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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

PRINCETON. N. J.
PRESENTED BY

PRINCSTOil UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

BV 1561 .C6 1918
Cobb, Cora Stanwood.
God's wonder world

THE BEACON PRESS PUBLICATIONS
IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

THE BEACON COURSE
OF GRADED LESSONS

William I. Lawrance
Florence Buck

Editors.

GOD^S WONDER WORLD

/ would seek unto God, . . .
Who doeth great things and unsearchable,
Marvellous things without number.

Job 5:8, 9

GOD'S
WONDER WORLD

A Manual

for Religious Instruction

in Junior Grades

ESPECIALI.Y FOR PUPILS
NINE YEARS OLD

BY

/

CORA STANWOOD COBB, A.B.

THE BEACON PRESS

25 BEACON STREET
BOSTON, MASS.

Copyright, 1918,
By The Beacon Press, Inc.

All rights reserved

THE university PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TO MY FATHER

DARIUS COBB

WHOSE DEEP LOVE OF NATURE AND
APPRECIATION OF ITS BEAUTY AND
GRANDEUR IS THE WELL FROM WHICH
I HAVE DRUNK FROM MY EARLIEST
CHILDHOOD

Editors' Preface

The Beacon Course in Religious Education, to
which this book belongs, provides a manual for each
year for pupils from four to twenty-one years of age.
Its purpose throughout is to guide those who use it
into noble and serviceable manhood and womanhood.
This it aims to do by acquainting them with the
religious aspects of nature and of social relations,
quickening in them at the same time an earnest
desire to serve their day and generation. In such a
training, knowledge of the world in which we live, its
origin and its laws, is of evident importance.

A study of nature seems peculiarly fitting to
pupils entering upon tife Junior period. They have
come to that stage in their development when im-
agination begins to give place to observation, and
desire is quickened to know the world as it actually
is. That world they will in some fashion come to
know. It is the privilege and therefore the obligation
of the teachers of religion to see that the first im-
pressions children get of the marvelous world in
which they live are religious impressions, and that
the habit of associating things seen and physical
with things unseen and spiritual is formed early in
life.

The book here offered is intended for use with
pupils nine years of age. It can be used with those

EDITORS' PREFACE

somewhat older, and students of whatever age will
find it instructive and suggestive. Whoever delights,
with Kepler, to ''read God's thoughts after Him"
discovers in a reverent study of nature food for mind
and spirit. In the pursuit of the infinite and eternal
forces and processes, differences of a few years cease
to be of importance, and the student finds himself,
in Higginson's fine phrase, of the age of everybody.
If this book helps our children to enter into the treas-
ures of the world, to see everywhere in earth and sky
reminders of divine power and love, and to tread the
earth habitually with reverent feet, the purpose for
which it has been prepared, as of the Course of which
it is a part, will have been accomplished.

The Editors.

Author's Preface

Regarding the education of the young, Huxley
strongly advised that children of the ages of nine
and ten should be instructed in the infinite wonder
and majesty of the works of God, and that the in-
struction should be given upon Sunday, side by
side with the lessons from the Bible.

The author has attempted to follow out the plan
advocated by Huxley, and she offers this book with
the earnest hope that these stories will ''awaken the
minds of the young to the infinite wonder and
majesty of the works which are proclaimed His, and
teach them those laws which must needs be His
laws and therefore of all things most needful for
man to know." ^

The children who begin their observation of
nature in this way may well be among those who
will take honors in Nature's university; for accord-
ing to Huxley's belief, ''those who take honors in
Nature's university, who learn the laws which
govern men and things and obey them; are the
really great and successful men in the world." ^

Great men and women are what the world is call-
ing for, but before the man or woman can become
great the child must have been started upon the
right road.

1 Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews, 1871.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The author wishes to express her thanks to Miss
AUce M. Barton, an experienced teacher of nature
studies in the Boston pubUc schools, for reading the
completed manuscript and making valuable sugges-
tions. Thanks are due to Enos A. Mills, Dr. A.
Howard Clark, W. A. Bentley, Prof. Alexander
McAdie and the Blue Hill Observatory, Mrs. C. H.
McL. Burns, Rev. Joel H. Metcalf, Prof. E. S. Dana
and John Wiley and Sons, Inc., publishers of his
book; to the American Museum of Natural History,
United States Geological Survey, and many others
who have lent the photographs which are used in
the leaflets which accompany this volume; and to
the Comstock Publishing Company, Raymond and
Whitcomb Company and Ginn and Company for
the use of cuts.

Cora Stanwood Cobb.

Newton Upper Falls, Mass.
August, 1918

CONTENTS

Page

Purpose and Plan of the Course xi

Suggestions to the Teacher xiv

The Child of Nine xvi

The Memory Work xix

Books for the Teacher xxi

Part I
THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

Lesson

I Beauty in God's World : The Clouds . 3

II Earth's Garment of Green 10

III The Blossoming Plants 18

IV Plants Sowing their Seeds 26

V The Trees 34

VI How Plants Live Together ....'. 42

VII The Earth Our Storehouse 51

Part II

ANIMALS AND INSECTS

VIII The Ants . . . , 61

IX The Spider 70

X The Bees 78

XI Moths and Butterflies 87

XII Toads, Bats and Owls 97

. XIII Humble Helpers 106

XIV The Birds 114

XV Animal Friends 122

XVI The Dog 131

XVII Beavers 140

ix

CONTENTS

Part III
THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

Lesson Page

XVIII As IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING ... 151

XIX The Work of the Rain 158

XX The Work of the Rain : Brooks and

Rivers 166

XXI Snow, Ice and Frost 174

XXII Minerals and Crystals 182

XXIII Earth's Underground Storehouse 191

XXIV God's Wonderful Mountains . . . 199
XXV Life Comes upon the World . . . 207

XXVI Fossils 214

XXVII How Our Coal was Made .... 222

XXVIII More Wonders from Nature's Book 231
XXIX The Story that a Scratched Rock

Tells 239

Part IV

THE COMING OF MAN

XXX Man Comes upon the Earth . . . 249
XXXI Man's Progress : The Working Hands

and Thinking Mind 257

XXXII Man's Progress: Growth in Religion 265

XXXIII Man's Progress: The Written Word 273

XXXIV The Story of Steam 281

XXXV The Story of Electricity .... 288

XXXVI Searchers after Nature's Truths 297

XXXVII God's Gift of Sunlight 306

XXXVIII The Solar System 314

XXXIX The Stars 322

XL The Torch Bearers 330

Introduction

Purpose and Plan of the Course

The aim in preparing this course of lessons has
been to make a direct appeal to those faculties of
perception, curiosity, and wonder which are begin-
ning to assert themselves in the child of nine; to
foster these faculties, already active in some children,
and to arouse them in others; to open their eyes to
some of the marvels of the universe ; to impress their
minds with the idea of its law and order; and to
arouse in their hearts a response to the divine love
manifested in the world in which we live.

'' Wherever it may look, the young mind is im-
pressed with the mystery of the unknown. The
child looks out to Nature with great eyes of wonder." ^
It is this wonder which directs the growing intelli-
gence of the child. It gives the perception some-
thing to work upon, and the reason something to do.
It urges attention and interest on to what is unknown.

These lessons, therefore, have been arranged in
such a way as to proceed from what the child has
already perceived to what he must look for. Accord-
ingly, Part I deals with the trees, plants and flowers
that every child has seen and knows; Part II, with
insect and animal life, of which the child has known

1 The Nature-Study Idea. By L. H. Bailey,
xi

xii INTRODUCTION

in a vague way, but which through study he will now
learn to observe more carefully; Part III, with the —
to him — unknown wonders of Geology; and Part IV,
with the history of mankind, in a series of stories
which should open his eyes to the vast possibilities
in the life of each individual and in the life of the
race. In this last section of the book, which describes
man's first appearance upon the earth and follows his
material progress as well as his mental and spiritual
growth, the lessons in Astronomy are included, be-
cause the knowledge of that science shows, perhaps
more than any of the others, the growth and power
of man's mind.

The lessons in Parts I and II are designed not alone
to teach children some important facts, but to show
them those facts in such a way as to win respect for
the forms of hfe which all human beings, children as
well as older people, are accustomed to think of as
beneath them. Whatever the child learns to look
upon with affectionate interest he will treat with
respect. Trees, plants and flowers, as well as insects
and animals, will not only receive protection from
him but, quite unconsciously perhaps, he wdll take
them into his daily life as friends. This friendly feel-
ing for nature in her different aspects will broaden
and deepen his whole being and help him to become
one with God in spirit.

The story of the formation of the earth and of the
coming of life as told in Part III may yield a lifetime
of happiness and of religious faith to the student. He
will learn with amazement that such familiar forces
as the rain and the frost have been used to build the

INTRODUCTION xiii

majestic mountains and to fit the globe for life.
Attention to the most ordinary features of his sur-
roundings should make the child reverent toward the
earth on which he lives, and lead him to worship the
Power and Love that formed it.

Part IV deals with the broader moral questions
of the duties which all those of the human race,
gifted above God's other creatures, owe to them-
selves, the world and their Maker. It is intended
to point out to the children the slow steps by which
the race of mankind has moved onward, to im-
press upon them, also, the fact that increase in
physical comfort does not mean race advancement,
unless [there goes with it a corresponding progress
in mental and spiritual life.

Children of nine or ten are not too young to learn
something of the value of life, and to understand how
much the thought of one person can help the whole
race of mankind, and so God's world.

The subjects treated in this book are so vast and
comprehensive that they can merely be touched
upon. Only a series of pictures, as it were, can be
shown the children; but it is hoped that the pictures
are vivid enough to awaken their interest and wonder
and to encourage them in the use of their own '^seeing
eyes.''

If one child should be led by these lessons to use
his eyes and mind in such a way as to become a world-
helper, the study and love of a lifetime which have
gone to make this book will not have been in vain.

xiv INTRODUCTION

Suggestions for the Teacher

As the stories which form these lessons deal with
scientific facts, where accuracy is essential, the
teacher is advised to read them to the class. But it
is important to prepare for the reading as earnestly
as if the story were to be told in the teacher's own
language. The word pictures which the stories con-
tain should be given in as vivid a manner as possible,
that they may call up in the mind of the child a
correspondingly vivid picture. It is by these mental
images that interest will best be aroused.

The questions in the lesson story should be asked
as spontaneously as if they had just occurred to the
teacher. Where they relate to some familiar fact,
answers may be secured from the class before pro-
ceeding with the reading if desired. Sometimes the
purpose of a question is to focus attention on the new
fact or truth which is to be stated, to which the read-
ing should proceed without pause, so that the
teacher answers the question in the words of the
lesson story.

It would be well before attempting to teach any of
these lessons, to read all the stories in this manual so
as to be cognizant of its scope. One should at least be
familiar with all the stories in each part before
attempting to teach the first lesson in that part.
Especially is this true of the section that deals with
Geology (Lessons 18 to 29) ; for the teacher who has
not grasped the picture of the changing world as a
whole cannot well teach it in part.

Many of the illustrations in Part I are drawn from

INTRODUCTION xv

the plants and trees of New England ; but in localities
where these are not found teachers will substitute
others which will fit into the lesson story.

In connection with the lessons in Part III the
teacher should become acquainted with the native
rock of the locality, and any interesting geological
feature to be observed. Whatever the country rock
is — conglomerate, sandstone, slate, limestone,
marble, granite, gneiss, schist — it should be shown
to the children and they should be taught to know
it. Where measurements are given, refer for com-
parison to some object or distance well known to
the pupils.

It is intended that the memory verse should be
read to the class at the beginning of the lesson and
learned at the close. The pupils will also have it in
the leaflet for constant reference.

The handwork wdll usually be done at home during
the week, but should always be asked for and ex-
amined at the beginning of each Sunday's lesson, and
referred to from time to time.

Making collections is a fundamental instinct with
children of this age, and is a most important help in
the development of their minds. William James
says that children form a kinship with the world
through handling and arranging what they have thus
gathered. Therefore the teacher should encourage
them to make the suggested collections and should
show decided interest in the results.

After the teacher has examined the work done by
the pupils during the week, either by questions about
their collections and observation, or by examination

xvi INTRODUCTION

of their work on the leaflet, it is well to review
briefly the lesson of the preceding Sunday. Some of
the questions furnished are intended to be a guide
in this review. Any method of review which seems
advisable to the teacher should be used, making sure
that the children have a correct idea of those sub-
jects which the questions cover.

Throughout this whole course of lessons the
teacher should work to stimulate curiosity and won-
der in the children of the class, and to arouse such
eager interest in the natural objects about them that
the perceptive faculties will be quickened. Thus the
children will gain the ability to look at nature with
''seeing eyes," and a deep moral and religious feeling
toward God's wonder world will develop of itself in
their hearts and minds.

The Child of Nine

As the child nears the age of nine, the vivid imagi-
nation which seemed to dominate his mind during the
preceding years begins to give way to a more active
interest in what is going on around him. The world
of fact, which has been more or less obscured by his
own fancy, has gradually become more apparent to
his growing intelligence. His curiosity is aroused as
he looks with questioning wonder upon those very
things that, but recently, furnished his imagination
with fanciful stories. His eyes are opened to the re-
ality of the world in which he lives, and his mind is
full of questions concerning the why and wherefore
of every thing he sees, — questions which are some-

INTRODUCTION xvii

times asked outright, but are often revolved over
and over before they are given voice.

The child is learning to think. The interest, curi-
osity and wonder that gradually supersede the im-
agination are a part of that thought growth which
leads to reason. In his limited way the child
reasons about whatever excites his wonder. Those
objects that had existed for him before in a world
of fancy belong now to the real world in which he
lives.

Moreover, the child at this age must know the
truth. He is not content to be put ofT with a hasty
answer that does not satisfy his mind. Indeed, many
children of nine have developed a reasoning power
not suspected by their elders, because children so
young have not yet learned to express their thoughts
clearly.

The growing minds of these children should be
most carefully fostered. This may be accomplished
not only by interested and truthful answers to their
questions, but by so guiding their newly awakened
faculty of perception that they will observe correctly
those things which have awakened their interest.

In no other way can this be accomplished with so
much lasting benefit to the child as by the study of
nature. The natural objects which he sees on his
way to and from school, if carefully observed, will
furnish a legitimate field for his newly developed
faculties of observation, curiosity and wonder. The
training thus given to the powers of observation will
often turn an apparently dull child into a bright and
alert boy or girl.

xviii INTRODUCTION

Nine, then, is a crucial age, when the dawning
wonder of the child's newly awakened curiosity
can be so fostered through the close observation of
nature, as to affect his whole after life and, possibly,
the life of mankind.

The Memory Work

Verses from the Bible or lines of poetry, or both,
are printed on each leaflet. Three hymns are given
entire, one of them being printed, a verse at a time,
on three consecutive leaflets, 37-39. The teacher
might well secure as a minimum of memory work for
the year, the following :

Ten of the verses from the Bible.

One continuous Bible passage of from six to ten verses
from the Psalms, or the book of Job, or the sayings of Jesus.

One of the three hymns, preferably ''I sing the mighty
power of God," as it seems to fit the thought of the entire
course of lessons.

The teacher will wish to be famiUar with the great
Bible creation stories and hymns, Gen. 1:1 to 2:3;
Job 26:7-14; Psalms 65:6-13, and 104 entire; the
sublune statement of the revelation of God through
nature in Job 36:24-33 and chapters 28, 37 and 38
. entu-e; and numerous verses and passages in the
Psalms, such as 19:1-6 and 96:11-13. A number
of the memory verses have been taken from the
chapters here cited.

Readings from the New Testament have occasion-
ally been suggested to the pupil, in connection with
the lessons. The teacher may help these children to
see, as they read the nature parables Jesus told and
learn about the places he frequented, that the story
of his life is, as Fishin' Jimmy discovered, ''an

xix

XX THE MEMORY WORK

out-door gospel all through."^ The leading nature
parables and references are here given : —

The Sower. Matt. 13:1-9.

The Wheat, and the Tares. Matt. 13 : 24-30.

The Good Tree and its Fruit. Matt. 7:16-20; Luke 6:

43-45.
The Fig Tree. Luke 13:6-9.
The Weather. Matt. 16 : 1-3 ; Luke 12 : 54-57.
The Harvest. Matt. 9 : 37-38 ; Luke 10:2.
The Mustard Seed. Matt. 13 : 31-32; Luke 13 : 18.
The Lost Sheep. Matt. 18: 12-14; Luke 15:3-7.
The Sparrow. Matt. 10:29-31.
Lihes, Birds and Grass, and the lesson they teach. Matt.

6:25-33.

1 Fiskin' Jimmy. By Anne Trumbull Slosson.

Books for the Teacher

The following books are suggested as helpful to
the teacher of this course : —

Botany (Elementary). L. H. Bailey.

Animal Life. A First Book of Zoology. Jordan & Kellogg.

A Text Book of Geology. Albert Perry Brigham.

Prehistoric Times. Sir John Lubbock.

The Beauties of Nature. Sir John Lubbock.

The Nature-Study Idea. L. H. Bailey.

Astronomy of Today. Cecil C. Dolmage.

The Life of the Bee. Maeterlinck.

In Beaver World. Enos A. Mills.

The Ro\l\nce of the Beaver. A. Radcliffe Dugmore.

American Beaver and His Works. Lewis H. Morgan.

Blossom Hosts and Insect Guests. William Hamilton

Gibson.
A Year of Miracle. William C. Gannett.
Tables of Stone. Henry M. Sinmions.
The Unending Genesis. Henry M. Simmons.

There are many nature studies and essays which
will give information, inspiration and delight.
Among these are the various books by Henry D.
Thoreau, John Burroughs, John Muir, Bradford
Torrey, and Dallas Lore Sharp. All these are pub-
lished by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, who
will send catalogue on request. The nature poems
of Wordsworth (especially ''Lines written a few miles
above Tintern Abbey ") and Ceha Thaxter will be
helpful, while many anthologies, such as The Open
Road, by E. V. Lucas, The Oxford Book of Nature
Verse, and The Two Voices (poems of the moun-
tains and the sea), collected by John W. Chadwick,
will aid in the religious interpretation of nature.

PART I

The World in which we Live

LESSONS 1-7

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies : —
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand.
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Tennyson

LESSON 1
BEAUTY IN GOD'S WORLD: THE CLOUDS

MEMORY VERSE

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

O Lord my God, thou art very great;

Thou art clothed with honor and majesty:

Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment;

Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain;

Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters;

Who maketh the clouds his chariot;

Who walketh upon the wings of the wind.

Ps. 104:1-3
The Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce in a general
way the subjects of the lessons that are to follow, and to
draw the children out by asking and suggesting what they
may have noticed in God's great outdoor world.

The clouds are a part of nature which all children, those
of city as well as country, will have seen and watched.
They are used in the first lesson to begin the implanting
of that truth which will run through the whole year's
lessons, that all nature is working together to fulfil the
divine purposes and that God dwells within even the
humblest part of nature's life.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The children will have come back from their vacations
eager to tell what they have seen in the outdoor world
during the summer, and ready to learn more about the

4 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

interesting things in nature. They should be encouraged
to tell about whatever in nature has seemed beautiful
and wonderful to them, but their attention should be
skilfully converged upon the subjects given in the story,
as opportunities will come later to talk about the other
things.

In telling the lesson story of the clouds try to awaken
the interest of the child by drawing upon his imagina-
tion. Tell it vividly, so as to present a picture before the
mind, or to recall one to the memory. In all the telling
of the stories awaken the child's consciousness to the
marvelous life going on about him, and try to arouse in
him a loving interest in it.

When telling the story of the clouds dwell upon the
fact that it is God's loving care for the world that sends
the clouds and the rain. Begin in this first lesson to in-
stil into the child's mind the fact that God is in and
through all things.

Hand Work

The leaflet and the folded sheet containing pictures
of clouds are to be given to the pupils. Call attention
to the cloud names and have the class repeat them in
concert. Ask the pupils to watch the sky during the
week and bring the following Sunday a list of the clouds
they see each day recorded on page 4 of the leaflet. Refer
to the pictures again and again during the year, so that
the children will become familiar with these simple forms
of the clouds.

OPENING TALK

The story itself opens with the questions and subjects
that introduce the topic of the beauty and use of the
clouds.

BEAUTY IN GOD'S WORLD: THE CLOUDS

What of all the out-of-door things that you saw
last summer did you think the most wonderful or
beautiful?

Was it the flowers with their beautifully colored
cups, opening one by one, where the bees steal in for
the honey, and the butterflies swing on the petals
and the humming birds sip the nectar from the very
bottom of the cups with their long bills?

Or was it the humming birds themselves, the
daintiest and most beautifully colored of all the
birds? Did you notice the humming and whirring
sound that the wings made when the little birds were
hovering over the flowers and balancing themselves
while they sipped the nectar? And did you see their
glistening, golden-green or ruby-colored throats?

Perhaps it was a bird's nest that gave you joy, —
a nest full of pretty eggs, and later, of little hungry
birds, which the father and mother birds could never
seem to be able to satisfy. Perhaps it was the songs
of the bu'ds in the early morning when their musip
makes the whole world happier.

It might have been the woods that seemed wonder-
ful to you. Perhaps you went with your father and
your mother where the trees grew so thick and so
tall that they made deep forests where one had to
be careful not to lose his way, and where everything

6 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

was so still that even the birds hushed their voices.
Such wonderful things as one finds in those deep,
dark forests! The pretty moss, soft and damp, and
so thick that one can walk among the trees without
the least noise, if only one can avoid breaking the
dry twigs; or the feather-like ferns that sway and
bend with the slightest breath of wind, sometimes
spreading over the forest floor like a carpet, and
sometimes growing in single clusters from a crevice
in a rock or from an old rotten stump or beside a
trickling stream! Or you may have seen the great
rocks which lie in such tumbled masses that one
looks in amazement and wonders what broke them
up and piled them there!

