God’s Kindergarten
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.
THIS world is the Lord's great kindergarten, where he teaches his children by objects, which they can see and handle and examine. Our Saviour, when he preached; made constant reference to the facts in nature around him. The vine and the husbandmen, the shepherd and the sheep, the sower and the seed, the fishes in the sea, the birds in the air, the hen gathering her chickens under her wings, the ravens, and the sparrows, and many other such things, he used to instruct us in the great truths of his kingdom.
And so, in one of his discourses, he tells us, who are so wearied and worried with thinking what we shall eat, and what we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed, to "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Matthew 6:28.
There are multitudes of lilies of various kinds, scattered over the world. Many of them are exceedingly beautiful; some of them are of spotless whiteness; and others are clothed in all the glory of purple and crimson, so beautiful that no art can imitate them, and no pencil portray them. And each one of these beautiful flowers stands as our Saviour's object lesson, before a doubting and anxious generation.
"Consider the lilies, how they grow,"—ye who are so full of doubts and fears. The lilies do not toil, nor do they spin; and yet the richest robes that monarchs ever wore, are shabby and tawdry compared with the beauty that adorns the lilies.
And if God so clothes the grass of the field, which blooms today, and tomorrow is cut down, how much more shall he clothe you, O ye of little faith!
God has implanted some faint sparks of the love of beauty in the human mind; but what shall we think of that Fount of all beauty, the mind which holds within its grasp all types of heavenly and earthly splendor? Every star that shines, every flower that blooms, every bud that swells beneath the breath of spring, every blossom that casts its sweetness on the summer, air,—all these are planted, formed, fashioned, tinted, and perfumed by the hand of the great God, whose wisdom has worked all these wondrous patterns, and whose love has scattered them over the dark and desolate earth, to brighten the paths his weary children tread, and to lead them to himself.
But if this world, cursed and darkened by sin, is now so bright and fair, what will it be when he shall "make all things new;" when the bloom of Eden and the beauty of Paradise shall come back once more; and when the heavens shall declare his glory, and the firmament show his handiwork; and when every creature that breathes, shall image forth the beauty that has its home in the heart of the everlasting God!
"Consider the lilies." Consider them as recollections of a Paradise that is lost; consider them as promises of a Paradise that is to be restored; consider them as tokens of God's care over the meanest and feeblest things which he has made; consider them as instances of his love for you.
Little Christian