Charlie had a bad habit, which he did not give up in spite of repeated warnings. He had been often forbidden to accompany some boys home from school, whose bad conduct was exercising a bad influence on him. These warnings Charlie did not heed.
He delighted himself more and more at the unseemly tricks and bad talk of his evil companions and cared little about his father’s command, and the warning word of Scripture,
“Evil communications corrupt good manners.” 1 Cor. 15:3333Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. (1 Corinthians 15:33). I need not say that his conduct pained his father very much.
One afternoon, Charlie had been again disobedient; it was shortly before the fruit-gathering. His father did not punish him this time as he had always done before, but sent him into the garden to pick three of the best apples he could find. That was pleasant work for Charlie, and he did it with the greatest readiness. In a few minutes he returned with three large rosy-cheeked apples.
“Lay them on the table,” said the father; “and now go and bring the worst apple you can find.”
Charlie ran into the garden again and returned with a bad apple. He was curious to know what his father meant to do.
“Now, lay all the apples together on a plate, the bad and the good and lay it aside in the cupboard.”
“But, father,” cried Charlie surprised, “the bad one will spoil the rest!” The thought of such beautiful fruit becoming spoiled, was highly displeasing to him.
“Do what I have said, my boy,” said his father. Charlie obeyed. Sometime after, when Charlie had quite forgotten the incident, his father told him to bring the apples out. He brought them. But what a sad spectacle the plate presented; as the boy had thought, so it happened. All the apples were rotten. The three rosy-cheeked, beautiful apples, that Charlie had picked himself were scarcely recognizable. He was just about to say, “I told you how it would be,” when his father prevented him, and in a few serious words showed what he meant to teach him through this little experience.
“You see”, he said, “that the bad apple placed with the good ones, first affects them, and then completely destroys them. The three good ones were not able to make the bad one good, but the one had apple has spoiled the three good.
Now, if one bad apple has such an effect on many good ones, what do you think will be the result of the company of many bad boys on my son?”
Charlie looked at the ground ashamed, and answered nothing. His father continued to earnestly press upon him in a gracious way the cause of his disobedience. He showed him that there was sin dwelling in him; which made him love the company of bad boys. Then he told him of a child, who never had sin in Him.
“Such a Child, the world only saw once He was a Holy Child.”
My young friends have doubtless already guessed Who he meant. He spoke of Jesus, the beloved Son of God who out of love to sinners, great and small left the glory of heaven, and became a man so that He might be able to go into judgment and death instead of us.
Finally the father read to him some texts, treating on the love of God and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, among which were the beautiful words;
Charlie listened attentively to the words of his father, and as I heard later, they had such an effect on him, that he had no more rest, till he was assured that the precious blood of Jesus had washed all his sins away. From that time onward he became an obedient boy. He did not seek any more the company of his former friends.
The lesson which his father had taught him by means of the apple, and which had been so blessed to him, he never forgot.
ML 04/12/1936