Did you hear the leaves whisper together when
the wind came through the forest? Sometimes the
branches seem to sigh gently, but at other times
they almost seem to groan. That is when the wind
pushes them too hard in its play. When the wind is
in earnest it is very rough, and the tops of those great,
strong trees bend and wave almost like the tall grass in
a gentle breeze. Sometimes the wind is so fierce that
it breaks off large branches and blows down the trees
themselves.

The wind when it is fierce and strong can blow so
iiard that it makes great waves upon the ocean. It
may be that that was one of the wonderful things
you saw last summer. Perhaps you saw the waves
come dashing and pounding upon the beach, all
crested with white foam, or tossing the spray high up
on the jagged rocks with a roar that could be heard
a long way off. It seemed strange that the ocean,

BEAUTY IN GOD'S WORLD: THE CLOUDS 7

which had been so smooth the day before, could be
lashed into such great waves because the wind blew
harder than usual. It seems stranger still to think
of the strength those waves have, and what they can
do. Did you not see some of the large rocks the
waves had lifted and thrown up during the winter
storms, or some of the strong walls they had pulled
down?

There is one thing you could all see, wherever you
were; something that floats above the city streets as
well as above the tree-tops, above the mountains and
above the surging ocean. It is the' clouds.

You must have seen the clouds last summer. Did
you notice how they seem to scud across the sky?
Did you ever think what makes them go hurrying
over our heads so fast? Yes, the wind blows the
clouds in the sky as well as the great trees and the
feathery ferns and the soft grass and the ocean
waves. Sometimes the clouds are blown so fast
that where in one moment the sun was shining
brightly, in another it would be gone, — hidden be-
hind the clouds.

Those clouds which you see scudding across the
sky or stretching over it in such odd shapes are very
useful to us. Did you know that they are like cur-
tains to the world, and that they shut off the hot
rays of the sun every once in a while? For although
the sun gives us life and warmth, and although we
could not live without it, yet we could not stand too
much of it. On a hot day in summer how thankful
we are when a few clouds curtain off the sun and give
us relief from its burning rays. Everything seems

8 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

glad. The wilting flowers, with their drooping
leaves, straighten up. The birds twitter joyfully.
The cat and dog get up and stretch themselves and
come out of their shady corners.

Then if it should rain, how welcome the shower is
and how the thirsty earth drinks up the water; how
the leaves of the trees glisten; how fresh the flowers
become after their bath; and how sweet the air
smells! Sometimes we think that we do not hke
rain. We hope that it will not rain and we even make
ourselves unhappy if it does. ' ' If only we might have
pleasant days always," we sigh.

But think what it would mean to have pleasant
days always. There would be no pretty, white,
fleecy clouds scudding across the sky as if they were
playing tag. No great mounds of clouds piling up
from the horizon like huge masses of foam. No
beautiful sunrises, or sunsets painting all the sky in
gorgeous colors. And there would be no rain, of
course.

But without rain what vshould we do? Where
would be our flowers, our grass, our shrubs and our
trees? Where would be our rivers, our lakes and the
vast ocean? And where indeed should we be without
anything to eat or drink? We could not live in the
world at all if the fleecy white clouds, or the thin,
gray clouds, or even those thick, black clouds did not
come just so often, and, shutting away the sun, give
us the rain that we ag^ everything else upon the
earth must have. ^ <"'

You did not think that the clouds were so impor-
tant, did you? They seemed beautiful and strange

BEAUTY IN GOD'S WORLD: THE CLOUDS 9

and wonderful, and sometimes almost terrible, but
did you know that they were more important to us
than anything else except the sunlight? When you
saw them go merrily across the sky you did not
think that they were hurrying to do God's service.
You never thought of the clouds as servants of God.
Y'et that is just what they are, — servants of God.
They have helped Him make the great wonderful
world what it is and they are still helping Him.

Think again of all those beautiful and wonderful
things you saw last summer, and then think what
they would be like if the clouds did not do God's
bidding and give us rain. Can you think of any-
thing that would be happier or better with no rain
at all?

It will be even more interesting to watch the
clouds now that you know how useful they are to us.
When you see the thick, white clouds rolling up from
the horizon, piling themselves upon one another, you
will think of them as God's servants getting ready to
send us rain. And when you see the white, fleecy
little clouds making shadows skip over the grassy
fields while they play at hide and seek with the sun,
you will feel very happy, for you will know that those
very skipping and dancing shadows are bringing
comfort to the flowers and the trees, and all the little
insects and birds that live among them, — and you
will think, ''God's servants, the clouds, are very
busy trying to help us this hot day."

LESSON 2
EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN

MEMORY VERSE

All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Num. 14: 21

The Purpose

It is the purpose of this lesson to show how God's lov-
ing care clothes the earth and makes it the beautiful
world we know.

Many children believe in God's love and care for
themselves and for mankind in general, but have never
been taught that God is in and through everything,
even trees and plants and grass. They should now begin
to see and feel that order runs through even the most
common things in life. For that reason this lesson ends
with the weeds.

The vegetation which they have loved in trees and
flowers, and disliked in weeds, should assume an impor-
tance in their minds aside from any use man makes of the
different plants. The lessons are planned to awaken
gradually the child's consciousness to the fact that law
and order reign everywhere throughout the universe.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Keep before the children the fact that you are dealing
with nature and the bare places found in nature. Tell
them that city streets and squares and gravel pits have

10

EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN 11

been made by man for his convenience. Yet call atten-
tion to the fact that green plants will grow between the
bricks of an unused sidewalk and creep far up on an un-
used road, finally covering it entirely. In time an un-
sightly gravel bank will be covered with a green growth.

Impress upon their minds the patience with which
nature obeys God's law, working over and over to cover
again with vegetation earth and rocks left bare by storm
or flood or by man's hands.

Show the picture of the fiddle head in the leaflet, after
you have read about it in the story.

Hand Work

Ask the children to gather and press some part of the
earth's green garment, whatever they are able to get at
this season of the year that seems beautiful or interesting
to them, such as the frond of a fern, a flower, leaves,
feathery grasses, moss or seaweed. If possible the chil-
dren should select their specimens themselves without
any suggestions from the teacher, except that they are
to bring some part of the earth's garment that especially
interests them, pressed and mounted.

OPENING TALK AND QUESTIONS

What did we call the clouds when we were talking
about them? (God's servants.) What do they give to
our earth? If there were no clouds should we be happier
than we are now? What would happen if it did not rain?
(The world would become like one vast desert.)

Show me what clouds you have seen this last week.

Because the clouds do God's service we are able to
have upon the earth the beautiful green plants that we
shall hear about to-day.

EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN

Those ferns you saw growing last summer are such
beautiful things! When you see a clump of them in
the deep woods they look so delicate and soft that
they seem like long, green feathers. When a gentle
breeze steals through the trees they bend and wave
so gracefully that they make the forest seem like
fairyland and the ferns themselves like the sway-
ing forms of fairies as they dance in groups upon
the forest floor.

The ferns that grow upon the cliffs nod and wave
their long feathery fronds at you as if to say, ''Come
up here with me and see all that I see."

But you cannot get up there. The crevices into
which the fern tucks its feet or roots are too small
and too far apart for your feet to climb up by, and
you cannot get to the fern, nodding so gently to you
from its rocky cliff. You wonder how it grew there
and how it can keep on growing. Then there are
other ferns that cover the smooth rocks or the bare
cliffs so thickly that the rocks look as if they were
wrapped in a mossy blanket. Sometimes you can
hear water trickling down behind the fern, and you
almost think that you are in a fairy dell.

Did you ever stop to think how few bare spaces
you have seen upon the earth? How some plant or
bit of moss will try to grow in almost every place?

12

EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN 13

God has clothed the earth in a beautiful garment
of living green. It creeps up on the smooth, sloping
rocks in ferns and moss. It hangs down from the
tall, jagged rocks in ferns and vines. It lines the sides
of brooks and ponds with all sorts of plants and
bushes and pretty flowers. It even grows out into
the ponds and lakes as water plants and as the
beautiful white water lily, and in the ocean as
long fringes of seaweed. It pushes up the country
roads in shrubbery and flowers all intertwined with
grapevines. It spreads itself out on the earth in
woods and in grassy fields and in flower-bedecked
meadows.

It is a garment of many patterns that God has
spread over the earth to clothe it. And every pat-
tern that makes up this wonderful garment is useful
as well as beautiful. How many of these different
patterns can you think of?

Everywhere the green robe stretches out to cover
the bare earth and some useful or beautiful plant
grows upon almost every spot. You know how it is
when you make a garden. If you do not sow seeds
in the fresh earth, nature will. She has plenty of
seeds to sow where you do not sow yours, and some-
times her seeds come up just where you planted
yours. You are not always quite sure which of the
tiny plants grew up from your seeds and which grew
up from hers. If you leave the earth in your garden
uncared for, nature will take care of it for you and
cover it with growing things. That is God's law for
the earth. Nature sows her seeds broadcast, and
whenever there is a possible chance they come up.

14 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

Even in the desert some things grow, — it is not all
a rocky or sandy waste.

Did you ever see a cactus with its thick, juicy
stems covered with sharp, bristling spines? That is
a plant of the desert. Where do you suppose its roots
found the water that is stored up in those thick
branches? Men and animals shun the desert because
they can find no water to drink, but this plant finds
it somewhere under the hot, dry sand, and stores it
up for future use. Indeed, animals and men lost
in the desert often save their lives by breaking the
thick stems and sucking out the water. Strange, is
it not, where those desert plants find that water?

And isn't it strange, too, how the daintiest and
most delicate little flowers come out first in the
spring, when the weather is so cold and frosty that
the snow has hardly melted away? Such brave little
flowers those wood anemones and hepaticas are! Did
you ever pick the little starry-eyed hepatica and see
the stems of the flowers and of the tiny new leaves
all covered with soft gray fur?

There is the trailing arbutus and those Alpine
flowers which blossom just at the edge of the melting
ice on the tops of the high mountains. Sometimes
these Alpine flowers are so impatient to open that the
buds force their way up through the thin, hard ice,
and do not wait for it all to melt away. Shouldn't
you think they would freeze? But they don't. They
keep alive just as the little crocuses do which come
up in our gardens as soon as ever there is the smallest
patch of green grass showing through the snow.

The ferns are in no such hurry to come up. They

EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN 15

wait until it is warmer, and then out of the earth
comes the baby frond all rolled up tight like a watch
spring. As it grows it unwinds until the graceful
feathery frond is free from its tight roll. These baby
ferns are called fiddle heads. Did you ever see any?
The humming birds know where to find them, for
they line their nests with the soft, brown, woolly
blanket that covers some of these baby ferns.

We always think of ferns as growing in the deep,
dark woods, or on rocks or beside laughing, chatter-
ing brooks. But they grow in great, feathery masses
in the open swamps, and they cluster around the
bowlders in open pastures, and they even crowd
their way into the country roadsides. Wherever
they can tuck their feet in securely and get their
proper nourishment they send up their graceful
fronds and help to make earth's garment whole and
beautiful.

All sorts of mosses grow on the forest floor and on
stumps of trees and on the rocks where the ferns
grow. They even grow where the ferns can find no
crevice large enough to tuck their roots into. If the
rock is moist and shaded the moss will grow so thick
that your feet sink away down into it. Some of the
mosses are so beautiful that you might wish you
were a fairy and could live in such a wonderful little
forest. Where the rocks are too dry and smooth for
the mosses the lichens put their pretty green and
brown and yellow rosettes. Does not nature clothe
her rocks beautifully?

If a tree falls down in the forest and dies, losing all
of its own fine dress of leaves, the earth tries to put

16 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

about it some of her garment. Moss and lichen grow
upon it and finally cover it up, so that after years and
years it makes a long, moss-covered mound upon the
forest floor. If woods are cut down trees will begin
to grow again to take the places of the others. There
will be another forest there in time unless the stumps
of the old trees are destroyed and the land is culti-
vated.

Nature never gets discouraged. She works over
and over again, so patiently, to cover the bare spaces.
If it is too bare or too dry for one plant to grow
she tries another and another. If an oak tree does
not like to grow on sandy soil, pine trees do; and little
birch trees will begin to grow on a gravel bank that
almost everything else seems to shun.

Even the sand hills back from the seashore are
looked after. The wind likes to play with the sand
on these hills, and blows it around in shifting masses.
So nature plants a kind of grass there that has long,
creeping roots. These roots grow so long, and cross
and recross among themselves so often, that they
bind the sand compactly and the wind can blow only
a little off the top.

You know how the rough old ocean plays with the
sand and pebbles on the beach and how the waves
move them about. But underneath the water,
where the waves are more quiet, the rocks are cov-
ered with seaweed. Long, slender masses wave to
and fro as the tide comes in or goes out. Under-
neath the seaweed are sea mosses of wonderful colors
and shapes, so fine and delicate that they must be
floated in water to be seen. The deeper the water is,

EARTH'S GARMENT OF GREEN 17

the finer and more beautiful the mosses and sea
plants are.

It is one of God's laws for the world that it should
be covered with growing things. Is it any wonder,
then, that nature wants to use the nice, rich soil that
you leave bare in your gardens? You like to have it
bare. It looks better to you that way and your
flowers will gi-ow better in carefully cultivated soil
not crowded by other plants. But nature does not
wish the earth left unused. She is fulfilling God's
law when she covers it up with growing plants. She
scatters broadcast every year millions of seeds just
so there shall be no waste spaces.

Do not be impatient with the plants that you call
weeds. You must pull them up if you wish your
garden to grow nicely, but do not fret because it must
be done so often. Only remember that they are a
part of earth's garment, and that it is God's law for
the garment to reach out and cover the whole earth.
Remember, too, that nature is always very busy
obeying God's law.

LESSON 3
THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS

MEMORY VERSE

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all
his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so
clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast
into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?

Matt. 6: 28-30

The Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is not only to teach the
child about the life of a plant but to open his eyes to the
fact that the different things in nature are helping each
other. God's laws are so wonderful that any one of his
creations in living according to His laws not only lives
its own life well but helps some other form of life. This
teaching will be repeated again in other forms.

Suggestions for the Teacher

For this lesson the teacher should bring a lima bean,
or a pea, or a pumpkin seed, already sprouted, with
roots and the first leaves well enough developed to be
easily seen by the class. If possible bring also a flower
of such shape that the children can see for themselves
how the shape of the cup fits the body of the bee.

When telling about the mutual help which flowers
and bees give each other, keep the children's attention
upon the flowers and the work the bees do for them, as
there will be opportunity enough to talk about the bees
themselves in Lesson 10. Emphasize the fact that the

18

THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS 19

bees in getting their own food help the flowers to produce
better seeds, and that we in planting gardens for our own
food help to hnprove many of the plants which form the
earth's covering.

Hand Work

Seeds should be distributed among the children, the
teacher giving directions how to sprout them. The bean,
pea, pumpkin, melon or nasturtium seed should be
soaked for twenty-four hours in a warm place. At the
end of that time place the seed in a tumbler and, holding
it against the side, fill the tumbler with damp sawdust.
Keep the sawdust damp and keep the tumbler in a fairly
warm place, covered by a sheet of glass. Sphagnum
moss may be used instead of the sawdust. The whole
process of germination can be seen in this way. After the
seeds have grown enough to spread apart and hold the first
pair of leaves upright they should be taken from the glass
and drawn upon the sheet accompanying the leaflet.

OPENING TALK

If men cut down a hill and leave a gravel bank, what
does nature try to do? If a brick sidewalk is unused,
what happens? If a street is fenced ofl" and unused, will
it remain just as it was before?

If you pull up all the little plants that nature sows in
your garden and leave the earth bare, will it stay bare?
Whose law is nature thus fulfilling? Tell me some of the
different places that the garment of the earth covers.

Let us see what parts of earth's garment you have
brought to show us this morning.

To-day we are to think how all the green garment of
the earth grows from seeds, and how the flowers and
the bees help each otlior.

THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS

When you take a little seed, dry and hard from be-
ing kept through the winter, and put it in the earth,
what will happen to it? You expect it to grow into a
plant with flowers like those the seed came from, do
you not? And in order that it may sprout and grow
into a fine healthy plant, you take care of it. You
water it carefully, if the clouds do not give it rain
enough.

But that is not all the seeds must have, just earth
and water. They must have warmth as well, or they
will not grow at all. Many seeds are in the ground all
winter. They are dropped from the ripened seed
pods late in the summer or in the autumn, and they
fall into the soft earth; but they do not come
up. They lie there asleep until something calls to
them.

Can you tell me what it is that calls to the little
seeds so sound asleep in the moist earth?

The sun ! Yes, the sun shines down and calls to the
sleeping seeds to wake up. It shines bright and warm,
the ice and snow begin to melt away, and the water
in the brooks runs free and happy. Children come
running home from school.

'^ Mamma," they cry, ^'spring has come!^'

And sure enough, spring has come. The birds come
one by one at first, then in flocks; the trees begin to

20

THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS 21

show a little green at the ends of their brown
branches; the earth dries up so that it is no longer
wet and sticky; a soft gentle rain falls, and up come
the Httle plants and flowers, one by one.

It is the warmth that the sun gives to them that
makes the seeds stir and wake and then grow. They
cannot move about as you do when you wake up and
get out of bed, they have to grow up from their beds.
Instead of feet, they have roots which begin to grow
out of the seed, and go down deeper and deeper into
the ground. Now these roots anchor the tiny plant
so it will stay right there, and they also feed it by
drawing up out of the earth, where the seed had been
sleeping so long, just what it needs to make it grow.

After the root has commenced to grow downward
the stem appears and begins to grow in an opposite
direction. The stem is curved over and bent down
as if the httle plant were hanging its head, and at the
end are two tiny leaves. These leaves want to reach
the sunlight, but they are too dehcate to push their
way through the earth, so the stem pushes its way
out of the ground and pulls the leaves out after it.
Then it straightens up and the httle leaves open and
spread out, whole and perfect, because the stem
dragged them out of the ground instead of pushing
them out.

Did you ever help mother or father plant their
gardens? Did you watch to see how the seeds would
come up? What was the first thing you saw appear
above the ground?

Leaves? No. If you looked closely it was a httle
looped stem, as if the end of a green button-hook

22 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

were coming out of the ground. And then the next
morning when you ran around to the garden to see
how those nasturtiums or peas or beans were getting
on, you saw that the curved green stem had straight-
ened itself and was standing upright with two tiny
leaves upon the top, didn't you?

Sometimes the plants grow so fast that it seems as
if you could almost see them grow. The sun calls to
them so that they shoot up higher and higher, while
their roots go down deeper and deeper to hold the
plant firmly and to furnish it with food and water.
Up from the roots, through the stems to the leaves
the moisture goes, but how it can get up the long
tubes in the stems without falling back not even
learned men can tell us.

Yet, even without the roots to send up the water,
the stem of a plant can draw it up. The flower in a
vase of water will often last many days because the
tiny tubes in the stems, if kept well open at the ends,
are able to drink up the water that the flowers need
to keep them fresh.

No plant, except a water plant, will grow in water
as well as it will in the earth, for the roots take up
more than water. They suck up something that is
in the earth and which the water dissolves and carries
along with it. This mineral salt, as it is called, is
very important, for it is the plant's food and even a
plant must eat as well as drink. Up into the leaves
the food-laden water is forced, there to be made over
into a kind of starch which nourishes the plant and
makes it grow.

Think how much like us those little plants are.

THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS 23

They have feet to tuck them firmly into the earth,
and mouths, only these are on the feet, to take up
the food. They have leaves where the food is made
into real nourishment and where the plants breathe.
Skin very much like our own covers the whole plant,
and httle tendiils hold up the climbing plants as
tightly as if they were hands.

These are not the only ways that plants are like
us. They do something besides just growing strong
and healthy, with plenty of leaves, just as we do
something besides growing into strong, healthy
bodies. What the plant does is to blossom.

When the first bud forms, how interested we all
are to watch and see how it will open! There are so
many things that we want to know about that
blossom. What color will it be? What shape? Will
the blossom be a single flower or a cluster of smaller
ones? Will it open in the morning like the morning-
glory or in the afteriioon like the four-o'clock, or in
the evening like the evening primrose? Or will it be
open all day and follow the sun about as does the
sunflower?

There are so many different things about the
flowers to watch and to think about, and every differ-
ent thing about them is for some useful purpose. It
is not there just for beauty or for show. The beauti-
ful color or the odor; the long tube or the shallow
cup; the soft fringe on the edge of some petals; the
downy carpet on the curved underpetals of others;
the little hairs on the stem and calix ; the stamens, the
pistil and the yellow pollen, — all these have a purpose.

The yellow pollen which is shaken by the stamens

24 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

upon the pistil helps to make the seeds. The httle
hairs keep away crawling insects that might harm the
flower, while the beautiful color and the sweet odor
attract to the flower the flying insects that help it.

Did you guess while you were watching the honey-
bees and the big, noisy bumblebees going in and out
of the flowers and gathering the pollen and the nectar,
that they were helping the flowers as well as helping
themselves? Did you think that the flowers needed
the bees to help them? Yet it is so.

The beautiful colors are a device to attract the
bees; the sweet odor is thrown out to tell the bees
that there is nectar to be had.

For the flowers need the bees. Many of them are
quite as dependent upon the bees as the bees are upon
them. They need the bees to bring pollen to them
from other flowers of their kind so they can have
better seeds than they would if the pollen from their
own stamens fell upon their own pistils. Many of the
flowers could have seeds of their own, while many
could not, without the help of the bees. But all seeds
are better if the pollen comes from another flower of
the same kind.

