Sylvanus Stall

Suggestion:—The object used is a small sheaf of grain. For this might be substituted fruitage of any kind—apples, peaches, pears, grapes, etc., and after reading the sermon, the parent could apply in the manner suited to the objects used.

But when the summer-time comes, when it gets along to the harvest time, along in July and August, then the weather is very warm. The color of the fields has then greatly changed, the blossoms have disappeared from the trees, and we find that everywhere the fruit is beginning to appear. The harvest fields are ripe and are waiting for the husbandmen.

There is just about that same difference in life. Youth is the spring-time. It is full of hope, and full of bright prospects. But, as we grow older, and the cares and responsibilities of life multiply, then we begin to bear the toil and labor which comes with the later years. Then we are like the farmer who enters into the harvest field where hard work has to be done under a very hot and scorching sun.

A man, called a naturalist, who has devoted a large amount of time to the study of plants, tells us that there are about one hundred thousand different kinds of plants. Each kind of plant bears its own seed, and when that particular seed is sown, it always bears its own kind of fruit. Wheat never yields barley, nor do oats ever yield buckwheat. When you plant potatoes, you expect to gather potatoes and not turnips. An apple tree has never grown from an acorn, or a peach tree from a chestnut. Each seed, always and everywhere, bears its own kind. It is on this account that the Bible says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi: 7.)

There are some grown persons, as well as children, who think that they can do very wrong things while they are young, and afterwards suffer no bad results. People sometimes say, "Oh, well! let us sow our wild oats while we are young." Now the Bible tells us that if we sow wild oats, we must reap wild oats. Four or five handfuls of wild oats will produce a whole bag full of wild oats when gathered in the harvest of after life. Be assured, my dear friend, that "those who sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption," and "those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind." "Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny."

It may seem a long period between the spring and the harvest time of life; but be assured, my dear young friends, that the early years will speedily pass. Before you are aware of it, you will be men and women with all the responsibilities of life upon you, and then you will be sure to reap the reward of what you do now while you are boys and girls. Lord Bacon said that "Nature owes us many a debt until we are old," but nature is always sure to pay its debts. The ancients had an adage that said, "Justice travels with a sore foot," but it usually overtakes a man.

A few Sundays ago I told you that as the result of planting a single grain of corn, a fruitage sufficient to plant the entire earth might be secured in only five years. It is told us by historians that, in olden times, the harvest in Egypt and Syria would return an hundred fold for one sowing, and in Babylonia oftentimes two hundred fold for one sowing. Now, if a single grain of wheat were planted in soil as fertile as that of Egypt, at the end of eight years of sowing and reaping, if we had a field large enough, the product would be sufficient to feed all the families of the earth for more than a year and a half. But if we were to undertake to plant one grain of wheat in this way, after a few years we would fill all the fields which would be suited for a wheat harvest. Down near the equator it would be too hot for the wheat to grow successfully. In the north it would be altogether too cold. On the mountain side the soil is not fertile, and oftentimes is very rocky. For these, and various other reasons, it would be impossible to cover any large portion of the earth with wheat, for not every portion would be suited to produce a harvest. Were it not for this fact, in the course of seven or eight years, the entire earth might be made to wave as one vast field of wheat.

But there is one truth which God has planted in this world. That truth is God's love manifested in the gift of His Son Jesus Christ for the salvation of all mankind. This truth is suited to every age of the world, to every nation of the earth, to all classes and all conditions of people, and to every human heart. During the past centuries men have been planting and replanting this seed of divine truth, sowing and resowing the earth with it, gathering and reaping the harvest and sowing again. And the days are coming when all the earth shall wave as one vast harvest field, waiting for the reapers of God, who shall gather this blessed fruitage into the garner of the skies.

It is your privilege and my privilege, both one and all, to have some part in this glorious work of sowing and resowing, and the Scriptures assure us that "he that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seeds, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." (Psalms cxxvi: 6.)