WAS staying a little while ago at a seaside place, where there were rows and rows of houses, each with a piece of ground belonging to it. That was not anything out of the way, was it, children? I dare say you have, every one, seen the same thing ever so often, even in your short lives; but I don’t expect any of you have thought what I thought about those houses and their little gardens. Shall you like to hear what they made me think of? Why, of the rows and rows of little boys, who sit before me every Sunday evening, when I am at home, while I talk to them about Jesus. What I thought of is just as true of girls as of boys, and, therefore, is just as true of you, little reader, whether you are a boy or a girl.
Picture to yourself a whole row of little lads, or lassies, standing side by side like a row of houses, one a bit taller than another perhaps, or rather older, or a little neater, still like a row of houses their small bodies stand, looking at you out of the windows of their blue or brown eyes. They will not stand steady for long, I know well, so let me say at once what I have to say about the gardens.
Well, if the house is like the body that God has given you to dwell in, the garden seems to me to be a figure of that precious soul with which He has trusted you, and which you are responsible to cultivate in such a way as to give Him pleasure, and to bring Him glory. And I want to ask you today, dear little ones, in the words of the old nursery rhyme, “How does your garden grow?”
There was a great difference among the gardens that I could see from my window, and I wonder which of them is most like the garden of your soul. One of them made me sad every time I looked at it; it was just a mass of weeds, nettles, thistles, and such like; here and there a bright poppy or a large white daisy made me think how gladly flowers would have grown there, if they had not been choked by the brambles and weeds that had got full possession of the ground.
Ah! it was a neglected garden! Is yours a neglected soul? Just a soul left to grow anything, unchecked by its owner—bad thoughts, bad tempers, bad words and ways? Now and then, perhaps, there is a little kindly act, or a better impulse, like the bright poppy among the brambles, but nothing grown with care for the eye of the Great Husbandman, who comes seeking fruit and finding none.
The wise King Solomon knew a great deal about gardens, and he describes one exactly like this in Proverbs.
“I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man” (ch. 24:30-34).
You see, he tells us it was laziness which made that man neglect his vineyard, and perhaps it is just that which makes you neglect your soul. You think you are going to attend to it “some day,” and the devil lets you think so, as you take “a little sleep” or “a little slumber,” and he knows it must end in “poverty” and “want” for all eternity.
Poor little garden! One morning, I heard voices talking below, and on looking out, beheld a man with a long scythe mowing down all before him on the neglected ground.
“It may as well be cut down, and cleared away,” he was saying to a neighbor who stood watching him, and so “poverty” came! “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” Oh! how awful for the slothful neglecter, when the word goes forth, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee.”
But all the gardens were not like this one. Here is another that does not look any prettier than that of which we have been talking, though it certainly is more useful.
The owner has turned it into a fowl-run, and it is full of cocks, and hens, and chickens, the only variety being that, on washdays, ropes are stretched across overhead, and the clothes of the household flap in the breeze. Is this a nice garden, do you think? It is not my idea of such! Ah! dear children, it is a picture of many a soul in this work-a-day world, wholly given up to business and money-making. Very early in the morning my mother was disturbed by the crowing of the cocks, and late at night we often saw tired hands gathering in the linen off the lines.
Thus, many a one toils very hard year by year, and is thought very sensible and industrious by the world, but there is no fruit for the eye and heart of the Great Gardener, any more than there was in the lazy man’s garden, and God says of all his toil that it is “labor for that which satisfieth not.”
Now, let us look at a third. Part of it is also given to the fowls, and used as a drying ground, while on the other half is a tennis court, much worn, and, close to it, a swing for the smaller children of the house. No flowers, no fruit, hardly a blade of grass to be seen! As I looked the words my little boys often sing came to my mind—
“Room for pleasure, room for business,
But for Christ, the crucified,
Not a place that He can enter
In the heart for which He died!”
Is this a picture of your soul, my child? Are you diligent at your lessons, and full of fun in the play hours, and so think all is right? Do you say, “I am no idler; if I have a bit of fun it is but fair, seeing that I work well, and one can be young but once in one’s life.” True, but what will the harvest be? Look again at what wise King Solomon says: “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” (Eccl. 11:99Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. (Ecclesiastes 11:9)). Look to it that you have that in your soul which will bring you an eternity of joy, and make your life fruitful to the glory of God.
There were many other varieties of gardens, but I cannot describe all. The next time you pass such a row as I have been telling you about, try to draw for yourselves the lesson each plot of ground can teach you. I will only mention one more of these seaside gardens, and I am glad to say it was the one belonging to the house in which I was lodging, for I should like my little soul-garden to be like that.
The piece of ground was no larger than the others, but every inch of it had been turned to the best advantage. There were neat little paths running between beds of bright flowers; tall white lilies lifted up their fair blossoms, while bright colored pansies occupied the ground below; there was the homely sweet william and the brilliant nasturtium, and many others. On the one side were rows of gooseberry and currant bushes, with a few pear and apple trees, while a bed of strawberry plants and a row of lettuces completed the miniature kitchen garden. At the far end of the plot of ground was a small conservatory to shelter delicate plants from the rough, cold winds of winter. In the opposite corner stood a little rustic summerhouse, where the master could rest when he came into his garden to gather his lilies, or to eat his pleasant fruits. There were posts at each corner of the little grass plot near the house, showing that clothes could be hung out to dry when needful. A neat shed for tools proved that it was no idler’s garden that I looked on.
Now, do not you agree with me in calling this a right sort of garden? King Solomon tells us of such an one in his beautiful song. If you will find it in your Bible, and look carefully through it, you will see plainly enough that, though he sings about sweet-smelling flowers, and tall trees, and delicious fruits, he does not mean flowers, and fruit, and trees at all, but just takes them all as figures of what God thinks beautiful and sweet in the souls of His beloved children. Solomon tells us that he had been making his soul-garden pleasing to the Lord’s eye, and had carefully sought to shut out the little foxes that would spoil the tender grapes—that is, the naughty tempers, words, and ways which would hinder the Holy Spirit’s fruits—and that then he turned to the Lord and said, “Let my Beloved come into His garden.” Now, how should you like the Lord to come and look round in yours? Is it fit to meet His eye? Would it give Him joy? Could He find such a cluster of fruit in your soul as is written of in Gal. 5— “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”?
Dear child, you have but one soul. Oh, may you early arouse to the sense of its great value, and to your own immense responsibility as to it.
D. & A. C.