So while the bees work steadily gathering pollen
and nectar for themselves they are helping the flowers
to grow more and more beautiful. Their soft, furry
bodies brush off and catch grains of pollen when
they visit one flower, and leave these little grains
upon the waiting pistil of the next. For the bees
always visit the same kind of flowers each day and
the flowers are arranged in such a way as to assist the
bees in getting and carrying the pollen. That is why

THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS 25

there are so many different shapes in flowers. Does
it seem strange to you that flowers and bees should be
such friends? They work together not only for the
good of themselves but for the good of the world.

They tell us that ages and ages ago the flowers
were all small and all green and that there were no
large beautifully colored blossoms at all. But since
the bees have been working upon them, the flowers
have grown larger and larger and more and more
beautifully colored.

In a fairy story we might read that a fairy touched
the little green blossoms, one by one, with her wand
and turned them into beautiful flowers of all colors.
But this we are telling is a true story. The bees have
been the fakies, and their tongues and furry bodies
have been the wands that have transformed the green
blossoms of so long ago into the lovely flowers we have
to-day, with their varied shapes and colors. It has
taken a long, long time to do this, so much longer
than you can ever dream.

But isn't it quite as wonderful as a fairy story?
Isn't it even more wonderful? Doesn't it show^ that
God is watching over everything with most loving
care? If He watches over the flowers, intending that
they shall grow more and more beautiful and uses the
little bees to help Him, wiU He not watch over all of
you. His children, and help you all? The whole
world is in God's keeping and nothing that He creates
is too mean or small for His care.

LESSON 4
PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS

MEMORY VERSE

And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed,
and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed
thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. Gen. 1:11

The Purpose

This lesson is a continuation of the preceding one and
carries on the growth of the plant to its seed-bearing
and seed-sowing. The purpose is the same as that of
Lesson 3, but it is intended to open the eyes of the child
still more to the marvelous cooperation that is going on
all the time in the world about us, and that has been
going on since its creation. This truth should give the
child a reason why he should trust in God.

Suggestions for the Teacher

This lesson, continuing the life and growth of a plant,
gives more emphasis to the thought that ''All are needed
by each one." As this was a memory verse in the lessons
two years ago,^ ask the children at the end of the hour to
repeat it.

Have some of the winged and feathered seeds to show
the class, — some maple wings, clematis feathers, burs,
sticktights, — so they can see for themselves these
different means that nature uses to sow her seeds.

1 In Living Together. By Frances M. Dadmun. The Beacon
Press. Page xxxv.

26

PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS 27

Dwell upon the fact that God cannot watch over
His plants with such loving care and not watch over us
too. This lesson should be used to increase the child's
faith and trust.

Teach with this lesson the three parables which relate
to seeds. (The Sower, Matt. 13:1-9; The Wheat and
the Tares, Matt. 13:24-30; The Mustard Seed, Matt.
13:31-32.) Can the children tell you what lesson Jesus
taught by each of these seed-stories?

Hand Work

Ask the children to make a collection of seeds, and
draw or paste them on the sheet enclosed in the leaflet,
and to record their list on page 4 of the leaflet.

OPENING TALK

How is it that the baby plant protects its first tender
leaves from the rough earth? If the first two leaves and
the tiny bud between them were broken off would the
plant grow? Do the roots ever grow up? Or the leaves
down?

What does the plant do besides grow? Is the blossom
just to make the plant more beautiful? Does it have any
help from outside?

If we do right and follow God's commandments shall
we help any besides ourselves?

To-day we will follow the growth of the plant still
further, and see how it is that each plant makes sure
there shall be many more plants of its kind, and what
helpers there are for this work.

PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS

What happens when a flower fades and dies? Is
that all that there is to the life of a plant, to grow,
and to blossom, and to die? Is there nothing left,
in the autumn, after all the effort of growing and
blossoming during the summer but a dry, dead
plant?

The seeds are left, the millions and millions of
seeds of all shapes and sizes and colors; wrapped in
a thousand different kinds of wrappings, and scat-
tered in a thousand different ways. The seeds are
the legac}^ which each plant leaves to the world. In-
stead of that one plant which grew in that spot during
the summer, there will be many more plants just like
it from the seeds which it sows.

Earth's garment must not fail, and each plant
does its best to provide for more and better plants
than itself when its growth shall be stopped and its
life shall be over. That is God's law. It is the law
for everything, even for a little plant, even for the
cold, hard rocks, to go on and on to better things.

Now as the purpose of each plant is to blossom and
bear seeds, there must be every arrangement for
keeping them safe while they grow, and for scattering
them when they are ripe.

Have you ever noticed how carefully the seeds are
kept in the different plants? How they are hidden

28

PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS 29

away under the flower at first, and then, when the
flower wilts and faUs, how the receptacle grows larger
and larger, until the seeds are ripe? Some plants hide
their seeds very carefully, like the shy Uttle violet;
and others, like the dandelion, hold the seed pods
where all can see them and where the wind can easily
scatter them.

Every different way in which the seeds are cared
for and scattered is the very best way for that special
plant.

The violet does not want to have the wind take its
seeds, for the wind would carry them to many places
where they could not grow. So the violet hides the
seed pods under its cloak of leaves. The stems which
hold them grow longer and longer and finally, when
the seeds are ripe, the seed pods appear above the
leaves, split open very suddenly into three parts, and
tlirow the seeds around on the ground about the
mother plant.

Did you ever see the seed pods burst open? Did
you ever find them standing open all empty except for
a few tiny, round, shiny seeds that were left behind
when the others were thrown out? Perhaps you have
amused yourself by touching the ripened seed pods
of the garden balsam or the jewel weed, and watch-
ing the seeds fly out when the pods snapped open at
your touch.

Not only are these little seed pods of the violet
hidden away from the wind, but the seeds themselves
are hard and round so the wind could not carry them
away. The wood violet must grow in the woods. It
cannot afford to have the wind take the seeds and

30 THE WORLD IX WHICH WE LIVE

lose them; and they would be lost if the wind blew
them into places where they could not grow. So the
plant is made to scatter the little seeds about itself
where the soil is good and the conditions are right.
There are not many seeds and they must be carefully
scattered.

But with the venturesome dandelion all is differ-
ent. That plant can grow anywhere, and so it flaunts
its seed pod in the air just where the wind can get at
it and blow away the hosts of seeds, — anywhere and
everywhere. The dandelion's seeds are supplied with
little feather-tipped air-floats, and when they are ripe
and the wind comes to get them, away they sail.
They are quite able to sprout on any ground where
the wind may drop them, even if it be upon a heap
of ashes. But until its seeds are ripe the dandelion is
just as careful of them as any other plant. If you
will notice you will see that, after the dandelion blos-
som has wilted, the stem lies down upon the ground
until the seeds are ripe. Then up it stands, as straight
and tall as w^hen it bore a beautiful golden blossom.

The seeds of the thistle and milkweed have silky
fibers that carry them through the air like balloons;
while the seeds of the clematis have long feathery
tails like plumes, which carry them far away from
their parent plant when the autumn wind comes
along. The ash trees and maple trees give wings to
their seeds so that they, too, can be scattered far
and wide.

Have you ever watched a winged maple seed com-
ing down through the air? It turns around and
around as it sinks, and if it falls in the grass or soft

PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS 31

earth, it stands upright with the point of the seed
sticking into the ground. From that very end of the
seed the roots begin to grow. So the maple seed is
able not only to go great distances through the air,
but to plant itself quite successfully if it comes to
rest in a place where it is possible to wedge even a
small point into the earth.

The queer tumble-weed is a plant that carries away
and scatters its seeds itself. It does not trust to any-
thing else, and when the seeds are ripe the roots dry
up and away the top of the tumble-weed rolls in the
wind.

There are other plants which depend upon their
seeds being carried about by animals or people. They
have little hooks by which they fasten themselves to
the fur of animals or to our clothing. These are very
disagreeable seeds. How we dislike to come back
from a walk and find our clothes covered with burs
or with sticktights or with beggar-needles! Did you
ever see a poor dog trying to get burs off his coat, or
a cow with the hair on the end of her tail all matted
together with them? Yet, disagreeable as they may
be to us and our dogs and cattle, these seeds are inter-
esting because they show how carefully eveiything is
planned to fulfill a distinct purpose.

The birds and squirrels do their share toward carry-
ing seeds and so spreading plants about. Their work
is most useful for they carry the seeds of berries and
fruits, plants which we are very anxious to have in-
crease. For many plants hide their seeds in a fruit,
and many more have seeds large enough to furnish
food for birds and animals and man.

32 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

Have you ever noticed how many cherry stones a
bu*d will drop around upon the ground? You often
find cherry stones in the woods or open fields far
away from any cherry tree. Birds scatter blue-
berries and blackberries and strawberries about, and
the crows scatter corn.

Squirrels are very fond of pears. They run up our
pear trees and sit up in the branches eating our finest
fruit, throwing down upon us, as if to mock us, only
the cores. They are especially fond of nuts, which
are the seeds of the trees that bear them, and these
they collect most busily in the autumn and store
away for the winter, some of them in little under-
ground storerooms. Often the squirrels gather more
nuts than they eat and those that are left in these
storerooms sprout and grow into oak trees, chestnut
trees, butternut and walnut trees.

Every one of you must have seen a scarecrow and
you all know why the farmers put them in their corn-
fields. The crows eat the corn that is just planted,
and that is a great trouble to the farmers. But, long,
long ago, before the farmers planted corn, the crows
used to eat it and carry the seeds away. They planted
corn in their way then, as the farmers do in their way
now. Perhaps if the crows had not carried away the
corn and dropped it in different places in those long-
ago days, we ourselves should have no nice corn to eat.

We do not like to have the crows eat our corn, or
the birds take our cherries or strawberries or black-
berries, or the squirrels hide away all our butternuts
or chestnuts. But we must remember that they were
at work helping these plants to distribute their seeds

PLANTS SOWING THEIR SEEDS 33

long before men thought to plant them at all. This
is the food they have lived on for ages, and for ages
they have eaten the fruits and nuts and have helped
the plants at the same time by distributing the seeds,
just as the bees help the flowers when they are busy
getting their own food from them. Isn't it interesting
to learn how the animals and plants help each other
day by day?

The plants' helpers are God's helpers, too.

All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

The birds and the bees, the squirrels, and the wind
are His servants, doing their share to make our world
better and more beautiful. And we, when we plant
seeds — flower seeds, fruit seeds, or those of trees or
vegetables — are helping the whole world as much as
ourselves. If we take care of the gardens and try to
have each plant healthy and well formed we are
making more beautiful and useful the wonderful
garment the earth wears.

LESSON 5
THE TREES

MEMORY VERSE

Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the
Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that
spreadeth out her roots by the river. Jffr. 17: 7, 8

The Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is to give the child a ghmpse
of the unity which exists throughout God's universe, and
to open his eyes to the fact that our physical lives are not
so unlike the physical lives of other living things about us.

The part of our life which is vastly different from that
of plants and animals is the spiritual nature. That is
developed only by reaching up to the light of God's
presence.

We must make the effort to reach God's hght just as
the trees must grow by reaching up or spreading out to
receive the greatest possible amount of sunshine.

Suggestions for the Teacher

All children naturally love trees and invest them with
an almost mysterious life. When telling the story make
the life-formation of a tree seem real and vital. Picture
it not as something mechanical, but as a living thing that
reaches out with its roots, its branches and its leaves.
The activity of the tree is what we wish the children to
understand.

34

THE TREES 35

Dwell upon the need of sunlight and the tree's active
search for it, and lead the children to feel that we, too,
must endeavor to lead a life that is full of God's sunlight.

Bring to the class the end of a branch from an oak, a
horse-chestnut, a pine, an elm, or a birch, and show the
children how one leaf differs from another on the same
branch, and how differently they are carried on the ends
of the branches and fitted in together to receive all of the
sunlight.

Show the under side of the leaves when that point is
reached in the story, so all the class can see how different
it is from the upper surface.

Think of some well-known place which covers about
one-half an acre and refer to it when telling of the maple
leaves.

Hand Work

Ask each child to choose some great tree that is ac-
cessible and visit it often, thinking of it as his tree and
learning from it all the tree has to tell him.

Upon the top of the sheet which accompanies the leaflet
have the pupil write the name of his tree, and paste below
one or more pressed leaves from it.

OPENING TALK

Are all the seeds that come up in the spring sown by
man? Can you tell some of the means nature uses to
scatter seeds? What seeds did you find? Tell me how
they are sown. Does the parent plant always wish to
scatter the seeds far away? What has been helping the
flowers for a very much longer time than man has?

Even the great trees come from seeds, and bear seeds
which may be sown by the wind, by animals or by man.
Let us think to-day how a tree grows.

THE TREES

When you walk through a deep, deep wood do you
ever look up into the trees? Do you see the great,
solid trunk, and the spreading branches, and the in-
numerable leaves that dance and rustle together at
the slightest breath of wind? And have you noticed
how different the leaves are upon the different trees,
and in how many ways they spread or hang upon the
fine twigs at the ends of the branches?

There are so many leaves it seems as if they must
be crowded, but when you look closely you will find
that each leaf has plenty of room. It is only when
the wind blows that the leaves interfere with each
other. When the wind stops playing with the leaves
each one has its own place, quite undisturbed by its
neighbors.

How does it happen that every leaf, among the
thousands on a tree, has its own place and grows un-
hampered by its neighbor leaves? It does not hap-
pen. It is all planned and arranged to be so. It does
not just happen that your hands can reach your
mouth, or that you can digest the food you eat. That
was God's plan for mankind.

And strange as it may seem, the trees are not so
very different from us in the way they live and grow,
for they, too, take in food and have it digested. Only
their mouths are underground and the place where

3()

THE TREES 37

the food is digested is not inside the trunk, but in the
leaves. Just the other way around from us, yet quite
as wonderful.

Think for a moment about the long roots of the
tree. You know that they fasten the tree into the
ground and hold it firmly, but do you know that#those
roots spread outwards in a fine network of hairlike
rootlets that are drinking in food for the tree as well
as holding it steadfast and making it secure against
the wind? The tree is hke a hving pump, and up into
it from all those hair-like, interlaced roots gallons of
water are forced every day. The rootlets suck it up
through their millions of tiny mouths; it is pumped
by the sunshine up the trunk of the tree and into
the leaves where it is made over into the sap which
nourishes the tree and makes it grow. The leaves are
little kitchens where the water and the mineral salts
it contains are prepared for the use of the whole
tree.

Now where should you think the heat comes from
that is used to prepare this food in those tiny kitch-
ens? From the sun, of course. So each leaf must hang
free and have its own place where it can receive the
life-giving sunshine and breathe in the air. Every
leaf is looked out for most carefully so that it shall
have sunshine and air, and God has planned each tree
so that it can provide for its leaves.

A tree that has broad, heavy leaves like the horse-
chestnut, holds them stiffly and in an exact pattern so
that each leaf will stand out free from its neighbor,
yet so that all the leaves will fit together and take in
the sunlight without leaving waste spaces. The oak

38 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

tree arranges its leaves so that they are held out flat
or slope down a little. They are long and irregular
in shape and there is room for many more of them
than of the great horse-chestnut leaves. The elm
carries its small, oval leaves on long, slender, droop-
ing bj*anches and the finest of twigs, and in that way
it can give free air and sunlight to thousands and
thousands of leaves. Look at the great, white pine
with its branches of needles, five in a bunch, and
yet all held out erect and free like a beautiful
blue-green pompon, each needle untouched by its
neighbors.

A full-grown maple has enough leaves upon it to
cover one-half an acre of ground. Think of all those
leaves being planned for! Think of the maple tree
growing in such a way, with just so many branches
and small twigs as will hold all those leaves free and
unhampered! You did not realize that a tree took
care of itself like that when it was growing, did
you?

Now the leaves on the different trees and vshrubs
and plants are quite unlike. The shape of the leaves
and their texture suits the tree or plant to which they
belong. The broad, heavy horse-chestnut leaf is
held up by a stout, stiff twig. The vslender, drooping
branches of the elm or birch would be weighed down
and broken by such great leaves, and moreover, if the
horse-chestnut leaves were not held out quite stiff
and straight they would interfere, for they are so
large that they could not help getting in each other's
way. Try to think how a horse-chestnut leaf would
look upon the dainty twigs of the elm tree!

THE TREES 39

While tlie roots are spreading out under the
ground in search of water which is taken up into the
leaves, the leaves themselves, besides making over
the water-food into sap, help to provide the roots
with water. For they are arranged like the shingles
on the roof of a house and shed the rain-water from
the trees so that it will fall upon the ground directly
over the place where the finest rootlets, with the most
active mouths, are growing. Isn't it wonderful how
a tree is planned? The most active rootlets are
directly under the place where the leaves shed the
water. The tree cannot go about to get its food and
drink, so by dripping rain to the ground just over its
rootlets the tree helps itself to get the needed supply
of water.

Upon the ground near the trunk of the tree, where
the older roots carry the water instead of sucking it
up, the rain does not fall in great quantities. You
have seen the dry places left on the sidewalk
near the trunk of a tree when it has rained; and
you know how the rain will beat down upon your
umbrella from the leaves at the outer edge [of the
tree.

Some leaves, like those of the oak and maple, are
smooth and glossy, and shed the water quickly, and
some are hairy like the mullein, where the water
stands upon the leaf in great drops. Too much water
would interfere with the work of the leaf by clogging
up the tiny pores through which it breathes, and so
most of the breathing is done by the under side.

Have you ever noticed how different the under side
of a leaf is from the upper side? The color is differ-

40 THE WORLD IX WHICH WE LIVE

cut, the veins stand out more, and the skin of the leaf
is more porous. For even leaves have skin. The
outer covering of all leaves is a thin and transparent
membrane that does for the leaf what our skin does
for us.

Some trees do not have all the sunlight they need.
Can you think what trees those are? Forest trees?
Yes, in the forest the sun can reach only the tops of
the trees. Have you ever noticed the difference
between a forest tree and the same kind of a tree
growing in the open field? The forest trees have tall,
straight, slender trunks, with no live branches upon
them except near the top of the tree.

In the open field a tree has plenty of room and sun-
light and it grows into its own natural shape, with
great spreading branches, and with the whole body
of the tree covered with leaves. All those leaves have
sunlight, and the tree puts forth as many as the space
permits. But the forest tree can only get sunlight by
growing straight up toward it. If it does not reach
the light with its leaves it must die, because without
sunlight the leaves cannot provide the proper nour-
ishment for the tree. They would be like kitchens
without a fire! Some of the trees in the woods have
died for this reason.

But the trees that grew straight up, reaching al-
ways for the sunlight, have lived. The lower
branches have died, and, as the trees grew older, have
fallen off and left the trunks tall and smooth almost
to the top. There at the top the leaves form a canopy
so thick that only little patches of sunUght ever reach
the forest floor.

THE TREES 41

Like the forest tree, we, too, must reach up into
the hght. The hght of God's presence is to us in our
Uves what the sunhght is to the forest tree. For it is
that Hght shining into our souls which makes us grow
to be true children of God.

LESSON 6
HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER

MEMORY VERSE

The earth, O Lord, is full of thy loving-kindness:
Teach me thy statutes.

Ps. 119:64

The Purpose

The "struggle for existence" is touched upon in this
lesson, but in such a way as not to be oppressive to the
child's nature. The adaptation of the plant and its nec-
essary struggle will be found to exhilarate and awaken
the spirit of courage. The different means by which the
plants adapt themselves to their surroundings, and the
marvelous order that runs through all things, should be
a lesson in faith.

Suggestions for the Teacher

In teaching this lesson impress upon the children the
fact that very few of the trees and plants have all the
conditions of growth perfect. They must all adapt them-
selves to their surroundings in some way, even if it be in
the long sleep of the seed awaiting its chance to come up.

The description of the ways in which different plants
adapt themselves to their surroundings will interest the
child, whereas the picture of the plant struggling against
adverse conditions would depress him. Make this struggle
an interesting one.

42

HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER 43

Hand Work

Let each child make a list on the leaflet of all the
plant societies he can think of, and opposite each write
the names of two plants or of a plant and a tree that
would be found in that society.

OPENING TALK

Who has visited a great tree since the last lesson?
(Let each child tell about the tree visited and describe
its trunk, branches and leaves.) Let us see the leaves
that you have pressed and mounted.

What is it that the tree must always find? Water,
yes, with its roots, but sunlight, also, with its leaves. It
must always lift its head up to the sunlight, if it is going
to live. Is this always easy to do?

Our story to-day will tell us some of the difficulties
plants and trees meet, and how they make the best of
the conditions they find.

HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER

Of all the millions and millions of seeds which
settle down into the ground every autumn, how many
do you suppose come up? All of them? Oh, no.
There never would be room for them all. What
would become of our orchards if every seed in every
apple which a large apple tree bore should grow into
an apple tree itself? We should have an apple forest
and that would never do, for an apple tree could not
bear fruit if it were crowded like a forest tree, and
had to grow tall and slender without its spreading
branches. Do you not know how few chestnuts you
find on a chestnut tree that is crowded among other
trees in the woods?

No, the earth has not room for all the seeds to grow,
but she sows plenty so she may be sure to have
enough plants. Indeed, .she must always provide for
more than enough. So she scatters her seeds broad-
cast over the ground, and as many as can, come up.
Many of the others just sleep a little longer and wait
their time.

Have you not seen blueberry bushes growing in a
wood that had been cut down or burned over?
Where did they come from? There were no blue-
berry bushes there before. Did the birds drop seeds
enough throughout the wood to make all those blue-
berry bushes? Or were there some blueberries grow-

44

HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER 45

ing there years and years ago, when the tall trees
that had just been cut down were young bushes, and
have the little seeds slept there all that time?

