Say, fellows, have you heard the sorrowful news about David? Too bad!

Just as we were beginning to think David, with his fine manly ways, his love for G.o.d's honour, for G.o.d's ark, his bravery, his fairness and kindness--just as we were thinking he would make a clean record to the end of the game, now here comes an awful flunk!

It's kind of like when the score is 2 to 0, in favor of the home team, and we are feeling good--then all of a sudden in the seventh inning the boys go all to pieces, and let the other side put four men across the plate.

Strange how David fumbled and played badly when he had had such a long winning streak, but so it must ever be when you get the idea you're "it" and can't slip. David let down, and away down. Fellows, would you believe it if it were not in the Bible--he broke all the commandments from the sixth to the tenth, inclusive. G.o.d says whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. David sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Absalom, his son, committed all the sins his father did, and added some, for he broke the fifth commandment also, and broke his father's heart.

David was very fond of Absalom, and would have done anything for him, but that boy didn't appreciate it. He was a good-looking chap; the girls admired him, and a lot of foolish fellows hung around him, flattered him, and made him vain.

Absalom had the big-head. If there is a sorry sight upon earth it is a fellow that is stuck on himself. Absalom was conceited and proud. He wanted even to be king in place of his father, and was unwilling to wait for what would have come in due time. Many a fellow spills the beans by being unwilling to wait. He ruins his best chance by trying to pick the fruit before it is ripe. If there is ever a time when patience is golden it is in the time of youth. A boy wants to stop studying and training, and take a short-cut to fame and success. It is usually a bad mistake.

Absalom's blunder was fatal. He tried to land on his father's throne by treachery; he landed in a tree, caught by his head. He thought to win a crown; he got three hot darts between the ribs from Joab. He planned to have a pile of wealth quickly gained, but by the end of the week his handsome form was buried deep beneath a pile of rocks. Ever afterward when an Israelite pa.s.sed that monument of dishonour, he picked up a stone and cast it upon the heap to show his contempt for the memory of a disloyal son.

Oh, fellows, the tragic day of a boy's life is when he decides to throw over a good father. No matter what prize is offered. It may be to get more liberty; it may be to escape restraint or rebuke, but it is a bad trade at best. Ordinarily a boy's best man friend is his father. If this does not seem to be the case, usually it is because the son won't allow it. Many a father longs, like David, for his boy's confidence and companionship. Many a boy could have in his father the finest chum imaginable, if he would give his father a chance to show him what a real chum is.

Fellows, let's give Dad some of that fine Scout loyalty and watch him warm up to it. He may have some chum qualities you never thought of.

_Read 2 Samuel 11:1-27, and 2 Samuel 15:7-18._

XLI

THE BITTEN APPLE

Say, fellows, I was visiting a boy friend one afternoon and while we played his mother called him. Wondering if there was anything wrong, I waited and listened while he answered the summons. I could hear her speaking to him as she said: "Bob, here are two apples--one for you and one for Wade."

Then I waited, and as Bob did not return at once I stepped to the corner of the house to see what kept him. That fellow was sitting on the step digging his teeth into one of the apples. I thought: "Well, that's polite, starting on his own before he gives the other to his guest!" It rather disgusted me. Directly Bob came round the corner, kind of sheepish like, and what do you suppose he did? Well, fellows, he offered me _the bitten apple_!

That was enough for me. Take it? I guess not. I turned on my heel without a word and went straight home. I don't think anything ever inspired more contempt in me as a boy than that piece of petty thievery.

Of course, fellows, that was not a Christian way to treat an erring playmate, and I fear I had very little charity in my heart; I am just telling you frankly how that act of Bob's impressed me. And it was only in the beginning of Bob's eventful career. Twenty-five years later, Bob's name was in the daily papers all over the country. He had gotten away with a big sum of money that belonged to others who had trusted him, and now he is a poor hunted fugitive from his native land, if indeed he is alive.

The boy who begins taking just a bite of somebody else's apple is likely going to pull off _something big_ some day!

Suppose Bob's mother had handed him seven apples and asked him to save one of them for her, and he had made away with the whole lot, don't you think that would have been pretty mean and low down?

Listen, fellows, something mighty close to that--only a lot worse--is happening with boys to-day who look upon themselves as the souls of honour. I am just wondering if they fully realize it. It is not in their relationship to mother, but to G.o.d their heavenly Father and creator. He has placed in your hands and in mine, each week, seven full twenty-four hour days. He says, "Six for you and one for Me."

He trusts you to keep that One Day, the Sabbath, for Him. How do we discharge that trust? Are we worthy of it? G.o.d does not lock us up in a dark room on Sunday and handcuff us and chain our feet to the floor.

No, He trusts us; He prefers to trust us. He wants us to honour His laws about the Sabbath, of our own free will. That is the kind of service G.o.d likes--willing service.

And, fellows, you cannot abuse that trust and escape the penalty. G.o.d has commanded in His Word, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy G.o.d: in it thou shalt not do any work."

