THE scene before you in this little picture is very beautiful, and all little boys and girls who live in large towns will, I am sure, wish they were there. Gaslight may be very bright and glaring, the shops with their windows all alight and their varied merchandise displayed may be very attractive, especially the picture-shops, toy-shops, and shops where fruits and sweets are sold; small boys like to have a look at them, but most of all at the toy-shops. There is such an endless lot of things to look at, the colors are so bright—red, blue, white, and green tints abound, particularly on the drums, and a boy may stand for an hour looking first at this and then at that new toy until he is so bewildered that if he were asked which he would like to have it would take him another hour to make up his mind, and even then I would venture to say he would go away disappointed, and wish he had chosen something else. I knew a very little boy once who wanted to have a new toy, so his kind old grandmother sent him with money in his hand to a little toy-shop close by, just to choose for himself. Well, the good-natured woman who kept the shop showed him first one thing and then another until the boy did not know which to have. There he stood, and as each toy was placed before him it formed a new delight, but then you see he could only have one, and the boy knew not how to leave all the rest behind. At last, after much hesitation, he made his choice and hurried home, “Wasn’t he pleased with his new toy,” you will ask? Well, I hardly know; you see he was thinking of the others he had seen. He was not a greedy boy by any means, but he so admired all that he could not help a feeling of regret as he thought upon them, and he had not been home many minutes before he began to cry for a “Jack-in-the-box” he had left on the counter. His affectionate grandmother sent him to buy that also, and when he had got it I am not quite sure whether the recollection of the other toys he had looked at did not mar the joy he felt in the two that he had bought. So it is, dear little reader, all through life with those who “set their affections on things in the earth.” They are NEVER satisfied; no sooner is one wish gratified than another wish is formed in the heart, and this goes on to the end of their days. How can they be happy? There is but One who can really satisfy the heart; do you know who that is? It is He who said “He that drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever” (John 4). “He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst (John 6). Who was it that spoke these words? It was the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who really believe in Him, find in Him that full and perfect satisfaction to the heart which nothing else can give. Not alone are their sins forgiven, but He Himself becomes to them a never ceasing delight here in the wilderness, and
“A joy forever”
in eternity, so that they never thirst any more for happiness because they have it for evermore. In the little picture before you there is a stream flowing on through a lonely vale, the trees cast their shadows on its surface, and beside it sits a solitary wayfarer. Does he sigh for the sights and sounds, the turmoil and the show of streets? No indeed, or he would not be sitting there lost in contemplation, like Isaac of old in the sweet fields of Palestine, God’s favored land (Gen. 24:6363And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, the camels were coming. (Genesis 24:63)). Now this solitary pilgrim, staff in hand, resting beside those quiet waters, shining in the light from heaven and flowing on for evermore so peacefully, yet singing as they go with a music all their own, unheard by any but he who sits beside them, reminds me of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He, you know, is a pilgrim, staff in hand, His “feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” and His “loins girt about with truth.” He “resteth in the Lord,” he is led “beside the waters of quietness,” and although, like the wayfarer in the picture, he may be far from home and a stranger here, his peace like this river flows on unceasingly, and he is so occupied with one beautiful all-absorbing object that he is lost to all beside. Shadows may sometimes fall upon the stream, but the stream is there for all that, and the light reveals it. Don’t you think he is better off by far than he who is never satisfied and never can be, who thirsts and drinks and thirsts again for that content and happiness which he ever hopes to find in “the things of the world,” only to be always disappointed? Yes, indeed. Well then, you have only to come to Jesus at once to find all you need. He says “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you REST; take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find REST UNTO YOUR souls” (Matt. 11). This is peace; a satisfying portion that nothing else can give; here alone can you find REST.”