No one can tell. In whatever way the seeds may
have become buried in the earth where a wood was
growing, when the trees are cut down or burned over
up they will come. It is just the same with many
other seeds, they will lie asleep for years and never
wake until they have a good opportunity to grow.
If the ground does not seem comfortable and
homelike to the seeds, they will not start to grow
at all.

The seeds of the great willow herb, which we call
fireweed, are scattered abroad every fall, but only
a few come up from year to year, unless, indeed, the
ground has been burned over by a fire. Then up they
come in masses on that burned ground. A brush pile
burned in the woods, or some railroad ties burned by
the side of the road, give the seeds the sort of soil they
like and up they come.

Where were the seeds before the ground was
burned? How did so many of them get to that spot
of burned earth? No fireweed had been growing
there before. We do not know. We can only say
that the seeds have slept.

Suppose there was a little pansy seed that had
fallen where the sun shone too hot and too long.
The pansy loves the shade, so the seed would not
feel comfortable or at home where the earth was
baked by the sun and it would lie asleep. But while
it was sleeping another seed, which was lying near by,
might come up and grow into a plant that shaded

46 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

the ground where the pansy seed lay. Up, then,
would come the pansy and soon there would be little
pansy faces bobbing and laughing where no one re-
membered ever having seen them before.

All over the world there are places where certain
plants will grow together, because they like the same
conditions of soil or moisture, sun or shade, and
wherever you find one of these plants you will be
quite Hkely to find others. These are called ''Plant
Societies."

Isn't that an odd name for a group of plants
growing together? That word seems to belong to
people instead of plants, doesn't it? And yet the
plants do just what the people in a society do, pick
out and choose those others near which they will
grow best.

The starry-eyed little hepatica likes to grow, in
an oak grove that stands on the side of a hill, where
the little plant can be almost buried in oak leaves.
The barberry bush likes to grow beside a stone wall.
Many other thorned bushes choose a stone wall,
too, so where the barberry bush grows you will
often find blackberry bushes and black raspberries.

There are certain plants that like marshy ground
and many others that gTow in the water. The arrow-
head and pickerel weed stand waist deep in water and
are almost always found together; and where they
grow you will probably find also the yellow pond
lily and the beautiful white water lily.

These water-loving plants have their roots in the
earth; but there are water plants in the ponds and
rivers which grow by merely floating in the water.

HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER 47

Many of them are so small they would hardly be
noticed, but they are all wonderfully provided with
bladder-like sacs for floating the little plant, au-
chambers for aid in breathing and tiny crossbars to
act as rafts to keep the flower stems erect so that
the flowers shall be out of the water. Such wonder-
ful provision God makes for all His works! He pro-
vides for the Uttle bladderwort floating in the pond
as well as for the great, sturdy oak growing upon
the side of a hill.

Can you think of some of the other societies of
plants?

There is the swamp society, where the cat-tail
flag and the bulrushes grow, and where the larch
and hemlock trees make dense forests, into which
the sun never seems to be able to shine down upon
the thickly growing ferns. There is the rock society.
What dainty plants grow upon those great tumbled
rocks and high cliffs. The red and yellow horns of
the columbine and the little pink and yellow flowers
of the pale corydalis nod to you from the clefts of
the rocks in among the fern fronds. On the smooth
rocks the rock saxifrage fits its pretty rosette into
every possible crack, while the soft, green mosses
creep up and up trying to cover the space.

There are the sand societies. The sand hills which
the grass keeps from blowing away is one place
where they are found; the desert is another, where
the cactus, the yucca and the century plant find the
hidden water and store it up for future use. The
gravelly hillsides or open land make another, where
the white birches and pitch pines grow, and where

48 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

the pink moccasin flower stands up straight and tall
between its two long, slender leaves.

There are the forest societies and the societies of
the mountain tops where the trees cannot grow and
where only the little Alpine flowers and strange
looking mosses grow up to the foot of the melting
ice. And there is the great society which we know
best, that of the ordinary fields and roadsides.

Now in whatever society a plant belongs there it
will grow best. It may be able to live in another,
but it will not thrive. Trees which grow so large
and spreading upon the river bank will die if the river
is so full that they stand continually in the water,
as the plants of the marsh society do. The pretty
columbine nodding from a cleft in the rock could
not live in the open fields with the bird's-foot violet.
Nevertheless it is quite wonderful to see what
some plants will do to adapt themselves to hard
conditions.

Those forest trees that grow up straight and tall
to reach the sunlight do not die, even if they are some-
what crowded. The trees that grow upon the open
hillsides have to do battle with the wind ; they cannot
grow as tall as does the tree on the level plain. They
must grow strong to be able to withstand the wind.
The energy which the forest trees use to grow tall
they must use to grow strong.

In a time of very dry weather many plants will
move their leaves. The Indian corn will roll up its
long leaves to save the moisture in them from being
evaporated and the sensitive plant will shut to-
gether the small leaflets which compose the large

HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER 49

leaves. Sometimes it shuts up only a few, but if
the drought is severe the sensitive plant will shut
up all of them. It will shut up its leaflets, too, if
you touch or jar the plant.

Now who would have thought that plants moved
their own leaves? Yet, if you watch mamma's plants
in the window you will see that they do. Turn
around a flowerpot that has been standing where
the sun has shone upon only one part of it and see
what will happen.

Some leaves will turn their edges to the sun when
it is very hot to save themselves from being dried
up. These compass-plants, as they are called, point
their leaves north and south. They grow in the
desert, and many a traveler is glad enough to find
one when he has lost his way and the day is cloudy.
When the compass-plant happens to grow in a
shady place the leaves lie flat like those of other
plants.

Then some leaves go to sleep! You have seen
flowers go to sleep and open again the next day.
The four-o'clock and the portulaca close their petals
when their day is over and wake up again on the
next. But did you ever see leaves go to sleep?
Watch the oxalis in the hanging basket close its
little three-lobed leaves when night comes on.

Does it seem strange to you that plants should
have some motion of their own? And strange, too,
that seeds should sleep longer if they do not find the
conditions right for their growth?

It does seem strange. Yet God does not give
His creations any law to follow which they have no

50 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

chance to obey. He has given the seeds the power
to wait their turn and plants the power to help
themselves, and in so doing they help to preserve
the law and order of the world.

LES-SON 7
THE EARTH OUR STOREHOUSE

MEMORY VERSE

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle,

And herb for the labor of man;

That he may bring forth bread out of the earth.

Ps. 104: 14 (R. V. Margin)

The Purpose

This lesson, the last in Part I, shows how man's co-
operation with the vegetable world has been a benefit
both to himself and to the plants and fruits.

The lesson of mutual helpfulness is again to be brought
out here as it was in Lesson 3. The improvement in the
''grass of the field" by man's cultivation is well suggested
in the verse from the Bible. The use of the translation
given in the margin brings out the thought more clearly.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The story of the birds and the berries is introduced to
show how the cultivation of plants might have begun.
It is true that some new varieties of fruits have come
from seeds probably dropped by birds.

Impress upon the children the fact that man by co-
operating with nature is fulfilling God's purpose, and
that it must improve both himself and that with which
he deals.

Help them to see the whole vegetable kingdom as
full of law and order. Bring out the thought that the

51

52 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

improvement in man through his efforts to cultivate
better fruits and grains is one of God's laws. When we
learn to know God's laws we learn to trust Him.

Hand Work

Let each child make a list of fruits and grains that we
use as food. The work should be done independently at
home and be brought to the class the next Sunday for
comparison.

OPENING TALK

Wliy do not all seeds dropped on the ground come up
the next spring? What happens to some that sleep
longer? What does this do for our earth?

What do we call groups of plants that grow together?
Where do all plants grow best? How can plants and seeds
help themselves?

Do you remember the story of the bees and the flowers
and how they helped each other? Here is another of the
same sort about the birds and the berries. It will show
us how by cultivation and improvement of plants our
earth has come to be a storehouse to which we turn for
our food.

THE EARTH OUR STOREHOUSE

The birds and the berries make almost as wonderful
a story as the bees and the flowers, for the birds as
well as the bees are good fairies to the plants.

Suppose that long, long ago a low bush was grow-
ing on a rocky hillside, doing the best it could to get
water and food enough from the dry, barren soil,
not only to grow, but to blossom and ripen its
seeds. The seeds of this bush were not, like those
of the wood violet, encased in a hard, dry seed
pod. They grew in a bunch about the size of the
end of your little finger and each seed was covered
with a soft, juicy covering, so that the whole looked
like a collection of very small black balls.

It was a blackberry bush growing there upon
that rocky hillside. But the blackberries on that
struggling bush were not very good; they were
mostly seeds with a scanty covering of pulp. If
you had picked one and eaten it you would have
made a wry face and gone on without picking an-
other. The berries were neither sweet nor juicy,
although they looked good to eat.

But the plant was contented with its fruit, even
if the few people who tried it in those long-ago days
were not. A rocky hillside was the natural home
of the blackberry bush. It was quite used to get-
ting along without much water. The leaves were

53

54 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

rather thin, the blossoms were small and the seeds
were large and hard, with only the least bit of the
juicy black covering.

But although the people who tried the fruit did not
like it, and only ate it when they were very hungry or
when they happened to see an especially large berry,
the birds did like the fruit. They ate as many berries
as they could find, and often when carrying them off
to their baby birds in the nest they dropped many as
they flew, just as they do now.

Many of those berries would fall on other rocky
hillsides or on open, dry pastures, and those seeds
would sprout and grow into plants like their parent
bushes, and bear no better fruit. But some seeds
in that long-ago time fell on moist ground. Perhaps
the blackberry seeds lay asleep in such a place for a
long, long time, just as if it were winter all the year,
and never tried to come up at all. It may be that
the birds dropped many blackberries in rich, moist
pastures before there was one little seed brave
enough to sprout.

''I will try it," thought the seed, ''I cannot lie
here asleep forever and live. I might just as well
start out."

So, although the little seed did not feel any more
at home in that soft, rich earth than the pauper
felt in the palace of the prince, it ventured to send
its tiny rootlets cautiously down and then to reach
up toward the sun with the first two tiny leaves.

The rootlets grew fast and sank deeper and deeper
into the soft, dark earth, and the leaves opened out
one by one, quite large and fresh and beautiful.

THE EARTH OUR STOREHOUSE 55

The brave little seed had grown into a fine, healthy
plant, and the sweet, white blossoms were quite the
largest blackberry blossoms that ever had been.
It was just the same with the fruit. Instead of
being the size of the tip of your little finger it was
as large as the end of your thumb.

Every year the fruit of that bush would be larger
and finer until some day a man would come by who
was tempted to try the juicy-looking blackberry.
How much better that berry tasted than any he
had ever tried before. He would look at it to see if
it was really a blackberry bush that he had found
in that unaccustomed place. It certainly was,
although it seemed strange to see it growing there.

As the man looked a thought must have come
into his head! If the blackberries could grow so
large and sweet and juicy in that richer and moister
earth, why not plant some in that sort of soil, and
tend them and make them larger still? Now black-
berries grow in gardens, and the berries are as large
as mother's thimble. We buy them in the markets
and have them on our tables. Was that the way
men first started to make a garden, do you think?
However they began, the birds had helped long
before by scattering the seeds, and so giving plants
a chance to try some other kind of soil.

When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth they found
the Indians planting corn, and none of them knew
where and when it had first been planted. So it is
with us. We do not know when men first began to
sow in fresh, open ground the seeds that they had
learned were good to eat.

56 THE WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE

When people learned to raise and care for fruits
and grains they themselves began to change from
savages into more civilized beings. For when they
had planted grain they must stay and tend it and
wait for it to become ripe and fit to eat. So they
gradually ceased their roving life, ceased spending
their entire time hunting game and began to live
together in groups. So civilized life began with
gardens and grain fields.

Have you ever seen a field of tall, Indian corn,
with the tassels nodding above the thick green
mass? Have you ever seen a field of golden wheat
ready to be harvested, or a field of barley or oats?
The ripe oats might make you think of long stalks
of ripened grass, and for a good reason. All our
grain, such as corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley and
rice, were wild grass long, long ago before men
planted them and took care of them.

Does it seem possible that ''just grass" could
ever have been cultivated to such an extent that its
seeds would become the source of our daily bread?
But it is true. For a longer time than you could
count, or even think, men have been cultivating these
cereals, and they have improved them so much that
now we can hardly believe that they were once a
kind of wild grass. ''The grass of the field," Jesus
called these grains.

God's care of the world and of us is bestowed in
such a wonderful way that the very conomonest
part of the earth's covering, the grass, is not only the
food for cattle and horses and sheep, but it is also
the principal source of our own food. But grass had

THE EARTH OUR STOREHOUSE 57

to be cultivated for a long time before it became
grain. Without that cultivation the wild corn,
which was the first parent of our sweet corn, could
never have had such large stalks and leaves, or
such thick, juicy seeds, or so many of them, as our
corn has. And just think of the difference between a
little, sour, wild apple and a great, delicious, rosy
Baldwin !

Does it seem strange to you that men have also
become better and better while they have been busy
trying to make the plants improve? It is no more
strange than that the bees have made better honey
and become more intelligent insects while they were
at work helping the flowers!

It is in this wonderful way that God's law works.
Nothing can improve without helping other things
to improve, and no one can try to help others without
being helped himself.

PART II

Animals and Insects

LESSONS 8-17

Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee;

And the birds of the heavens, and they shall tell thee:

Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee;

And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

Who knoweth not in all these.

That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this.

Job 12:7-9

LESSON 8
THE ANTS

MEMORY VERSE

Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
Consider her ways, and be wise.

Prov. 6: 6

The Purpose

No child ought to leave the Sunday school after the
lesson on ants without a vivid impression of what indus-
try and helpfulness can accomplish in any community,
be it a city, a home, a schoolroom, or an ant hill.

Peaceful industry and mutual helpfulness would re-
generate the society of man.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Try to make the ant life seem as vivid as possible.
Dwell upon the tender care given the baby ants by their
small nurses. All children love babies whether they be
human or animal.

Contrast the state of the ants that fight and bring
home slaves to wait upon them with that of the busy
working ants, and enlarge upon the lesson that human
beings also suffer from being waited upon too much.

Especially impress upon the children the busy, in-
dustrious, peaceful and unselfish life which these ants
live, and which makes their great communities possible.

Selfish animals become outcasts. There is no room for
them in community life.

61

62 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

OPENING TALK

1. A Review of Part 1.

What is it that wakes up the seed lying so fast asleep
in the dark, damp earth? What makes it grow? What
causes the forest trees to grow so straight and tall? Why
is a tree growing in the open fields or upon a bare hillside so
symmetrically shaped, and why is it clothed with so many
leaves?

What helps has God given the plant world besides the
earth, the water, the sun and the wind? While the bees
are working hard to help themselves, what else do they
help? How did grass get to be grain?

2. Introducing Part 2.

There are other things besides the clouds, the ferns
and mosses, seeds and flowers, plants and trees, which we
shall find interesting. Much more like us than the plants
and trees are the forms of animal life. People have ob-
served the insects and animals so carefully that they can
tell us many things about them, and we will look at them
with more interest when we have learned how they build
their homes, take care of their babies and learn to live
together in communities.

We are to hear to-day the story of the ant, a humble
little creature which was thought worthy to be men-
tioned in our Bible.

THE ANTS

How many of you have ever been to a picnic and
seen the ants carrying off the crumbs that you spilled
or threw away? Did you notice how hard they
worked to drag away a crumb of bread that was very
much larger than themselves and how two or three
would often push or pull together? All of you have
seen ant-hills. Have you noticed the small hill that
the little red ant builds along the paths and side-
walks, and the large hills that the black ants build
in the fields and woods? Did you know that those
hills were cities, large cities, where thousands of
ants live together working in peace and harmony?

Long, long years ago a wise man studied the ways
of these little insects and made a proverb about them
to help and encourage people to live a worthy, in-
dustrious life. He wrote:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard;

Consider her ways, and be wise:

Which having no chief,

Overseer, or ruler,

Provideth her bread in the summer.

And gathereth her food in the harvest.

Those who have more recently observed ants and
studied their ways, say that he was quite right, and
that the ants have no ruler or overseer, — and yet
in the cities which they build and which contain

63

64 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

many thousands of individuals, the ants never quarrel,
but go about their work from early morning until
dark, each one always working for the good of all.

When we speak of nurses and road-builders we
think always of human beings, men and women,
do we not? Who would think that animals or in-
sects had nursery maids, that they engaged in road
building, or kept cows? Yet all these things the
ants do, those little ants which we so thoughtlessly
tread under foot, and they do it most carefully and
industriously.

''But how can they build roads, if they have
only legs, and how can they be nursery maids if
they have no hands with which to wash the little
baby ants?" you might ask. We shall see.

The ants have six legs, but they also have a pair
of mandibles by the side of their mouths, which
take the place of oui hands, and with which they
carry things; they also have a pair of long antennse
below their eyes, which they use to clean themselves
and their friends and the little baby ants, and with
which, by touch, they know their friends and ac-
quaintances. If you look closely at an ant you can
see these mandibles and antennse.

Now in every ant hill there are four different sets
of ants: the mother ants, called queens, who are
very important; the father ants, who are rather
lazy and do not live very long in the hill; the workers,
divided up into several bands that do all the work ; and
the baby ants, who have to be very carefully tended.

The queens are greatly honored by all in the ant
city. The others never turn their backs to them,

THE ANTS 65

but always face them when in their presence. Great
care is taken of them. They are fed and cleaned
by the workers who brush them with their antennae,
carefully and tenderly.

These queens lay many eggs. When the tiny
eggs hatch, the baby ants do not come out of the
eggs all free as does a chicken. Before they can run
about they have to lie a long time done up in a little
case, much like the cocoon of a moth, and while they
are in the cocoon they need much tender care.
This the nm-ses give, carrying the little cases back
and forth into warm and sheltered places, arrang-
ing them all in rows according to their size, like
classes of children in a school. When the baby ants
begin to come out of the cases the nurses break
open the outer covering and help them out. For
it seems to be impossible for the baby ant to help
itself as a little chicken does. The nurse then un-
folds its little legs, washes it with her antennae and
feeds it carefully for a few days.

It is then past its babyhood and has become a
young ant, and as such helps to care for the other
babies done up in their little cases. It scurries
around and drags the babies, cradles and all, out
into the sun, or away from a draft, or a prowling
enemy, or hurries back with it if the sky is clouded
over.

The next time you go into the woods or an open
field, turn over a flat stone and see if you can find
an ants' nest under it. Then watch the little ant
nurses hurrying away out of sight, carrying with
them the white, cradled babies.

66 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

As soon as the young nurses get old enough, that
is, when their skin is hardened into shiny armor,
they must go outside the hill for provisions, and
must help build new roads and tunnels and chambers,
and keep the old ones in repair. They are as busy
as busy can be all day long, and never stop to rest;
only, those who have watched ants very carefully
say that sometimes they really seem to play. They
run about and jump upon each other's backs, or
stand upon their hind legs to wrestle, stroking each
other meanwhile in a friendly manner with their
antennae.

The ants which go outside of the hill or city to
forage, sometimes go long distances, but they always
know how to find their way home again, and they
take back to it whatever they find, — a dead fly or
a caterpillar, a crumb or a piece of bread. If one
ant cannot carry the load alone she goes and gets
her friends to help and together they pull and push
and tug the morsel to their home. They never stop
to eat by themselves any of the food that has been
found; every particle is always carried back to the
city to be used as food for all.

Besides the food which they store away, they are
very fond of the honey-dew which they obtain by
milking very tiny green flies called aphids. These
aphids live on shrubs and bushes and on trees, and the
ants go a long way to find them and to milk them.

You may have seen these tiny green flies upon
your rose bushes or grapevines, and noticed ants
crawling up and down the stalks. They are after
the honey-dew of which they are so fond. By

THE ANTS 67

stroking the backs of the aphids the ants make
them give up this sweet fluid, taking it home in
their mouths to feed to their queens and to those
young nurses that do not go outside the hill.

Some kinds of ants will take the aphids home in
their mandibles and keep them in their cities in a
sort of stable where they feed and milk them.
Some ants will carry them away from the plants
where they happen to be, putting them on other
plants that they seem to know will make the aphids
fatter and so make them give more honey-dew,
just as we think our cows give better milk if they
feed in a pasture of fresh green grass.

It is supposed that ants keep pets in their cities,
for there is a kind of beetle which is found in the
hills of many ants which they treat with great care
and seeming fondness, stroking it with their an-
tennae and feeding it. Isn't it funny? Just as we
feed and stroke our cats!

Some ants keep slaves. They go out in regular
masses like an army and march in order, never
scattering or hesitating, on their way to the nest of
a certain kind of black ant called the slave ant.
Here they engage in battle, and when they have
conquered they rush into the city and come out
carrying the babies in the little cases. These they
take back to their own city, and when the little
black-ant babies come out of their cradles they
become slaves to the ants that stole them.

In the nests of these slave-making ants there are
no nurses or workers of their own kind. The slaves
take their places and do that work. The slaves

68 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

feed and clean their masters until these masters
become so helpless that they cannot feed them-
selves. They will even lie beside a mass of honey
and die without trying to eat it. People become
helpless when they are waited upon too much and it
is not strange that a little ant, too, suffers from the
same cause. God has made all His creatures able to
help themselves, and those that do not must suffer.