No man, no boy, can continually break the Sabbath day and get away with it. Sooner or later he will come to sorrow because of it.

On the other hand, G.o.d distinctly promises blessings upon those who honour His Sabbath (Isa. 58:13, 14).

Fellows, G.o.d is the best "payer" that ever promised. He always pays more than He promises. His day concerns our happiness, our health, our prosperity, our usefulness, our success. All these vital issues are involved.

And I am going to tell you just one more fine secret. It is a nugget of pure gold. The best way to avoid violating G.o.d's Sabbath is to get busy honouring it with service--service to Him. Go regularly to Sunday-school and to church service--and go _on time_. You will find something to do there.

Spend your Sabbath afternoon in the study of G.o.d's Word, read some good book that will feed your soul; spend some time in some work of mercy. Take a bit of something good to eat to the poor fellow in jail and tell him you do it because you love Jesus Christ and are trying to serve Him, and want him to love Christ and serve Him, too. You will find it a short day, but, oh, such a fine and happy one, and you will go to bed refreshed. Next morning you will wake up whistling and you will turn off work at the store or at school like a forty-horse tractor.

_Read Exodus 20:8-11, and Isaiah 58:10-14._

XLII

MY KINGDOM

Say, fellows, I heard a boy quoting Shakespeare the other day. He was coming out of a movie with two other boys, just as I was pa.s.sing. They had probably been in there an hour or more, for they seemed glad to get out in the fresh air. But the boy's exclamation was what caught my attention; it was this:

"My kingdom for a cigarette!"

To be sure, Shakespeare makes Richard III say, "My kingdom for a horse!"--the boy changed a word; and it was just a careless remark expressing his craving for a smoke, but it raised a question in my mind: Did that young fellow realize he said a very important and true thing? When Richard III cried out, "My kingdom for a horse!" he was dead in earnest; he was fighting for his very life against overwhelming odds, and he was really willing to surrender his kingdom for some swift means of getting away from that desperate scene of carnage. But if the cigarette boy had been faced pointblank with the proposition I do not believe he would have agreed to give up _his_ kingdom for the "coffin tack."

Yes, this boy had a kingdom; every boy has a kingdom.

As I paused on the corner, the three boys entered a store and quickly came out, each with a cigarette in his mouth, taking deep inhalations and expelling smoke through lips and nostrils as they sauntered down the street.

I was still thinking of the boy's kingdom. Through a wonderful plan G.o.d, the Creator, puts each boy over an empire. Perhaps you may think it is a small one, but to him it is greater and means more for his success and happiness than any empire on earth. G.o.d places a scepter in each boy's hand and says, "Govern!--Rule over your kingdom!" And it is a very wonderful kingdom, with four splendid provinces called Physical, Mental, Social, and Spiritual. Each of these provinces is capable of producing great values and making rich and powerful almost beyond belief.

G.o.d also places at each boy's hand the resources for fighting off the enemies of his kingdom. This defensive armament, which is also for building work, in part consists of common sense, information (or education), will-power, determination, aspiration, and physical strength--and to make each of these effective, He gives His Word and sends His Holy Spirit to guide and sustain. If a fellow just realized it and would use what G.o.d puts in his hand he would have a kingdom he wouldn't exchange for Solomon's.

But, fellows, what a pity when a boy will exchange his kingdom for a cigarette; in comes the cigarette; down goes the physical province--the cigarette destroys the delicate tissues of the mucous membrane; down goes the mental province--the cigarette makes the mind dull and listless and takes away its snap and vigour; down goes the social province--the cigarette makes its victim shun the best and seek the lower grades of social life and activity; down goes the spiritual province, the most precious of all--for spirit chokes and dies in the atmosphere of the cigarette and its inevitable accompaniments.

This, of course, is just one of the enemies of a boy's kingdom; I have spoken of it particularly because it is the one which seems to catch boys off their guard most easily. There are many others. Intemperance of any kind is an enemy to the best interests of your empire. Send out a proclamation to yourself, to-day, and put all provinces on notice that _you_ are on your throne and G.o.d is your Counsellor--and that henceforth none of the kingdom's enemies will be admitted across the border.

_Read 1 Corinthians 10:9-15._

XLIII

A TOOL BOX

Say, fellows, on one of my boyhood birthdays I received a tool box. It was a peach of a tool box, too; not one of the dime store variety, with a saw the same length as the gimlet, but with a set of tools that no amateur carpenter would despise. I was greatly delighted with that tool box, and immediately began planning the things I would make.

Mother wanted a shelf on the back porch and a coop for an old hen just off with her chicks; my dog needed a dog house, and I even aspired to a rowboat for the pond. I could hardly wait for material before getting to work. Fingering over those tools, my eye fell upon a motto graven on the inside of the lid of the box. It read:

BE SURE YOU ARE RIGHT--THEN GO AHEAD