EVERYTHING which God makes, and which He calls good, is in order. He has rules by which the clouds come and go, and by which some kinds of clouds rise higher from the earth than others, and He has rules by which the tiny insect at your feet makes its little home, gathers its morsel of food, and does its humble duty on the earth until it dies. And are children, who have their lives given to them by God Himself, and who are to live forever and ever, not to be in order too? I heard of a school―I will not say where, but it is not very far from London―the character of which is not like the work of God’s hands. The children come late, they stay away from their classes, and they go first to one class, and then to another, just as they please, and, worse still, they play and peep about during prayers. I should like each teacher and scholar to learn this text: “God is not the author of confusion,” or, as the margin reads, “tumult, or unquietness.” That noisy school, those irregular children, those little boys and girls peeping about, form anything but the sort of Sunday school the Bible would teach us to have.
Let us learn of the beauty of order from the bee. Look within the bee-hive, through the little glass window which allows us to see its busy inhabitants. What a crowd it is! There are many thousands of little creatures in the small space, and yet each one is doing its duty, and there is no confusion among them. You can hear their hum as they go about their work, but they waste no time, though you will notice that they frequently touch each other, as if they had something to say. Some of the bees go and fetch the sweet juices from the flowers, whilst others build up the cells and store away the honey, and in the happy bee-hive all is pleasantness and order, A Sunday school should be as earnest as the hive, each child busy in learning and gathering up the sweetness of the Bible, and all working in good order under the superintendent.
Do you know that each bee out of the ten or twenty thousand in the hive comes to the queen once at least in every three days, when he gravely touches her with his little black horns; and in our Sunday school we expect each of the scholars to be as respectful to his teacher and the superintendent as the busy bees to their queen.
As working in order, is working together, it is well when each scholar of the class learns, as far as possible, the same lesson; and it is always a bright afternoon when the children know that our superintendent will question the whole school upon the lesson for the day. Many a nice answer have we heard on those afternoons, which has been quite a help to the teachers. In each class the stranger will notice how the children help each other, for one asks one kind of question and another, another kind, so that the little store of knowledge grows like the honey in the hive.
A dull scholar has no questions to ask. Sometimes, with a most interesting Bible subject before us, one like a garden of flowers and sweetness, we can but observe the sleepy bee who says nothing―but he has nothing to say. Poor old drone, what shall we do with him? The worker bee is sharp and quick, though very quiet in his way of going about his work; he is not in a flutter like the butterfly, nor idle like the drone, but he sings as he flies from flower to flower. I shall call that sleepy boy in the class a drone; he has no wise questions to ask; and that fidgety one a butterfly, for I know he will only sip up what he hears this afternoon, instead of carrying it home like the worker bee.
Look at the little picture of the bees and their home in the bank. They are of that kind which live together in small families in little holes in the ground, but they are as busy as their cousins who live in the hive; and that one flying down is bringing home a store of good things fastened to his black shiny legs.
But can we guess why it is that some scholars are not diligent? If you rub two dry sticks together fire will come, but if you were to rub two pieces of snow together that would not produce the heat. Some children take a great deal of rubbing to make them ask wise questions, warm from their hearts, about God’s word; and some, I am sorry to say, never ask a question about its heavenly truth at all. If there were not something in the sticks to call forth the fire, not all the rubbing in the world would make the flame come: out of nothing, nothing comes. So hearts cold to the beautiful things of God’s word are one great cause for the indifference that is found in some of our class.
Now the Bible is God’s letter to us; and if we do not love His words, we do not love Him. Love to Him only comes from the heart in which His love is. “We love Him because He first loved us”; He gave His Son to die for our sins; and all who believe in this love will have many things they wish to know about God.
But our page is nearly full, and our time for talking is nearly over. Please, then, mind how you go away. Go home quietly, and in order-one class at a time Do you not hear the firm but kind voice of our superintendent? “There is a time for everything, and as you are leaving our school it is the time to be as quiet as possible. The people round about are watching you, and you must earn a good name, every one of you, for order.”