At the different doorways of the ant hill door-
keepers are always stationed whose duty seems to
be to keep out all intruders. They are never absent
from their posts, and they feel over with their an-
tennae every creature that tries to come in. An ant
from another hill they will immediately attack,
taking it bodily out of the doorway and thrusting
it away. They fight, too, with the ants from an-
other hill or city, but they have never been known
to quarrel with those of their own company. They
even know and will recognize each other after they
have been separated many months. If two ants
were to be put into a hill, one a stranger and the
other one of their own community that had been
separated from them for many months, the door-
keepers would stroke both ants with their antennae;
the friend would be received with signs of pleasure
and welcome, while the stranger would be caught
up and hurried out, sometimes even killed.

How can it be possible that all these thousands
of ants in one ant city know each other? They not
only recognize each other, but they seem to be such
friends that they offer to give help and assistance
to one another.

THE ANTS 69

We have heard how the nurses help the babies
out of their Httle, tightly wrapped cradles, how they
unfold the legs and smooth out the tiny, crum-
pled wings with great care and seeming tenderness:
how they also feed the queen and comb and brush
her with their antennae. If a queen dies the workers
are inconsolable and crowd around her trying to
raise her up and bring her to life again. They seem
to mourn for her for weeks. When they come across
any of their own number in distress they are most
vahant comrades, doing everything they can to
help the distressed one, even to slinging her over
their backs and taking her a long distance back to
their hill.

Now these little ants which seem so insignifi-
cant to some people are God's creatures. He has
made them and He has given them the power to do
things which we had supposed we alone could do.
Some things they do even better than we can. Think
of these ant cities, with all the thousands of their
members working so hard to make their own city
quite perfect, and best of all, with no quarreling
or idleness.

The wise man of old thought that idle people
might well consider the ways of the ant and learn
to be diligent. The wise man to-day will see how
wonderful it is that God's laws are the same for all
hfe. Ants show in theu* way just what people have
learned, that industry and faithfulness are neces-
sary in the life we live together, and that to help
one another is the right law for ant cities as it is
for our own.

LESSON 9
THE SPIDER

MEMORY VERSE

Let us not be weary in well-doing.

Gal. 6: 9

The Purpose

Continuance in well doing is the special lesson to be
drawn from this story. The spider works patiently and
industriously, and so fulfills the law of her being. She
has no other reward for her perfect work than a little
more food.

The reward which boys and girls have for patient in-
dustry is manhood and womanhood of ennobled char-
acter, of great attainments, and sometimes of real
genius.

The lessons upon the lives of great men given toward
the end of the book will offer applications of this teaching.

Suggestions for the Teacher

In presenting this lesson of the spider and her web, the
interest of the children must not be allowed to flag over
the description of the web-making. Use the illustration
while making the description, pointing out the resting
floor, the guy-ropes, the spokes, and the points of inter-
section between the sticky threads and the spokes.

The teacher should be sure she understands each step
in the process of making the web before she attempts to

70

THE SPIDER 71

describe it. The description from which this is abridged
is given in Fabre's The Life of the Spider.^

Dwell upon the spider's patient industry in doing over
the same thing each time just as well as she knows how.
Then impress upon the children the great reward that
God gives us for continued well-doing. Tell them that
later they will learn how some men have helped the
world and what great things they have done because of
their industry and perseverance.

Urge each child to make the free-hand drawing of the
orb web the best that he can do. It may be done at
home if time for it can not be found in class.

Hand Work

A reproduction of the orb spider's web to be drawn as
well as possible free-hand, copying the illustration on the
upper half of the drawing page.

OPENING TALK

There was a proverb about the ant in our last lesson
which we are to remember. Let us say it together.
(Secure concert recitation of the memory verse for
Lesson 8.) The ants show us how insects learn to live
together in communities. There is another little creature
we have all seen whose home is very different from the
ant's, but quite as wonderful. When we have had the
story, you may tell me in what ways they are alike and
in what ways they differ.

1 The Life of the Spider. Fabre. Dodd, Mead & Co.

THE SPIDER

Sometimes in the corners of our rooms and in
many places out of doors — in the grass, on the
bushes, about the fences, and behind the bUnds —
Uttle creatures hve that weave houses out of pure
white silk, a silk so fine and delicate that it can
easily be torn by the touch of our fingers.

Who are these little silk spinners? Yes, they are
spiders, little creatures which we are apt to step
upon and kill just because they are spiders. We
feel as if we were untidy and careless when we see
cobwebs, as we call the little silken house of the
spider, in our rooms, or about our houses. But ex-
cept that the spider's house may seem untidy, the
spider itself does us no harm. She does not trouble
us, she only catches the flies and mosquitoes which
come into our rooms and which we do not want there.

Have you ever seen a spider sitting within the
doorway of her house, watching with her eight
bright, black eyes to see if a fly will alight upon her
web? Flies do so alight, and when they do, they
seem never able to get away again. What does the
spider do to keep them there? And why can she
run so swiftly over the same silk carpet that holds
the fly's feet so fast? If you will look very carefully
you will see the finest of silk threads running back
and forth above the carpet. They are all criss-

72

THE SPIDER 73

cross, and they make a net-work in which the
blundering fly or mosquito or miller is sure to be
caught. Then out the spider runs and binds it up
in strong silken ropes.

You have to be careful, when you walk over dead
branches in the woods, not to trip, do you not?
Supposing you had six feet instead of two, how soon
do you suppose you could disentangle them?

So the spider weaves with great skill and great
care her smooth white carpet to run upon, but up
above she makes tangled threads of the finest,
strongest silk she can spin, knowing that the in-
quisitive fly will blunder right among them and
be caught.

Did you ever see a spider make her carpet? No,
because she works at night. At night, when we
are sleeping she is working hard, spinning the silken
thread and weaving it into the finest and softest of
carpets; and then all day she sits and watches for
her food. She never seems to sleep, but is always
watching in the daytime and working at night. We
could not work so hard as that, for we must sleep
at night and rest a little in the daytime. But the
spider, from sunrise to sunset, is feeling with her
feet and watching with her eyes to see if there is the
slightest quiver of the silk to tell her that some fly
has alighted upon her web. Did you ever put a
little piece of straw or a tiny leaf upon a cobweb
and watch the spider dart out, seize the straw, drop
it, and run back disgusted?

The house spider makes a three-sided carpet in
the corners of an unused room or of a cellar or barn.

74 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

and she often puts bits of plaster upon it so it will
not be blown up and down by the currents of air.
We put stones upon pieces of cloth which we have
put out to bleach upon the grass, to keep them from
being blown away, but would you think that a little
spider would know enough to put pieces of mortar
on her silken carpet to keep it from blowing about?

There are many different kinds of .spiders and all
of them make different sorts of carpets. You know
how on some summer morning you look out and
see the grass all covered with dainty, silken tents.
\Anien the dew dries away we no longer see the
tents, for the silk is so fine that they are almost in-
visible unless wet by dew or fog. A hard rain ruins
them and so do our feet as we walk across the grass.
But the next night all those little spiders are at
work again and by the following morning the grass
is covered once more by the dainty, silken tents.

One spider, which children call the golden spider,
spins an open-work carpet of silken ropes and
threads in the shape of a circle. It does not lie flat
but hangs perpendicularly in the air. This is some-
thing like little crocheted mats or doihes and not at
all like the house-spider's carpet. Should you think
a mere spider could spin anything so exact and so
wonderful as this web? How do you suppose, in
the dark night, she can make all the spokes of her
wheel so perfect and divide the spaces so evenly? -

Could you draw a picture of this golden spider's
web? Try it and see if you can draw as evenly as
the spider can spin. And remember that she has
to hang her web across the tips of branches and

THE SPIDER 75

must divide her circle into just so many equal parts
without anything to guide her but her sense of space;
while you have your hands and your eyes, and a
picture of the web to look at and to copy.

Has not God given the little spider a wonderful
gift that she is able to spin such a perfect web?
Would you like to know how she goes about to
make it?

About nightfall, the spider comes to the end of a
twig, and, after sitting there awhile as if to see that
nothing would interfere with her web, she sud-
denly drops down with her eight legs wide spread.
By the light of a lantern you could just see the fine
silvery rope she spins as she drops. When she has
almost reached the ground, she turns and cHmbs
up the rope, vspinning and twisting as she climbs,
to make it thicker and stronger. Then she sits
once more upon the end of the twig and waits until
the wind shall blow the filmy rope aside and make
it catch upon some other twig. Patiently the
spider waits; she can do nothing unless the wind
helps her. Just a little breeze, — and the end is
caught, and over the bridge the spider hurries to
see if her guy-rope is fastened to a suitable moor-
ing. If it is, she runs back and forth upon it several
times, strengthening it each time with new silk
which she spins from her spinnerets. When she is
satisfied that the guy-rope is strong enough, she
attaches other ropes to twigs or branches, and so
outlines the space she is to fill.

But now she must make her spokes or radii to this
wonderful wheel she is about to spin. From top to

70 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

bottom, she fastens a stout thread which in the center
has a thick, white point made of a Uttle, silk cushion.
This is to be the center of the wheel, and from the
center the spider starts to the outside ropes, fastens
her rope and returns. From this center she runs
here and there, sometimes in one direction and
sometimes in another; sometimes placing spokes on
one side, then going over and placing an equal
number opposite, as if she knew that her wheel
would drag apart if it were not properly balanced.

While one is watching her it seems as if she were
working in the utmost disorder, but when she has
finished her wheel, each spoke is perfectly placed,
she has put in just as many as her kind always puts
in, and they are equi-distant.

Now she begins to put in the rope that coils
around the spokes. Placing herself in the center,
on the silk cushion, which has grown larger and
larger while the spokes were being laid, she slowly
turns around and around, and, with a very fine
thread, she winds a spiral from spoke to spoke,
carrying the thread on her back feet and placing
the coils on the spiral very near together. She
works this way until she has a ^'resting floor" about
the size of the palm of your hand, then, spinning
thicker threads, she places them farther apart for
her spiral until she reaches the outside ropes.

Is her web done? Oh, no! The larger part of the
spiral must be done all over again. She has only
put in the coarse threads to hold the spokes in place.
This time she begins where she left off and weaves
toward the center with a sticky rope. This she

THE SPIDER 77

fastens, as she spins, to each spoke of her wheel,
going around and around her circle; drawing nearer
and nearer to the center, with perfectly even spaces
between her sticky ropes; and taking up the first
made spiral as she lays the new one in place. While
she spins and fastens her ropes with her hind feet,
with her fore feet she picks up her old thread, and
rolling it up places it upon the spokes, while her
four middle feet carry her about on the web and
keep her from falling to the ground.

Could you do so many things at once? And did
you ever think before that a common spider could
be so skilful? It is hard for you to do different
things with your two hands at once. Suppose you
tried to do different things with four pairs of feet
and your mouth, how would you succeed? Would
your brain tell your hands and feet and mouth just
how to do it all perfectly? Yet we think the spider
has no brains: we dislike its ugly, fat body, which is
really a marvelous little silk mill, and we kill this little
creature to whom God has given gifts which we
ourselves do not possess.

Think of the patience of the spider! Spinning
night after night her web, for it is the only way she
can get her food; and her ropes are so delicate that
the web seldom lasts over one day! Yet the spider
spins and weaves, spins and weaves, waiting for the
breeze to place her thread in the first place, and then
going through with every part of her work with as
much care and precision as if it were to last always.

God has given us far more gifts than He has given
to the spider. I wonder if we use our gifts as well?

LESSON 10
THE BEES

MEMORY VERSE

The judgments of the Lord ai'e true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold ;
Sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb.

Ps. 19:9-10

The Purpose

Even more wonderful than the story of the ant is that
of the bee. Interesting as it is, it will fulfill its purpose
in this course only when it has awakened an increased
wonder and reverence for our world, and helped chil-
dren to think of the promptings of instinct as the voice
of God.

The obedience of this little creature to the law of its
life helps awaken a desire in the hearts of God's children
to fulfill through willing obedience to His laws His divine
purpose for our lives.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Any account of the bees and their work is very inter-
esting to children. They will probably know more or
less about them already and they will want to tell what
they have been told and what they have seen. They
should be encouraged to tell what they themselves have
noticed, in this lesson as in all the lessons, but time
enough should be kept to give them the story of the bees'
life as it is given here.

78

THE BEES 79

Make clear the fact that the bees, as well as the ants,
have no overseer or ruler, and that they do their work, so
skilfully divided up as it is, in obedience to the law which
has been given them and which we call their instinct.

Try to make the children understand that a conscience
that is listened to and followed habitually is a sure guide
to help us in obeying God's law.

OPENING TALK

Let me see the drawing of the spider's web which
you have made. What can you tell me about the skill
of the spider? About her perseverance? What shows
her patience? Repeat the memory verse for last week.
What reward do we receive for not being weary in well-
doing?

Did you know before that the little creatures about
us, hke the ant and the spider, could do such wonderful
things? There is another insect you all know which
lives a remarkable life in communities, which makes
something we like to eat. It is — yes, the bee. Mr.
Maeterlinck, a famous author in Belgium, that wonder-
ful little country you have heard so much about, kept a
colony of bees in a glass hive so that he could watch them
at work by just lifting the dark cloth thrown over the
glass. Wouldn't you like to do that?

THE BEES

Who has watched a honeybee getting honey and
pollen out of the flowers?" The bee thrusts a long
tongue down into the flower cup and brings it back
all covered with yellow pollen. And have you ever
seen the little pockets or baskets which she has on
her two hind legs and into which she puts the yellow
poUen as she gets it? Isn't it funny to think of a
bee with little baskets fastened to her legs?

The next time you see a honeybee or a bumble-
bee, watch ever so closely and perhaps you can see
her put that pollen into those little baskets on her
legs. Quickly she brushes the pollen off her tongue
with the combs of hairs on her fore legs, then she
brushes it off her fore legs with her middle legs, and
then with the feet of her middle legs she pats it down
hard into the little baskets.

You will have to watch sharply^ for the bee is very
quick and nimble. She cannot spend her precious
time just packing away the pollen, she must gather
all she possibly can while the sun is out and the
flower cups are open. When well laden she flies
for home where she unloads the pollen in great haste,
kicking it out of each basket with the other hind
foot, then off she goes again to gather more.

Sometimes it takes a great while for her to get a
load, perhaps a whole morning; and yet she never

80

THE BEES 81

seems tempted to go to any other kind of flower
than the one from which she first commenced to
gather the pollen. That is the law of the hive which
the bees always obey. Sometimes they visit twenty
flowers in a minute, so hard do they keep at work,
and such small bits of honey or of pollen do they
find in each flower. Yet no bee would leave that
particular kind of flower upon which it commenced
to work that day for any other flower, however full
of pollen or of honey it might be, so faithful are they
and such hard workers.

Why do they work so hard? Is there any other
bee which forces them to do it? No, the bees are
like the ants. The little workers seem born with a
determination to make their colony the best and
happiest and most prosperous community of bees
that can be, and they work every minute to make
it so.

Suppose we follow home these little workers
which have been busily collecting the pollen and
sipping the honey, and peep into the hive when they
come in. At first everything seems in the utmost
confusion. There is such running about, such flying
around, as if every one was in a great hurry. What
can bees accomplish, you think, that run about in
such confused masses? But wait a few moments and
you will see that a wonderful order comes out of
this apparent confusion.

Inside the hive is a real city built up with wax
cells. These are used as rooms for the babies and
for storerooms for the pollen and honey. The bees
are always increasing these ceHs, just as in our own

82 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

cities we are always putting up new houses. Now
how do you suppose the bees get the wax with which
they build up this city of theirs?

Why, they make it themselves and in a most
marvelous way! Certain of the bees seem to know
that it is their business to furnish wax. They begin
their work by a feast of honey and then hang them-
selves up for a day and a night in a close, heavy
bunch at the top of the hive. They must have
eaten just so much honey, and they must be just so
warm before the wax can be made. Patiently they
wait for the scales of beautiful, white wax to grow.
It seems almost like magic, but after about twenty-
four hours tiny scales of shining white wax begin
to slip out of the four little wax pockets on the under-
side of the bees' bodies. Then suddenly one of the
bees will seem to wake up and she will leave the
rest and hurry up to the roof of the hive. There
she will very carefully fasten her bits of wax after
she has chewed them and moulded them and snipped
them to suit her fancy. Others will follow her, and
they will begin to build the waxen comb.

If only you could see the bees building their
wonderful cells! One bee goes and gets the wax
and, placing it where the cell is to be, runs away for
more. Another trims it with the nippers on her legs,
twists it into place, and goes off for another piece.
Bee number three hurries up, gives it another poke
and, twist and hurries off while bee number four
tries her skill.

How do they know how to build those tiny flakes
of wax into the beautiful and regular cells? How

THE BEES 83

do the spiders know how to divide up their wheel
into just so many spokes? We cannot tell, we cannot
even guess, for these are secrets between these little
creatures and God, who gave them their gifts.

Now the (jueen bee wishes to lay some eggs in
those beautiful waxen houses, and you cannot think
how those Httle workers hurry about and scramble
over one another to build them fast enough to suit
her. And when she comes to see how they are pro-
gressing, how do you suppose she comes, this queen
bee, who is the mother of the hive? Walking over
the others as the workers do? Oh, no! She comes
with a steady, stately step, surrounded by a circle
of attendants whose duty it is to watch her, fan
her with their wings, stroke her with their antennae,
feed her carefully and always face her. When she
comes, all the other bees, no matter how hard they
are at work, draw back and leave an open path for
this queen and her circle of attendants. Isn't that
just like a story of a real queen out of your story
books?

Just as your mother looks to see that the crib is
all comfortable and nice before she lays baby brother
or sister down in it, so this queen bee pokes her little
head into each waxen cell to see that it is right before
she lays her egg in it. Of course we would expect
our mothers to be careful about their dear babies,
but who would have thought that just an ordinary
little mother bee would be so careful of the place
where her baby was to live?

So the queen bee goes about from one cell to an-
other and lays so many eggs that the little builders

84 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

have to work fast to keep up with her. They must
make wax and they must make the httle cells out of
the wax. They must gather the honey and the
pollen and store it away. Then they must make real
honey out of what is brought in from the flowers, by
standing and fanning it with their wings. And they
must mix the pollen with a little honey to make
bee-bread of it. The workers can have only bee-
bread to eat, but the queen must always have a
special kind of honey.

The little babies when they hatch from the eggs
must be taken care of and fed, and when they are
ready to come out of their rooms they must be
helped out. Then they must be carefully tended
just as the ant babies are tended by their little
nurses. The bee nurses are just as careful as the
ant nurses. They help the baby out, they smooth
the tin}^ crumpled wings, and they straighten out
the six little folded legs. They wash the baby by
licking it with their tongues just as a mother cat
washes her kittens; they comb the baby's hairy body
with the combs they carry on their legs, and they
feed it with drops of honey. After all this nursing
the baby is considered a baby no longer; and just
as the ant baby turns into a nurse, so the bee baby,
after she has been washed and combed and fed,
begins to help the nurses with the other babies.
After she has nursed awhile she is allowed to go out
and get honey.

But the work of the bee city is not half told yet.
As soon as the babies have left their rooms, bees
come hurrying up to clean out the little cell so the

THE BEES 85

queen bee can lay another egg in it, and all the little
bits of wax and the unused food in the cell are taken
up and carried out of the hive and dropped over the
edge of the doorstep.

All the time the city is being cleaned up in just
that way. No stray particles of anything are al-
lowed to cumber up the city or make it untidy.
Then, too, there must be fresh air. The bees, like
the ants, love the dark, so they provide only one
very small door. This does not let in air enough,
so the bees ventilate the hive by having groups of
workers stand near the door to fan in the fresh air
with their wings. We always supposed the bee used
her wings just to fly with. Who ever thought she
used them as fans, — fans to evaporate the water
from the honey, fans to keep the queen comfortable,
fans to ventilate the whole hive, and fans to keep
the babies warm in their cells so they will grow up
faster.

With all this work to be done, do you wonder that
the bees are busy? Does it not seem as if they
planned out their work? As if they said to each
other, ''Here, you do that and we will do this and
then we will change about." Some arrangement
must be made among them or everything would
not be done so carefully. No one ever knew of a
worker bee getting interested in her play and for-
getting to gather the honey, or sitting lazily about
and letting some other bee do her share. The
workers never do that, but the drones do. They
are very lazy just as they were in the ant city, and
do you know, the workers stand it just as long as

8G ANIMALS AND INSECTS

they can and then they turn the drones out of the
hives. The drones do not seem to know how to
gather honey and so they die. Poor, lazy drones!

What tells the bees to do these things and to do
them so well? Do you suppose there is a little voice
inside of them like the little voice inside of us that
tells us when we are doing right or wrong? If we
listened to the voice more often and more closely
would it not talk to us more?

We call our little voice our conscience and we call
the little voice that tells animals w^hat to do instinct.
We say, ''They do this by instinct," meaning that
there is a little voice within them which tells them
what to do. That is God's voice, telling the little
insect how to use the gift He has given to it.

Suppose the little insect did not listen to the
voice or did not obey it? Oh, but the little insect
does listen and does obey just as well as it can.
That is why the beautiful waxen cells are all so
regular; that is why honey is stored for the winter;
that is why the bees work so hard instead of play-
ing; and that is why their city is so well governed
without any ruler.

If we all listened very hard to the ''still, small
voice" within us, do you think we might govern
our cities better, and our homes and our country?

Why, 4f everyone listened to the "still, small
voice" there would be no wicked people, — all
would be working busily to make their home and
their city and their country the best home and the
best city and the best country in God's wonderful
world.

LESSON 11
MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES

MEMORY VERSE

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him. 1 Cor. 2:9

The Purpose

The metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly
has been used again and again as a lesson on immortality.
A child instinctively trusts the future. It is not until
later that doubts arise. But a lesson learned in child-
hood, though not needed then, will come back in the time
of need and help to keep faith triumphant.

