of what a student of nature meant when he wrote, "The earth may be looked at as a vast seed-plot of life, seen from the point of view of the Great Sower."

I think you will like these verses which were repeated to me by an old friend who remembered having learnt them from his mother's lips, long ago. They seem just fit to close our chapter about the earth in its verdure and beauty.

"All the world's a garden, God hath made it fair; Living trees and flowers He hath planted there. Rain and sunshine giving, All His goodness prove; There is nothing living But has felt His love.

"Every home's a garden, Clustering side by side, Each to others yielding, Flow'rets should abide. Word or thought of anger Ne'er should enter there; Buds of loving kindness Opening everywhere.

"Every school's a garden, Hedged and fenced around; Nothing vile or useless Should within, be found. Teachers are the gardeners, Sowing precious seed, Training up the tender plants, Plucking every weed.

"Every heart's a garden; It should bring forth fruit; But foul weeds and briars In its soil have root. Envy, wrath, and hatred, Malice, strife, and pride, Lies and disobedience, And many more beside.

"Cast them out, I pray, Lord, And supply in place Gentleness and goodness, Lovely plants and grace; Patience and longsuffering, Faith and hope and love-- These will bear transplanting To the world above."

THE FOURTH DAY.

SUN, MOON, AND STARS.

"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained: what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"--PSALM viii. 3, 4.

"The day is Thine, the night also is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun.... Thou hast made summer and winter."--PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."--ECCLESIASTES xi. 7.

"One star differeth from another star in glory."--1 CORIN. xv. 41.

When we had got as far in our reading of the first chapter of Genesis as the fourteenth verse, we noticed that it is very like the third; for both verses begin with those wonderful words which none but God could say--"Let there be."

But there is a great difference between the "light" of the third verse and the "lights" of verses fourteen and sixteen. The sun is called "the greater light," and the moon, which is so very much smaller, "the lesser light"; but in the language in which this part of the Bible was first written, these two lamps which give us light are called by a name which means, not the light itself, but that which holds it; not, as we might say, the candle which gives light as it burns but the candlestick in which it is set.

Let us read again carefully what God has told us about His work on the FOURTH DAY, and I think we shall see, as we noticed in the chapter on "Light," that we are not told that it was upon that Day that the sun and moon were created.

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also."

You remember that in the whole of this chapter which speaks of God's work in creation, the word "created" is used only on three occasions, though in the verse which tells of the creation of man, it is three times repeated (verse 27). And now I want you to turn to the hundred and fourth Psalm, and notice the verses which speak of the Days of Creation: you will see that light is spoken of in the second verse, and in the nineteenth we read--

"He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down."

Those who know the Hebrew language tell us that the word "appointed" in this verse is the very same as that which has been translated "made" in the sixteenth verse of the first chapter of Genesis--so that we may read, "God appointed two great lights," just as in the eighth Psalm we read, "The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained."

We have seen that God could give light without the sun or moon;--an old writer quaintly says that before the sun was made "the whole heaven was our sun"--but He was pleased upon this Day of His creation to command the light, which He had called out of the darkness, to gather round the sun, so that he might, as the great light-bearer in all his splendour "rule the day"; and to cause light from that glorious sun to fall upon the moon, so that she, with her silvery shining, might "rule the night"--both sun and moon thus giving "light upon the earth."

May is fond of repeating a verse, which I daresay you know, about a little girl who, when it was too dark for her to see any more, folded up her work and put away her playthings with a "good-night, good-night" to them; for the time for working and playing had come to an end. "But," the verse goes on--

"She did not say to the sun 'good-night,' Though she saw him set like a ball of light; For she knew he had God's time to keep All over the world, while others sleep."

Yes; this wonderful "ball of light"--so bright that the brightest light we know of looks dull when held up before its dazzling face--is ever, night and day, sending out rays of light and heat, like streams from an overflowing fountain, always making daylight somewhere. When you lie down in your bed, and settle yourself to sleep sound till morning, your little cousins in Australia and New Zealand are just beginning to sit up in theirs, and to rub their eyes, and think it will soon be breakfast time; and in the evening, when their day is done, yours will be just beginning again.

If there were any part of the world upon which the sun never shone, how cold and dark and desolate that forsaken spot would be! If no waves of heat warmed the earth, not a seed could spring up; no plant could live, no tree bear fruit, no flower lift up its head to the kindly light and show its fair colours; for do you not remember we learnt that the colours of flowers all come from the sunlight? Without the sun, the green earth would be changed into a frozen desert, with nothing living or moving upon it.

In old times the clever Greeks, who knew nothing of the God who made this wonderful star--for the sun is really a star, and the thousands of stars which we see on clear nights are suns, some larger and some smaller than our sun--worshipped it as the god Helios; and the Grecian philosopher who first ventured to say it was not so was tried for his life at Athens for his impiety; yet even he saw nothing in this wonderful light-bearer but a red-hot stone, half as big as his own country. If you have learnt better, if you know that "to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him," you can think how good that gracious God has been in not leaving the world in the dark and cold, but giving this great light to shine upon us, and to cheer us by his warmth. For though the sun is so very far away, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof"; every little leaf, every tiny creature that creeps upon the ground, lives and grows in the life-giving rays of the sun, and would perish without them. Have you ever stopped to think of what is more wonderful than this?