Suggestions for the Teacher

In presenting this lesson to the children it should be
made quite plain that only a few species of the cater-
pillar do harm to our trees and gardens, and that those are
the ones that the birds do not eat on account of their thick,
hairy covering. The other species, excepting the smaller
varieties, that is, the cankerworm and inchworm, are not
numerous enough to do any real damage to our vegetation.

The difference between moths and butterflies should
be emphasized. Some of the class may have seen a moth
or a butterfly emerge from its cocoon or crysalis and
expand its wings before it flew away. Let one who has
seen it tell the others about it.

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88 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

The caterpillar obeys its instin(;t and does what it is
impelled to do with no understanding of its own act,
either before or after the change.

But we should feel the most implicit faith and trust
in our Maker from seeing the marvelous second life He
has prepared for some of His lowliest creatures.

OPENING TALK

How many insects have we studied about thus far?
Where do ants make their homes? Spiders? Bees?
What law does each follow?

There is one story almost more wonderful than any
thing else in our world. Perhaps some of you know
about it already, — the change that comes to a cater-
pillar through its enchanted sleep. I wonder if it will
help us to think of the surprise God may have in store
for us, some day?

MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES

Do you remember seeing last fall a thick, brown,
woolly caterpillar that was hurrying away as fast
as it could go? Did you wonder where it was going
and why it was in such a hurry? It traveled over the
ground so fast that it seemed to have a set purpose
of its own, as, indeed, it had; for it was hurrying
away to find a cozy spot in which to spend the long,
cold winter.

The sharp, frosty autumn air tells the woolly-bear
caterpillar that winter is coming and it hurries about,
through the grass and across the sidewalks, any-
where, everjrwhere, to find a crack or corner for its
winter home. When the little nook is finally found it
curls up into a tight ball and sleeps away the long
winter just as the real bear does for which it is named.

In the spring when the sun melts the snow and
the days begin to be warmer, out it comes from its
tiny, cozy corner just the way the big, brown bear
comes from his cave where he has been curled up
asleep so long. They both hunt about to find what
they can to eat, for they are very hungry after their
long sleep.

The real bear wanders about through the woods.
He eats what dried berries and leaves he can find,
but no matter how much he eats he always remains
a bear. But the little woolly-bear caterpillar does

so

90 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

not always remain a caterpillar. When it has had
plenty to eat and is quite fat, it goes away by itself
once more and curls up into a tight ball, and then
instead of going right to sleep it first weaves for
itself a cradle or cocoon out of silk, weaving in the
long brown hairs that cover its body with such a
thick coat.

In that little cradle it sleeps very soundly. So
deep and sound is its sleep that one would think it
dead. But the caterpillar is not dead. It is only
changing its form within that closely woven bed.
It was a caterpillar when it stripped ofT its little fur
coat and rolled up in it; when it bites a hole in the
fur coat wrapping and comes out, it is a moth, a
pretty, white and yellow moth with black spots upon
its wings and body.

It is just as if a fairy had touched the crawling
caterpillar with her wand and while it slept an en-
chanted sleep had changed it into that pretty, winged
creature. But the wand that touches the cater-
pillar in its deep sleep, and bids it live again as a
butterfly, is the law of God for its being. Is it not a
marvelous thing?

Just think of a caterpillar, a common-looking
creature with its shapeless body and its many short
legs, being changed into a butterfly. Think how dif-
ferent the butterfly is with its graceful body, its six
long, slender legs and its beautiful wings glistening
with gorgeous colors.

By day the butterflies sip the nectar from the
flowers, flying hither and thither in the sunlit air.
At night they go to sleep. The moths, on the other

MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES 91

hand, always sleep away the sunny hours, then
wake up and fly about at night. Although they
choose to fly m the dark, they seem to be so en-
chanted with our lamphghts that they cannot keep
away from them and are often burned in the flame.
Poor, foolish little moths!

Often in the daytime you can see these moths
resting in the shadow under leaves or on tree trunks
with their wings widespread. And often when you
walk in the deep grass or among low bushes the
moths will fly up and then go back to rest again.

You can always tell a moth from a butterfly in
these two ways. The butterfly loves the sun and
the flowers that open in the daytime and so it flies
about by day. When it alights upon a flower or
leaf, or upon the roadside, it closes its wings together
over its back. But the moth sleeps by day and flies
by night, and whenever it comes to rest it spreads
its wings wide open.

Butterflies and moths do not harm plants; but the
caterpillars from which they develop eat the leaves
of trees and plants. Some of them, the hairy ones,
do much harm, for there are so many of them that
they eat all the leaves, and that kills the tree. Few
birds like hairy caterpillars and most birds will not
eat them. But the smooth caterpillars the birds
do eat, and because of that there are seldom enough
to do our trees any great harm. It is the smooth
caterpillars that change to butterflies.

Did you ever see or hear a caterpillar eating its
dinner?

It is a very greedy little glutton, for it eats all the

92 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

time until it makes its cradle and goes into that
deep sleep which ends in its change into a beautiful,
winged creature.

The mother of a caterpillar is a butterfly or a
moth. She lays her pretty eggs upon a leaf of the
kind of plant which she knows is good for the cater-
pillar to eat, and then off she goes and leaves them
for the sun to hatch. Butterflies and moths are not
so careful of their babies as the ants and bees or as
the birds. But when the sun has hatched the baby
caterpillars they find themselves sitting upon their
own dinner table, and they do not have to hunt for
food, it is right there spread out before them. They
do not waste much time in getting to work, either,
and they very quickly have eaten so much that
they have to change their skins. That is the way
insects grow. As soon as one of these baby cater-
pillars has eaten as much as it can hold, it crawls
away from the edge of the leaf and makes a tiny
silk cushion or button which attaches the end of its
body firmly to the leaf. Then the skin upon its head
cracks and splits open and the baby caterpillar pulls
itself out of the old skin.

It is a very pretty sight to watch it. First it
wriggles its neck free, then pulls out, in succession,
each pair of feet, pushing the old skin down with
each foot as it is pulled out. Finally it pushes the
old skin away with the last pair of feet, and is free.
It is done just the way you might take off one of
your garments, pulling out your arms, then pushing
it down and stepping on it to pull out your feet.
Think of a baby caterpillar taking off his skin

MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES 93

just as children take off their clothes. Is it not
curious?

When the skin is all off and the caterpillar is free,
it is almost twice as large as it was and it is generally
a little different in color and with different spots,
just as if it had a new dress. It changes its skin
very often, every time it has eaten enough to make
it grow a good deal larger.

While they are wee babies, these caterpillars all
eat along the edge of the leaf they were hatched
upon, but as they become larger they go to different
leaves, and when they are quite large they eat a leaf
up with great rapidity. They make such a noise
as they eat that you can easily hear them biting off
mouthfuls of the leaves if you happen to be sitting
under a tree which is their dining room.

You would laugh if you could see a large, full-
grown caterpillar begin on a fresh leaf. It seems to
be the hungriest sort of a creature and walks around
the edge of the leaf, eating as it goes. Its mouth
opens sideways and not up and down, as our mouths
open. So, as it walks around the leaf's edge, hugging
the leaf as it goes, with a foot on either side, the
mouth of the caterpillar gobbles up the leaf like a
machine. It does not even have to stop to breathe,
because it breathes through spiracles or little holes
all along its sides.

Now after this caterpillar, or little eating machine,
has changed its skin several times, it is about ready
to roll itself up into its pupa case, or make a cocoon.
So it eats just as much as it possibly can hold and
then hurries away to find a place suitable for the

94 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

enchanted sleep which will end in the glorious, new
life of a butterfly or moth.

If it is the kind of a caterpillar that is going to
change into a butterfly, it fastens the end of its
body to a twig or the side of a house by the same
kind of a silken cushion it made when changing its
skin. Then it weaves a fine silken rope around its
neck and attaches the ends to the same support, so
it hangs like a tiny hammock. Then for the last
time the skin is changed, and the old skin drops
away leaving our caterpillar a very different looking
thing from what it was before. It is so different in
shape and color that no one could guess, unless he
knew, just what it was.

Within this odd-shaped chrysalis the wonderful
change is going on of which I have told you. The
caterpillar is transformed, and out of the broken
shell of the chrysalis crawls a limp, wet creatm-e,
looking like a drowned butterfly. It hangs by its
feet to the chrysalis, pumping from its swollen body
into the dainty, crumpled wings the liquid which
will unfold and strengthen them. Gradually the
body shrinks in size and becomes drier and the
wings unfold and spread open, — then away it flies
in all its beauty.

The caterpiUar which is to become a moth makes
a different cradle for its wonder sleep. It does as
the woolly-bear caterpillar does. First, it weaves
a silken cocoon around its body, then it sheds its
skin for the last time and changes into a chrysalis
within the cocoon. It is very interesting to see the
caterpillar weave the outside threads of its cocoon.

MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES 95

It moves its head slowly from side to side, crossing
and attaching the threads until it is hidden from
sight, and in secret it finishes the work. When the
change that goes on in the cocoon is completed, the
moth pushes its way out of one end of the cocoon
and hangs like a crumpled mass, as did the butterfly,
until the wings are smooth and dry. Then away it
goes to hide until nightfall.

How marvelous is this change! No sleeping
princess in a fairy tale could have a more wonderful
awakening, nor could a fairy's robe be more enchant-
ing than the soft, velvety wings of the butterflies
with their exquisite colors.

Does the caterpillar know that it is to become
such a beautiful creature? Is that why it hurries
so and eats all it can night and day, to be ready
more quickly for its wonderful future?

The caterpillar does not know why that sleepy
feeling comes on. It does not know that it wiU
wake up and find itself one of the most beautiful of
all creatures. It does not know that the end of its
crawling about has come and that after the long
sleep it can fly through the soft, transparent air and
sip the nectar from the sweet flowers instead of
having to chew the tough leaves. It only obeys
that ''still, small voice" that speaks to everything
in this world and tells it what to do.

Suppose the caterpillar tired of changing its skin
and stopped eating before it was as full grown as its
companions, what would become of it? Would it be-
come a smaller butterfly than the others, after the en-
chanted sleep? Oh, no! It would become no butterfly

9(3 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

at all. It would never come out of that sleep, be-
cause it would not have stored up in its body enough
strength to undergo the change. It is only by doing
what its instinct tells the caterpillar to do that it
can become the beautiful, fairy-like creature it is
God's purpose for it to be.

We do not know just what God's purpose is for
us when we are through with this body in which we
dwell, but it is no doubt something far more won-
derful than the happy, care-free life of the butterfly.
'^Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have en-
tered into the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love him."

LESSON 12
TOADS, BATS AND OWLS

MEMORY VERSE

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after
their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after
their kind: and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth
after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything
that creepeth u])on the ground after its kind: and God saw that it
was good. Gen. 1 : 24, 25

The Purpose

The purpose of this lesson and the one following is to
give the child more of an insight into the activities and
industries of the living creatures about him. Instead of
feeling repugnance when they look at toads or bats,
children may learn to be interested in them and know
their value.

''The law of the Lord is perfect" applies to the life of
other creatures as well as to our own. When mankind
ruthlessly destroys animals, however small and insignifi-
cant they may seem to be, without due knowledge of
their activities, he may be thwarting that law and in
many cases is directly harming himself.

Suggestions for the Teacher

In all probability the children will have become familiar
with the life history of the toad from the hatching of the
eggs to the time when the tadpole emerges, tailless, from
the water. The later history of a toad's life they do not

97

98 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

know so well. But they should understand that any
member of that famih^, — frogs, toads, and tree-toads,
— are of great help to us in ridding us of harmful insects.

They should understand, too, that harmful as applied
to the insects means harmful to us in our way of living,
or to the plants and trees which we cultivate.

Alany of the animals and insects most harmful and
obnoxious to us have been brought here from other regions
where they do no harm. For example, the potato-beetle
is a native of the Colorado desert. In its natural home it
was rather scarce owing to lack of food, but it acquired
a great liking for the potato which the pioneers began
to plant in the west. As the potato is extensively culti-
vated throughout the country, the beetle has followed it
and has increased so enormously as to be a menace to
this food crop. This, however, was man's fault or mis-
fortune. The beetle in its own home, living on the food
which nature provided for it there, did no harm.

The teacher, by such illustrations, should try to make
clear to the children man's responsibility in disturbing
the equilibrium of the world.

OPENING TALK

What is the most beautiful insect we have studied
about thus far? Is it the most useful? What is the real
use of beautiful things? Who is the mother of the cater-
pillar? Can you repeat the verse which says that a sur-
prise is waiting for us?

Some of the moths lay eggs which, when they hatch
out into caterpillars, maj'^ do a great deal of harm to trees
and plants. There is another creature, not beautiful to
look at, which never does any harm at all, but only good,
to the plants we like to grow. We will hear his story with
that of two other of our humble helpers.

TOADS, BATS AND OWLS

The world is so full of friendly helpers that we have
only to look about us with wide-open eyes and loving
hearts to find a friend in almost everything God has
created. Suppose we listen to a story of what some
of these little creatures, those that we are apt to
think unattractive and disagreeable, do to help the
world and so to help us.

You know the common toad, — the funny, fat
hop-toad that hops clumsily along the sidewalk at
night, or just sits in your garden and blinks his eyes.
He seems to do nothing but blink his eyes at you and
breathe with long breaths that make his throat puff
out as if he had swallowed too large a mouthful. He
seems so fat and lazy ! But he is not lazy, and if he is
fat it is only because he is taking such good care of
your garden. For he eats the little insects that are
bent upon eating your flowers. Did you know that
during those summer nights when you were sleeping
the toad was helping you? He lives in the garden
during the daytime, but you seldom see him because
he hides himself in a hole. He makes this hole in the
oddest way, kicking backwards with his hind legs
and burrowing with his body as he goes. At dusk he
comes out of his hiding place and sits down near the
edge of the garden waiting for some insect to come by.
That is the way of the spider, also. She vsits and

99

100 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

waits, too, but she weaves a silken web to catch pass-
ing invsects, while the toad catches them on the end
of his tongue.

Of course this tongue of his is not like ours. It lies
in his mouth just the other way around from the way
ours does. The tip of his tongue lies near his throat
and the root is fastened to the front of the lower jaw.

Now when he catches a fly, he does not have to
leap upon it the way pussy catches a mouse. He just
sits still, and when it comes near he shoots out his
tongue, and before you can see what has happened
the fly is swallowed. The fat, lazy toad, that seems
to know only enough to blink his eyes, is so marvel-
ously quick with his tongue that our eyes cannot see
what he does. You would not think that of him,
would you, when he seems so lazy?

But he is not lazy any more than the spider is. If
he hopped about the garden all the time he would
scare away all the insects. Then he would go hungry
and the insects would grow fat eating our pretty
flowers. So it is better for us that the toad sits still
and lets the insects come to him.

These toads know more than we think. They
naturally live in gardens, but they have found out
that insects of all kinds are bewitched to fly about
the street lights. So over to the street lights they
go, too, and, sitting quietly under the light, make
themselves look like stones or lumps of earth.

There, while they seem to be only waiting, they are
having a continuous feast of insects, big and Httle.
You seldom see them move; and you never see that
lightning-like tongue go out. All you see is, that the

TOADS, BATS AND OWLS 101

instant an insect alights or falls near the toad it is
gone as if by magic, and that the toad sits there
swallowing something.

While the toad sits so quietly under the light
catching the insects that come near him, another
little night-hunter is busy flying round and round
the light, swallowing whole mouthfuls of insects as he
goes. He is an odd-looking fellow. He has wings and
he seems to fly like a bird. Yet he is not a bird for
he has no feathers upon his wings or his body. His
wing{^ are very long and narrow and he scarcely seems
to move them as he goes around in swift circles. His
body is thick and short. It is covered with soft, silky,
olive-brown fur like that of a mouse. His tiny face
looks almost like that of a fox, with its bright eyes
and long, erect ears. His mouth, which he holds
open, is full of sharp teeth.

The English call this little night creature a ^'flitter-
mouse," but ''the little brown bat" is our name for it.

Have any of you ever seen a bat? Have you
stroked its soft, silky fur, looked at its bright eyes,
its snub nose and funny ears?

These little bats sleep during the day as the toads
do, only instead of digging themselves backwards into
a hole for their nap, they hang themselves upside
down by their feet in some dark place. They like to
hang under bridges or in the lofts of barns or even
in chimneys. Sometimes they come down the chimney
and fly about the room.

The best place to see bats is near an electric street
light. We could almost call it a Maypole dance of
little creatures that goes on during warm June and

102 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

July nights. iVrouiid the light, whirling and darting,
go the large, beautiful moths, the smaller moths, the
June bugs, mosquitoes, gnats and countless other
insects. Sometimes they are dazed by the bright
light or are overcome by the heat so that they fall
to the ground, and the toads' tongues quickly catch
them. All the while up above, gliding around the
pole, in smooth, even circles, go the bats. They fly
very swiftly with their mouths wide open, scooping
up whole mouthfuls of the bewitched insects.

These bats are very cunning to look at and. they
can be tamed and made into interesting pets. So
can the toad, for that matter. Both, we are told,
will well repay the time it takes to tame them.

But it is not as pets, it is as little helpers that we
value both the toad and the bat. They take care of
the insects for us at night as the birds do by day.
Indeed, we little know how many troubles we might
have if the birds, the toads, the bats and the spiders
did not help us by eating up just as many insects as
they could catch.

Another of our helpers is the owl. He is a strange
bird, with face and sometimes ears shaped rather like
a cat's and with great, round eyes and a funny beak
like a Roman nose. You have all seen pictures of owls,
even if you have never seen a real one, so you know
what a wise, thoughtful look they have. People
often say, ''You look as wise as an owl" when any
one sits thinking with his eyes wide open. And the
owls surely do look wise as they sit upon a branch of
a tree and look at you so gravely.

The owls, too, are night creatures and sleep by

TOADS, BATS AND OWLS 103

day. Their nest is in a hollow tree, but they often
sleep upon a branch outside the nest where it is
shaded from the hght. When dusk comes they slowly
wake up and then begins their night work. With
their great eyes wide open they can see anything that
moves, and with swift and noiseless flight they pounce
upon the unsuspecting mouse or mole.

How do you suppose they ever see from their
perches in the trees, a small gray mouse stealing along
over the ground on a dark night, or the dirt-colored
mole that lives mostly underground and comes up
only for a short time?

Dogs hunt at night, but they run along the ground
and their sense of smell is so keen that they can fol-
low their game by the scent. But the owls see their
prey, even the mouse and the mole, the color of both
of which is so like the soft gray night.

The cat has eyes like the owl's, so it, too, can see
quite clearly when it seems very dark to us. The
pupils of their eyes are so large that they receive
rays of light that never could reach our eyes. We
have to feel our way very carefully on a dark night,
but they can not only see where they are going
quite well but they also see those small, soft gray
animals.

The cat will creep noiselessly along, and then
pounce upon the mouse, catching it every time.
Her feet seem shod with velvet and her fur is very
soft, so she slips along too quietly for even the timid
mouse to hear her.

Just so with the owl. He has no velvet shoes on
his feet, but he does not need them for he goes

104 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

through the air on his wings. The wings of birds
usually make a noise; but the owl's wings are covered
with the softest and thickest of feathers and the air
that would make a noise striking against the hard
wing of the crow goes softly in among these thick,
downy feathers. So the owl can swoop noiselessly
down upon the out-of-door mouse nibbling the farm-
er's grain, as the cat steals noiselessly upon the in-
door mouse nibbling in the pantry. Both can see
their prey and catch it quickly.

Besides catching mice and moles, the owls eat many
insects. They seem very fond of cut-worms, those
destructive cut-worms that live under the roots of
plants and come up during the night and cut the
whole plant off at the surface of the ground.

Isn't that a mischievous thing for these cut-worms
to do? They are most apt to cut tomato plants,
squashes and cucumbers. They do not even eat up
what they destroy, but only nibble off the stalks of
the young plants. Then on they go to others, leaving
those cut to wilt and die. It is fortunate for us that
owls will eat the cut-worms, for we find it very hard
to catch them. They hide away during the day in
burrows where we might not find them, and of
course we could not spend the time going about all
night with a lantern just to catch and to kill those
mischievous little cut- worms.

The owls attend to that. They are great friends
of the farmer. If the farmer had been more friendly
to the owl, there would be many more of them than
there are, and fewer cut-worms to injure his crops.

When the farmer ignorantly shoots the owls, then

TOADS, BATS AND OWLS 105

the mice, the moles and the cut-worms increase on his
land. They eat the food he has planted for himself
and they cause him nmch trouble. Yet he has fool-
ishly killed the owl before finding out what its special
work is, and whether it is harmful or helpful to
him.

If we ignorantly interfere with God's plans we
must suffer. For God's laws are right. By them He
has made and still makes the world. We are His
people, and we must help Him as do the rest of the
things He has created.

LESSON 13
HUMBLE HELPERS

MEMORY VERSE

He praycth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Coleridge

The Purpose

This lesson is a continuation of Lesson 12 and gives
the children a further insight into the working of the
Divine laws.

It serves to show them that the world was made for all,
not for a few. One animal or species of animal cannot
live to the detriment of the rest. Neither can different
species be wholly exterminated without disturbing the
balance of the whole.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The story of the earthworm is given here to show the
children how great a work such a lowly creature is able
to perform. Interest should also be awakened in this
often-scorned little creature by pointing out the fact that
it is quite wonderfully organized.

Knowledge of the earthworm's usefulness may do
more to open the children's minds to the realization of
God's presence in the world than stories of the intelli-
gence and usefulness of the animals which seem to them
more important.

106

HUMBLE HELPERS ]U7

Try to make a vivid picture of the ants and the aphids,
the corn and the lady-bugs, as these stories ilkistrate
well the balance of nature.

Review the memory verse for the last lesson, as it
applies to this one also. Then read the lines chosen for
this lesson, which the children will learn readily and
gladly.

OPENING TALK

Would you like to know all that goes on in the animal
world at night while you are asleep? There are such
busy workers everywhere, helping to make and keep our
world fit for us to live in. And the very humblest of all
our helpers do a most important work and help to keep
the balance of nature.

HUMBLE HELPERS

There is another little creature that comes above
ground at night and stays under ground all day, un-
less the rain drives it out of its burrow, or we digit
up. It is a very humble little animal and many fool-
ish people dislike extremely to touch it. But the
earthworm is perfectly harmless and very clean.
Moreover, it is one of the greatest little helpers that
ever a farmer had.

The greatest scientist, Darwin, has said, ''It may
be doubted whether there are many other animals
which have played so important a part in the
history of the world as have these lowly-organized
creatures."

The earthworm is like a tiny plowman, continually
working over and enriching the soil in our gardens,
under our lawns and in our moist pastures and farm
lands.

How do you suppose this tiny plowman goes to
work to turn over the soil? All we ever see it do
w^hen we dig it up is to hide quickly, burrowing its
way out of sight. Yet that is just the way this little
plowman does its work, by burrowing under the sur-
face of the ground.

The earthworm makes a long hole or burrow a foot
and more in length, deep into the ground. As it
burrows, it eats the earth. In its tiny gizzard the

108

HUMBLE HELPERS 109

particles of earth are ground up into a fine, rich soil.
This is mixed with certain salts of lime which are fur-
nished from the worm's digestive organs. Then it is
all cast out by the worm upon the surface of the ground
above its burrow. You must have seen those little
lumps of fine soil over the lawn and in your garden.

When you were helping weed the garden, did
you ever see ends of grass and pieces of leaves half
pushed into little holes? The earthworm gathered
those the night before and pulled them into the
mouth of its burrow to shut it up safely. It is
going to eat some of the bits of leaves and will line
the upper part of the burrow with the rest, if, indeed,
you do not pull them all up to make your garden
look tidier, as some people do. It is much better to
leave them there for little Mr. Plowman to use to
fertilize your garden.

As you shall learn in another lesson it is grass and
leaves and other vegetation accumulating year after
year that makes the soil in your gardens so different
from that in a sand pit or a gravel bank. Although
each worm pulls underground such a very little bit
of grass and leaves each night, yet, as many, many
thousands of worms work continually night after
night and year after year, you can imagine how much
good they do. Busy little plowmen they are, making
the finest and richest of soil right there near the sur-
face where you need it most.

The farmer plows and harrows and cultivates the
soil on his farm and adds, to enrich it, those same salts
of lime which the earthworm adds. With great labor
the farmer can take away the larger stones and even

110 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

many of the smaller ones, but he cannot make the
earth itself any finer.

And do you know, the earthworm is not so different
from other animals, for all its shapelessness. It has
a gizzard much like the one cook takes from your
Thanksgiving turkey, only the earthworm's gizzard is
very, very tiny. It has a heart and a stomach, a brain
and a nervous system. Although it has no real legs
or feet, all along on either side of its body are pairs of
bristles, so small that they cannot be seen without a
magnifying glass. These serve as legs to the earth-
worm, and help it to make its way over the ground.

Who would have thought that an earthworm was
made with such care! It seems so simple and com-
mon a creature to us. Just a worm! And yet in that
plain-looking little body a heart beats and red blood
flows. God made the earthworm and gave it, small
and shapeless as it seems to be, very important work
to do. It is His servant, and one of our helpers.

There are so many friendly little helpers that I
never could tell you about them all. But some of
them are so interesting that you must hear about
what they do.

Do you remember the name of those very small,
green flies that the ants milk as cows? Yes, aphids
is the name. They live on the underside of leaves and
on green stems. You remember, too, that the ants
sometimes take the aphids away from the shrubs
where they find them, and put them on other plants
with juicier leaves so they will give more honey-deWo

Now in some places there is a family of aphids
that is very fond of the juice that they suck from the

HUMBLE HELPERS 111

roots of the corn, and there is a certain family of ants
that Hve in those corn fields. Perhaps the ants live
there to be near their cows, — who knows? However
that may be, they attend to these cows with great
care, for in the autumn they go around and gather
up the tiny eggs which the mother aphids have laid
in the ground to hatch out the next spring. The ants
know that the eggs are not safe over winter in the
ground and that the cold weather will destroy almost
all of them; so into their cities they carry the eggs
and store them all along their tunnels and corridors.

When the first warm days of spring come the eggs
hatch. Then the ants take out the young aphids and
place them upon the roots of the first httle plants
that come up in the cornfield. But after the corn is
up what do the ants' do but pick them up once more
and, carrying them to the corn plants, put them
safely into the tunnels which they have dug for them
along the young roots.

All this helps the ants, of course. It is fine for
them and for the aphids. The aphids are, without
any trouble on their part, transplanted to a land of
plenty, while the ant has an abundance of the most
dehcious honey-dew. But how about the farmer
and the corn? The farmer planted that corn for him-
self, not for the ants and the aphids. He tends it
with great care so it will bear fine, juicy ears of sweet
corn for him, or firm yellow ears for his poultry and
cattle. If the aphids are on the corn they will suck
juice out of the roots. Then the leaves will not
have juice enough to make over into sap.

You know what happens when the leaves cannot

112 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

do their work and provide the plant with sap. The
plant will die. Even if there are some leaves still at
work so the plant does not die, yet the corn upon the
ear will not be good because it needs all the moisture
that the roots can drink in and the leaves manufac-
ture into sap.

What, then, can the poor farmer do? He has
planted the corn with great care and has spent so
much time hoeing it and tending it, and then, alas!
those mites of ants turn it into a pasture for their
tiny cows. And those same tiny creatures increase
so fast that the poor farmer is quite distressed.

But there is a friendly helper about, and the
farmer does not often lose his corn because of the
ants and aphids. That is not the way God has
planned the world, for a few to have everything.
That is selfishness, and selfishness breaks God's law.

Now, what do you think is there in the cornfield
ready to help the farmer? I do not believe you can
ever guess, so I will tell you. Young lady-bugs!
They crawl down among the roots of the corn and
eat up a great many of the ants' cows, but they save
the corn. Did you suppose that the lady-bugs that
crawl up and down your window-sashes in the winter
and early spring are some of the best friends that a
farmer has?

It seems as if they did nothing. But it is just as it
was with the toad. They may seem to be doing noth-
ing when they are on your window in the winter, but
in the spring and summer, when the aphids are eating
the farmer's corn and fruit, the lady-bugs are busy
enough. Those that we see in om' windows are so

HUMBLE HELPERS 113

pretty, too, in their glossy red coats, each side so
evenly spotted with little black dots, that you never
could mistake them for any other bug or beetle. If
you are careful of them through the winter they will
fly out of the window in the spring and away they
will go to the cornfields, the fruit trees and the rose
bushes. For the aphids are very fond of the leaves
of all of these. Next summer watch the rose bushes
and the nasturtiums, and see if some ants will not
come and milk their little cows while you are watch-
ing. Look ever so carefully and you will see the ants
crawl up the stem, stroke the aphids with their
antennae, and drink up the tiny drops of honey-dew.
So whenever you find a lady-bug in the house in
the spring and sunamer, pick it up very carefully and
take it to the nearest rose bush or nasturtium or
apple tree or cornstalk. That is the way good
farmers do.

Throughout all the world there are insects and
animals which do great service by preventing other
creatures from selfishly taking everything. The birds
keep caterpillars from eating all the leaves of the
trees; the toads and bats and spiders eat up many
of the flies and mosquitoes and troublesome moths;
while the woodpecker finds the borers which are hurt-
ing the trees by boring under the bark.

Helpers are everywhere. We do not have to work
alone. Indeed, nothing in the world has to work
alone if it is working according to God's law.

LESSON 14
THE BIRDS

MEMORY VERSE

Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart.

7s. 65:14

The Purpose

Birds are among the most friendly and interesting of
our neighbors, and they give us further evidence of the
unity of all life. The birds are useful to man in much
the same way as the bat and the toad are, but they add
another qualitA^, an element of beauty and art that gives
joy to the world.

Joy of heart is a Christian virtue which is not enough
appreciated. The lesson on the birds has been used to
show the happiness which this joyous nature brings to
the world.

It is this quality which children bestow in greatest
measure. This lesson may help them to realize what a
gift they have; to cultivate that gift, and to be, in just
this year of their lives, among those servants of God
who sing for joy of heart.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Children see so much of birds and are taught so much
about them in the schools, that this lesson is designed
rather more to show the nature of birds than to describe
their habits.,

114

THE BIRDS 115

Their loving nature, their usefulness in ridding the
world of pests, and the joyous songs which brighten our
lives, are the points upon which we ought to dwell.

Urge the children to watch the birds at nesting time,
and to do all they can to guard the nests. As this lesson
may be taught after the bird migration to the south, it will
be well to speak of the birds which stay in your locality
all winter and what care boys and girls may give them at
that season in providing sheltered feeding places.

Much added teaching material may be secured if de-
sired. Colored pictures of birds and their nests will be
found in any public library, and excellent leaflets, each
containing a colored print and description of a bird, may be
secured from the Audubon Society at three cents each. All
material chosen should be used to illustrate and lead up
to the lesson climax, the gift to the world which the joyous
heart makes.

Hand Work

The children should make three lists on the page of
the leaflet: one list of the birds they have seen and
know, one of the birds whose songs they have heard, and
one of the nests they have seen.

OPENING TALK

We have studied about one bird already; which one
was it? Yes, the owl. What good thing does the owl do
for the world? Have you ever heard his call? It is a
queer ''Hoot! hoot!" Much as the owl does for us, he
cannot make us glad in the way some of the other birds
do. For they give to the world their songs, which add
so much to the joy of springtime. Our story to-day will
tell us about the singing birds.

THE BIRDS

What curious ways insects and animals have of
making their homes and of taking care of them-
selves. Ants, earthworms, toads, spiders and bees
all build tunnels, houses or cities in different ways
and for different purposes.

The birds build houses, also, but they are quite
different from the houses that these other creatures
build. They are nests, all woven from material that
the birds find, not from material that the}^ make them-
selves. And these nests are really cradles, meant for
the eggs and for the baby birds, not as homes for the
father and mother, for after the little birds have grown
large enough to fly, the nest is seldom used again.

In the spring, when the birds have come back to
us, they choose a place for the nest, and begin to hunt
about for the material with which to build it. The
chipping sparrows find horse-hairs ; the crows get small
sticks; the humming-birds strip off fr(3m the baby
ferns their soft brown winter blankets; the robins
use dry grass and mud; and the orioles find string.

What sharp eyes the chipping-sparrow must have
to be able to find the horse-hairs which it weaves
into its small, well-made nest. You would need
sharper eyes than the chipping-sparrow 's and the
greatest of patience to see the nest made. For the
chipping-sparrows are very shy and would not let

IIG

THE BIRDS 117

you come anywhere near them. You cannot watch
them from your window, for they always choose a
leafy bower in which to build. The leaves make a
nice roof to keep the rain away from their babies
and also a screen to keep away prying eyes.

The Baltimore oriole hangs its woven nest. from
the drooping ends of branches in a place that seems
quite perilous. Yet it is really very safe, for scarcely
an enemy can reach it, and even severe winter storms
do not tear it down. How prettily it is made of the
milk-weed fiber, with string looped through and
through it. And how warm and soft it is inside where
the baby orioles will soon hatch out of the little eggs.

Robins are not such careful builders as the orioles
and the chipping-sparrows, and their nests are not
so pretty. They make the outside of dry grass and
straw, then plaster it with mud. But the inside is
all lined with horse-hair and it is smooth and soft.

Neither are the robins as timid as the chipping-
sparrows. They often come and build upon your
piazza. They will even make the nest while you
sit there, if you are very quiet. But you must be
intent upon your own work and not curious about
theirs or they will fly away with the pieces of straw,
or they may hop about the lawn scolding you until
you stop looking at them. Then they will come so
silently, with the bits of straw and the mouthfuls
of mud, and directly before you they will make
their nest without your being able to tell how they
do it; for if you watch them, away they fly.

Birds are not so very unlike us, are they? For it
often distresses us to be watched too closely while

118 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

we work. They are, in fact, like us in many ways, —
these little birds that look so different. The father
and mother birds love each other, and wait upon
each other and work together to take care of their
babies as our own fathers and mothers do.

Aft?er the nest has been built and the eggs laid,
and the mother bird is sitting upon them, the father
bird feeds her and sings to her. When she leaves
the nest, he sometimes takes her place so the eggs
will not become cold. After the eggs have hatched
both the father and the mother bird work all day
to find food enough for their hungry children.

Who has seen four baby robins reaching out of
the nest their great wide-open mouths? At first it
seems as if there was nothing but mouths until you
see the queer, feather less bodies. They are hungr}^
all the time. No matter how often father or mother
robin comes with a worm, the baby robins still
clamor for more. But they grow fast, and soon the
down on their bodies is replaced by feathers.

The next time a robin alights on the lawn, watch
him and see if he is not trying to catch worms. His
eyes are so sharp that he can see the slightest move-
ment of the earth above a worm where it is working
in its tunnel under ground. He hops about and
turns his head this way and that. Then, suddenly,
down goes the robin's beak and up comes the earth-
worm. Very slowly the earthworm comes out of
the ground. It holds on to the earth with the
different rings or segments of its body, trying so
hard to keep itself down in the ground. But the
robin is the stronger, and bracing himself with his

THE BIRDS 119

feet, he steadily pulls up the worm and is off to the
nest to feed his hungry babies.

Robins eat many other worms and insects, but
they never catch them in the air or pick them from
the trees as do some of the other birds. They get
them all from the ground.

Did you ever see a Baltimore oriole flashing his
gorgeous black and gold coat through the pink and
white mass of a blossoming apple tree, while he
pecked here and there and everywhere among the
blossoms to catch harmful, hiding insects, and sing-
ing his clear note as he went? He is feeding himself
then, because his nest is not finished in apple blos-
som time, but when the nest is ready and the baby
orioles are hatched, he is just as good a hunter. In-
deed, there are two hunters, then, for each nest, and
a hard time they have filling those hungry mouths.

It is very fortunate for us that the baby birds are
so hungry, for they eat a great many of the cater-
pillars and insects just at the time when the leaves
are tender. If it were not for the birds the leaves
on many of our trees and plants would all be eaten.
Then the trees and plants would die.

All the time the baby birds are in the nest the
father and mother birds watch over them with
loving care and devotion. They bring them food;
they keep the nest clean and dry, sheltering the
birdies with their own wings and bodies from the
cold and wet. If any of the little ones are too am-
bitious and try to get out of the nest before their
wings are ready for flying, father and mother have a
great deal to say about it. You can often hear them

120 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

scolding the too ambitious ones, for they know well
that if one of the baby birds tries to fly before his
wings are strong enough he will fall to the ground.
The parent birds could not pick him up and put
him safely back into the nest. The httle bird might
die of cold before his wings became strong enough
to carry him to a safe place, and then, too, the cat
might catch him.

When the time to fly does come there is great ex-
citement. Father and mother coax and call and
fly back and forth between a nearby branch and the
nest to show their timid birdlings how it is done and to
encourage them to try. The great eagles who build
nests high up in the crags often fly just under their
young to bear them up in case they should fall.

When at last the baby bird ventures off the edge
of the nest and half flies down to the ground, the
parent birds coax and chatter until he flutters up
to a safe place on a shrub, where he may take a long
rest. Then the other nestlings follow, one at a
time, in the same way. The parents feed the little
ones for days after they come from the nest, trying
all the while with chirpings and twitterings and
sharp calls to teach the httle birds how to feed
themselves and how to avoid danger.

Did you know before that birds had to bring up
their children? And did you think that much of
the noise you hear in the trees and shrubs is the
warning that a too-venturesome little bird is having
from his parents? Our own fathers and mothers
could not have more to say to their children than
these little bird fathers and mothers say to theirs.

THE BIKDS 121

But birds use their voices for something more
than to scold and advise their children. The thi'oat
of the song bird is like a httle music box from which
the sweetest songs pour forth; songs that help make
the world a happier place in which to live.

It is just at the time when they are building their
nests and having their busy life together with their
little ones that the birds sing. Is it not a lovely
thing that each day they greet the morning with a
song? It almost seems, does it not, as if they were
thanking their Maker for this beautiful world and
for the joy of being together and of serving the
little, helpless birdlings they work so hard to feed.
St. Francis of Assisi, a monk who lived in the thir-
teenth century, thought so; and because his heart
was so thankful for all his blessings that he, too,
longed to sing his thanks and praise, he called the
birds his little brothers and sisters.

Two things that are a genuine service the birds
do for us. They rid our gardens and orchards of
pests that would destroy them, and they bring us
cheer with theu^ wonderful melody. Their music is
one of God's gifts to us, a gift of joy and delight, for
which, with the other wonderful things in the world,
our hearts may give thanks. Victor Hugo, the great
French poet, tells us to ^^be like the bird," for then
we too may bless the world with a gift of gladness.
These dear little servants of God show us, who are
His servants too, how to keep a heart of joy while
we do our tasks. They, above all His creatures, help
us to understand the words of the prophet Isaiali:
''Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart."

LESSON 15
ANIMAL FRIENDS

MEMORY VERSE

Trust in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.

1 Tim. 6 : 17

The Purpose

While the activities of the insects and smaller animals
described in the preceding lessons have been used to show
the work that they do to help make the world a home for
all, this lesson is used to show the direct benefit which
the domestic animals are to mankind.

By using the gift God has given him of taming and train-
ing these higher animals, man has been able to become
a more important factor in the progress of the world.

Suggestions for the Teacher

In telling the children about the usefulness of the
domestic animals, bring out the special gift that God
has given man, whereby he has been able to discover
various uses to which these animals could be put as well
as to train them for these uses.

Lay stress, also, upon the ability of the animals to
adapt themselves to their environment. This charac-
teristic is especially serviceable to man, as it is by the
help of these animals that he has been able to live in
many places where otherwise he could hardly survive,
certainly could not improve his condition.

122

ANIMAL FRIENDS 123

Show also that, as we have taken these animals from
their wild environment, where they were free, to help
us, we owe them the kindness and protection that we
have taught them to need.

Hand Work

The children are to make a list of all the animals that
are man's friends and tell how they are useful.

OPENING TALK

Do you remember the story of St. Francis and the
wolf of Gubbio? ^ What did this same St. Francis call
the birds? He was a friend to animals, and they were his
friends, too, as they may be ours. Some of man's best
friends are his helpers among the animals. When we
think what they have done for him I am sure we shall
want to trust more in the loving God who giveth us
richly all things to enjoy.

1 In Living Together, by Frances M. Dadmun, an earlier book
in this course.

ANIMAL FRIENDS

Among all the animals that have proved themselves
friendly helpers, there are none so friendly or so help-
ful as those that live with us. Those domestic ani-
mals, as we call them, were once as wild as the wolf,
or the buffalo, or the mountain goat. They have be-
come oui' friends and our servants because of the long
ages of care and training that man has given them.

No one knows when first the dog lost his wild,
wolfish nature, and became man's friend. Even
when men were so wild themselves that they lived
in caves, they had dogs living with them in the
friendly way that ours do now.

As long ago as the time of Abraham, shepherds
tended sheep in the pastures, and the wool upon the
sheeps' back grew long and soft enough to spin and
to weave into woolen cloth. When the sheep were
wild animals they had no such wool. Then it was
short and stiff and coarse, wholly unfit for spinning
into threads long enough to weave into cloth. The
skins of the wild sheep furnished men with clothing
then, and it was not until they had been taken care
of for a long, long time that the wool began to be
fine enough and long enough to use for weaving.

Sheep and goats have always been among those
animals which are most useful to man, for they need
very little care and give great return. Sheep can live

124

ANIMAL FRIENDS 125

comfortably upon whatever grass or small plants and
leaves they find in rocky, hilly pastures, -— places
where cattle and horses could not live. In Scotland
sheep graze in such rocky country that the shepherd
hunself cannot follow them; he has to depend upon
the sheep dog to gather the sheep and bring them
into the fold.

Goats not only furnish haii' for cloth and their
flesh for food, but they also give milk as cows do.
Our cows need special care and food of fresh grass
and hay if they are to give us good milk, but goats
need little food, and that is of the simplest kind that
scarcely any other animal would eat. They eat such
strange things for food that people even joke about
their living upon the old tin cans that are tlii'own
about in uncared-for places.

In many parts of Europe and Asia people live upon
the milk of the goat, and the butter and cheese which
are made from it. These, with bread and a few onions,
make the principal food of the poorer people of Italy.
The camel is another animal which men could
not do without. Have you ever seen one? They are
strange-looking creatures, surely, not nearly so at-
tractive to us as our horses. Yet where the camels
live the people love them as we do our pet horses, and
in their eyes they seem quite as graceful. It is no
wonder that they feel as they do toward their camels,
for they are as useful as any creature that man has
ever tamed. Long caravans of them travel across
the great deserts and over the mountains in Asia
and Africa, carrying merchandise from one place to
another.

126 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

Like the goats, camels need very little to eat, and
what they do eat no other creature seems to want.
Old baskets and matting seem to give them as much
pleasure as a bone gives a dog. Indeed, they are so
fond of dry things that they will eat the thatch off
the roofs of houses whenever they can reach it. In
one place in Africa where the houses are made
entirely of thatch supported by poles, a caravan
of camels would eat the village up if the houses
were not protected with vines bearing long, sharp
thorns.

Perhaps you have already learned how one of the
stomachs of the camel is fitted to retain much of the
water that it drinks. If it were not for those small
sacs which absorb the water from the stomach and
keep it until it is needed, a camel could never go four
or five days without a drink of water. More than
that, the humps upon their backs are composed of
fat, and these are gradually absorbed and used as
nourishment if the camels are obliged to go long
without food.

Is it any wonder, then, that camels are called
''ships of the desert," when they are able to traverse
those dry, sandy wastes laden with provision and
merchandise for their masters, but needing very little
provision for themselves?

The camel, too, gives milk, and from the long,
silky hair which grows on parts of its body a very
soft, warm cloth is made.

As it is with the plants and flowers, so it is with
animals, — each kind is wonderfully adapted to live
in the locality where it is found. The camel would

ANIMAL FRIENDS 127

be quite out of place feeding in the pastures where
our fine Jersey cows graze, while the cows could not
give a drop of milk or even live if they had only the
food the camel eats.

While the camel is so well fitted for traveling and
carrying burdens in the land where he lives, the
elephants are quite as well suited to be burden-
bearers in the jungles of India and Africa. For they
are so tall and so large that they can push their way
through the thick mass of undergrowth, while their
feet are so broad that they do not sink into the soft,
wet earth.

Elephants are very intelligent animals and can be
trained to do almost anything that their masters
attempt to teach them. The trunk of the elephant
is so made that with it he can lift large objects as
easily as we do with our two arms, while smaller
articles like pins can be picked up with the end of
the trunks as easily as with our fingers.

Have you ever been to a circus and seen the re-
markable tricks the performing elephants can do?
Have you seen them sit at a table and eat, using
napkins and dishes as nicely, almost, as we do?

While they have been trained to do many curious
things, it is by the real work they do that we judge
their intelligence. Elephants load and unload boats,
build walls, and help ship-builders by dragging huge
beams, for they can lift and drag with ease a beam
which twenty men could carry only with great diffi-
culty. Elephants are true workers, for after they
have been trained to do a certain task, they keep
right at it and work with a will. What is more,

128 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

they know the difference between shirking and be-
ing trustworthy.

Mary Howitt tells an interesting story of an ele-
phant whose trade was wall building. He had been
trained to lay a course of stone and then call the
overseer to see that it was properly done before going
on with the next course. This elephant did not have
the patience of the orb-web spider. He seemed to
get tired of building each course of stone so carefully,
so he shirked on the last one. But he knew that his
work was not good, and after he had made the sign
that he was ready for the overseer, the sly, old fellow
leaned against the part of the wall that was carelessly
done so the man would not see it. When the over-
seer, however, commanded him to move, the ele-
phant, knowing well that his poor work would be
seen, without one word from the overseer pulled
down the bad work and commenced to build it over
again more carefully.

Strong as they are, elephants are also very gentle.
The proboscis, or trunk, that can lift such huge
burdens and strike such terrific blows, can be used
as softly and carefully as a mother's arm. They love
children, and are as tender with them and with the
vsick as human beings are. They have been known to
lift children up and place them safely upon their
backs or by the side of the road when they were in
danger. And once when there was such a pestilence
that the sick people even lay in the streets, the ele-
phants in passing, without any word from their mas-
ters, would hft the sick ones and put them gently
to one side.

ANIMAL FRIENDS 129

Besides being very intelligent they have great
memories, and are very affectionate. They have
been known to remember people after years of
separation, even recognizing grown persons whom
they had loved as children.

Horses cannot work or carry loads by themselves
as the elephants do, but they are very intelligent
animals, and great workers.

Their memory is remarkable. They never forget
persons who have been good to them, and they often
remember quite as long those who have hurt or
vexed them. A delicately bred horse is as sensitive
as a person and cannot bear a sharp or harsh voice
or rough ways. Such horses are trained by kindness.

Have you heard the story of how Alexander the
Great, when a boy, was able to get control of the
beautiful horse, Bucephalus, a horse which none of
his father's trainers could mount? He did it by
thoughtfulness and by kindness. Bucephalus, though
a powerful horse, throwing from his back all those
who had tried to mount him, recognized the loving
strength of the boy and became Alexander's most
faithful friend. For a faithful dog or horse or ele-
phant is more than a servant, — it is a friend, loving
with true devotion those who show it love and care
and comradeship.

It is a marvelous gift which God has given us, —
that of training animals and teaching them to do as
we wish. Why do the animals obey us, do you
suppose? Perhaps it is because they feel the love
and interest that we give them; for if we start to
train an animal we learn to love it. All animals know

130 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

when we love them. Even wild animals feel it. For
there are great-hearted men, full of love for all God's
creatures, who are able to go without harm into the
thick mountain forests and the wildest country,
places where most of us would not think it safe to
go. In some way the wild animals know that these
men will not harm them and they in turn do no
harm.

Why should we not think of ourselves as the older
brothers of the animals? Are we not all God's
creatures? And should we not give love and care to
those creatures which God has given to us to use
and to enjoy?

LESSON 16
THE DOG

MEMORY VERSE

A friend loveth at all times.

Prov. 17: 17

The Purpose

Faithfulness is one of the important lessons that should
be learned from the story of the dog. This animal has
been so long a companion of man that he has acquired
some very human traits. One of these seems to be the
will to obej^ Another is self-sacrificing love.

The noblest dogs are not servile creatures, obeying
through fear. Their obedience, as their love, comes
from a higher intelligence.

Suggestions for the Teacher

There are so many stories of the intelligence and
faithfulness of dogs that the teacher will find it hard to
confine the children to the lesson as given. They should
be allowed to tell what they know about the intelligence
and devotion of dogs, and the teacher should use the
stories they tell to enforce the same lessons that are
brought out here.

The love and sacrifice of the dog for his master ought
to be made very impressive. It will help the children to
catch a glimpse of what Dr. John Fiske called 'Hhe
cosmic roots of love."

131

132 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

Hand Work

Each child is to write a short story of some dog that
he knows or that he has heard about.

Ask the child to illustrate his story by pasting on a
picture of a dog which he has found and cut out.

If the dog in the picture is the same kind as the dog
in his story, so much the better.

OPENING TALK

What can j^ou tell about some of our useful animals?
Were they always tame and obedient?

Can you tell why the camel and the elephant are
more adapted to some countries than the horse? How
is the nature of a trained elephant different from that of
a wild one? Tell about the trained elephants.

What is the nature of a finely bred horse?

If man has taken these animals away from their wild
homes and made them dependent upon him for food and
care, what do we owe them?

What do we owe to God in return for the special gift
that He has given us of being able to take these wild
animals and train them for our use?

We shall hear to-day about another of our animal
friends, the one boys and girls know the best of all. It
is the dog.

THE DOG

The dog has been a friend of mankind for so long
a time that we cannot think of men at all without
him, and his attachment to people is so well known
that he is called ''man's faithful friend."

It means something to be called a faithful friend,
does it not? You and I would like to feel that we
deserved that name.

The Bible says, ''A faithful friend loveth at all
times." That is just the way a dog seems to love
his master, — at all times. If his master is tired he
will come and lie down beside him, as much as to
say, ''I will not disturb you, let us rest together."
Or if his master should be sad or worried he will
go to him, sit by him, or lean up against his knees,
looking into his face with sad, sympathetic eyes.
Indeed dogs are so sensitive that they can tell from
a glance of then- master's eyes, without a word being
spoken, whether anything is wrong with him. If his
master is sick or helpless, the true and faithful
friend can hardly be taken from the one he loves so
devotedly.

Have you read the story of ''Grey-Friar's Bobby"?
He was a little Skye terrier that followed his master
to his grave, and would not be taken from it until he
died himself. Terriers, they say, love their masters as
much as that.

133

134 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

Newfoundland dogs love children, and will pro-
tect them from danger. Not only that, but the
Newfoundland is so faithful that he will patiently
bear being annoyed or even hurt by little children
who know no better. There was once a Great Dane
that was left to guard a baby sleeping in its carriage
upon the piazza. A friendly dog came up and just
peeped into the baby carriage out of curiosity. He
meant no harm, but the Great Dane punished him
severely for even going near the carriage.

Any good dog will give his life for his master, or
for any of his master's family; and a reliable watch-
dog is as true to his post as a soldier. He will not
leave it even if it should mean death to remain
there.

Most of the dogs that we know are household
pets, living in the house with the family and seeming
like one of them. An intelligent and affectionate
dog soon wins the love of every member of the
household, and great is the sorrow if any harm
should come to him.

But there are other dogs that are trained to do
special work. Did you ever see a collie drive cows
to pasture? It is very interesting to watch him.
If a cow goes out of the road, the collie will nip at her
hind legs, and back into the road she will go. He
will bark behind the slow ones to make them go
faster, and, running along by the side of the herd,
nip, nip, he will go at the legs of any cow that strays
out of line to get a mouthful of juicy grass or nice,
tender leaves. A herd of cows with a well-trained
collie to drive them will keep almost as even a line

THE DOG 135

as you children do when you are fiUng out of
school.

All over Europe sheep are tended by the sheep-
dogs. The master has only to speak or even look,
and away the dog will run to gather in the sheep
scattered over many miles of rough, hilly country.
He will bring them all together in one place, all, for he
does not miss a sheep. The shepherd himself could not
do that. If it were not for those knowing, watchful
sheep-dogs the shepherds would lose so many of
their flock in the rough Highlands of Scotland that
it would not pay to keep sheep there, although the
country is wonderfully adapted for their grazing.

Then there are the dogs in Belgium, which have
been trained to draw the two-wheeled carts in which
the milk is carried to the cities from the farms.
These dogs are strong and can draw quite a heavy
load over the roughly paved streets. They start
out early in the morning and often remain in town
all day, lying down upon the ground to rest when
the farmers' wives, who walk beside the carts, stop to
sell the milk. The dogs of Belgium are as useful as
horses, while they are cheaper to keep and much
easier to care for.

The Eskimo dogs are like horses, too. In the far
north they draw the sledges of the Eskimos. Six
or eight of them are harnessed together in pairs,
and over the rough or slippery ice they drag the
sledges as no other animals could, for the pads on
the bottom of their feet do not slip on the ice.

Those brave men who have been away off to the
frozen north to try to discover the north pole, have

136 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

become very fond of their dogs, and have written
much about their faithfulness. Lieutenant Peary,
who after many attempts reached the north pole,
tells how impossible it would have been for him to
have accomplished his purpose if it had not been
for the faithful, hardworking Eskimo dogs.

For many years men have been trying to find
the south pole as well, but they could not travel
very far on the ice without some animals to draw
the sledges of provisions. There are no dogs living
near the south pole like the Eskimo dogs of Green-
land. One man, named Amundsen, thought that
if he took some Eskimo dogs with him, they might
be able to carry sledges with enough provisions on
them to last while he made the long, long journey
from the ship over the ice to the south pole. Sure
enough, the dogs did the work; and because of their
help in drawing the heavy loads of provisions
Amundsen finally reached the south pole, and came
back in safety.

So neither the north nor the south pole could
have been reached if it had not been for the Eskimo
dogs and their faithful endurance. They say that,
''with the exception of the most intelligent horses
and elephants, the dog is the only animal that takes
a real interest and pleasure in his work. Whatever
work he may be doing, he puts his heart into it."

Switzerland is the home of the St. Bernard dogs.
Have you ever seen one of them? They are as large
as a Shetland pony.

Near the top of a mountain called the Great St.
Bernard is a place where men can cross over the

THE DOG 137

Alps from Switzerland to Italy. Such a place is
called a pass. This pass of the Great St. Bernard
is very dangerous. Before the tunnels were built
through the Alps for the railroads, many persons
were obliged to travel over this dangerous route.
Not very far from the pass is a convent where good
men live and to these good men the dogs belong.
Their work is to rescue those who lose their way
in the dangerous snow-storms, which are so frequent
on the mountain passes. They know an hour before
it begins that a storm is coming, and they are ready
and eager to start out on their errands of mercy.
One dog has a bottle of medicine attached to his
collar and the other a large, warm cloak tied to
his back. Because of the remarkable sense of smell
that these dogs have, they are able to trace any man
who has lost his way in the storm. After they have
found the lost traveler, and he has helped himself
to the medicine and put on the cloak, the dogs lead
him to the convent, where he is well taken care of
until the storm ceases.

If the poor traveler has become numb with the
cold, or is buried in the snow, they will always find
him and will stay by and bark constantly until they
are heard at the convent. Then the good monks
come out and carry the man to shelter. These dogs
are so powerful that they can soon dig a man out
of the snow even if he is deeply buried in it. For
the wind blows and howls over those high moun-
tain passes so fiercely that any one who falls from
exhaustion is soon covered over with the whirling,
blinding snow.

138 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

There was one celebrated dog of the Great St.
Bernard pass that perished in one of those terrible
storms. His name was Barry, and he wore a medal
upon his collar, stating that he had saved forty lives.
This dog wore no silver collar, as many English
dogs do when they have saved a life, but he must
have been just as proud of the medal, and I am
sure he must have known why he wore it, — the
brave dog!

Dogs are much like us in that they know^ when
they have done well, or when they have done wrong,
and they are as happy to be praised as a child, and
just as ashamed when they are rebuked. Indeed,
a dog is often very miserable when he knows that
he has disobeyed. He will come to you with his
tail down, slinking along in such a way that one
has only to see him to cry out, ''Oh, Peter has done
something wrong, just look at him!"

He tries so hard to tell you that he is sorry and
that he will not do so again. He is in truth a
most disconsolate dog until you have said, ''All
right, Peter, be a good boy," — and then he is
happy.

Isn't it odd, too, that dogs dislike to be laughed
at? They know when they are objects of ridicule,
and they do not like it any more than we do.

A dog responds quickly to the praise of his master
or mistress, and will try very hard to deserve it.
When he knows that he has done well, he walks
along with his head up, his ears up, and his tail up,
and he even lifts his feet up and steps proudly as he
walks. But it is not for himself that he cares. If

THE DOG 139

he could talk he would not say, ''I am glad I did
this;" it would rather be, ''How glad my master
will be."

For the life of a faithful dog is bound up with his
master's. He loves his master with such true devo-
tion that his master's wishes are his first desire.

Would it not be worth while to try to be as faith-
ful a little friend to those you love as the dog is,
and as obedient?

LESSON 17
BEAVERS

MEMORY VERSE

None of us liveth to himself.

Rom. 14:7

The Purpose

In this series of lessons a study of the activities and
intelHgence of the insects and smaller animals has been
followed by a study of the almost-human nature of the
domestic animals. The exceptional intelligence shown
by the beaver, a shy creature of the wilds, living a life
wholly apart from that of man, has been chosen for this
last lesson in Part II. In it the child is taken back to
nature again and shown an animal possessing much of
the intelligence of the trained elephant, yet having had
no association with man.

The child's mind, having been thus opened to the con-
sciousness of the unity of life throughout nature, will be
ready for the history of the world's growth, — the sub-
ject of the last half of the book.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The remarkable intelligence with which the beavers
plan and carry on their work is worthy of a picturesque
and understanding presentation. It would be well for
the teacher to read one or more of the books about
beavers in the list recommended (see p. xxi), in order to

140

BEAVERS 141

have a broader knowledge of the subject than can possi-
bly be given in the lesson story.

Lay special stress upon the fact that in just living his
life and doing his own work the beaver is helping man-
kind, and so teaches us that in this w^orld none lives to
himself alone.

In later lessons the children will learn more about the
importance of the beavers' work in changing the surface
of the earth.

Hand Work

The pupils are to write answers to the questions on
the leaflet.

OPENING TALK

We think the dog is intelligent because he lives with
people. But there is an animal which can think and plan,
and build houses and dams in a very wonderful way, that
has never been taught by man. Do 3^ou know its name?
Have you ever seen its house or dam? Suppose we hear
the story of the beaver.

BEAVERS

You know what it means to be called as ''indus-
trious as an ant" or as ''busy as a bee/' but did you
ever hear any one say this: "Oh, he works as hard
as a beaver!"

Do you know what a beaver does? He is a builder
and a wood chopper! He cuts down trees and uses
them to build his house, also to construct dams
across the rocky streams. Wouldn't you like to
know what the beavers are like, and how they cut
the trees, and how they make their houses and
dams?

First, then, there are always a father and a mother
beaver who leave the old pond and the old home and
start out to build a new home for themselves and
for their little ones. They sometimes travel long
distances before they find a brook flowing through
just such a place as would make them a good home.

You never would think to look at them that these
beavers were so clever. They look like great over-
grown muskrats and, indeed, they are something
like muskrats, only they are much larger and much
more intelligent. They have small heads, and
bright little eyes, and large clumsy bodies covered
with thick fur. Their hind legs are long and strong
and end in webbed feet like those of a duck, for
they are great swimmers; but their front legs are

142

BEAVERS 143

quite short and the hand-hke front paws are used
to grasp and carry things. When they swim they
use their broad, flat tails as rudders; when they fell
a tree they use them as props to support their bodies
during the hard work. But, strangest of all, they
use them to warn the other beavers by slapping
hard upon the water or upon the ground, in case of
danger.

The beavers know that they must have certain
things where they are to build their homes. There
must be water and there must be plenty of trees with
soft, juicy bark, such as aspens, alders and willows,
for that is what they live upon, and of these they
must cut enough to last them over the long winter.
Wood must be used, too, for building the dam and the
house. Then, these trees must grow near the water
so they can be transported easily when cut; for the
beavers can carry a heavy load when swimming in
the water, but on land it would be quite a difficult
task. Besides the kind and number of trees, and
their nearness to water, the water itself must be a
brook flowing through such a place that, when a
dam is built across it, and the water is forced back,
a pond will be formed.

Haven't you ever in your play built a dam of
stones, or sticks and leaves, across some brook, and
seen the small pond that is made by the water which
cannot get over the dam? Did you know that
almost all ponds and lakes are made because some-
thing has stopped the flow of the water of a stream?
The beavers seem to know this, and they build dams
so they can have a pond just where they want it,

144 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

and just as deep as they want it. Are they not
clever Uttle fellows?

Now this father and mother beaver, after they
have selected with great care just the place that will
make them and their children a good home, and
have seen that there are plenty of the juicy-barked
trees near by, set to work to dam the brook, build
their house, and get in the winter's supply of food.

They begin by felling trees. Now a man with a
sharp, steel axe to swing thinks he is working hard
when he cuts down trees, but these beavers do not
seem to get so tired. They work all night just as
hard as they can, felling trees and cutting them up.

What do you suppose they use to cut the trees
down? They use their teeth, their long, sharp front
teeth! They sit down as a dog does, on their hind
legs; they rest against their broad, flat tails, and, put-
ting their forepaws against the tree, begin to gnaw
it down, first turning the head to one side and then
to the other. But instead of gnawing as a mouse
gnaws, or as a horse eats his crib, these beavers
take bites out of the tree with their sharp teeth,
and leave the ground covered with chips, as a man
does when he cuts down a tree with an axe. The
beavers are only as large as a medium-sized dog.
Think of a dog biting down a tree as thick through
as his own body!

Sometimes the father and mother beaver work to-
gether, sitting on opposite sides of the tree, though
more often each works on a different tree. When
any one of the beavers feels that a tree is about to
fall, he gives the ground a hard slap with his tail,

BEAVERS 145

and all the beavers scamper away until the tree has
fallen. Then they come back and begin to cut off
the branches, if there is time before the day breaks,
for it often takes all night to cut down the larger
trees, those a foot in diameter. But whatever they
do not finish before sunrise they are again hard at
work upon by sunset, and all night long they work
just as hard as they did the night before. If the
Uttle beavers are more than a year old they help, too,
but felHng the larger trees and dam-building seems
to be the work of the father and mother beavers.

The branches of the trees they drag down to the
stream. Then, taking the heavy end in their mouths
and thi'owing the branched part over then- shoulders,
they swim to the place where they are to build the
dam. There they place the branches side by side,
and one above another, with the branched ends
pointing down stream, because they know that the
trees will be anchored better that way. Busily they
work, and hard, carrying branches and smaller
pieces of wood. When they have a firm, solidly
built dam, they fill in the spaces with stones and
mud. Down they dive to the bottom of the stream
and up they come with their two hands full of mud,
or with a large stone hugged up under their chins.
The mud and stones they put into the holes, which
they fill up tight.

Does not that seem like men? Even our dogs,
much as they know, would not know enough to put
mud and stones into a hole to keep the water from
flowing through.

Some of the beavers are careful enough before

14G ANIMALS AND INSECTS

they begin to cut a tree to look up and see that the
top is not entangled by other tree-tops, so it will fall
easily when cut. And some of the older beavers are
thoughtful enough to cut a tree so it will fall toward
the water, for by falling in that direction it will make
the distance less over which they must transport the
wood.

You know that oftentimes your mother or father
will say to you, ''Why didn't you stop to think?
You could have done that so much better if you had
thought a moment before you did it."

It seems remarkable that these small animals
apparently stop to think about their work, and to
plan it, as men do. They have not been taught or
trained by men, either, as oiu* dogs and horses and
elephants have been. For the beavers are wild
animals. They have been trained by that ''still
small voice" which we name instinct, and, guided
by that voice, they do what we would think im-
possible for an animal to do if we did not surely
know that this building work was theirs.

After the dam has been made water-tight, the
house must be built that is to be their home for the
long winter. With this work the little beavers
help. Back and forth they swim from the wood
pile on the shore, carrying wood to the spot near the
middle of the pond where they have chosen to build
their house.

While some cut the juiciest trees into lengths one
and a half to two feet long to be used as food for the
winter, others take the longer sticks and poles and
start to build the house. They go to work the way

BEAVERS 147

an Indian starts to make a tepee. The poles are
placed in a circle with their upper ends coming to a
point. Then boughs are interlaced and heavier wood
is put on until the outside of the house is so firmly
built that a man could stand upon it. As soon as
the pond begins to freeze over they plaster all the
house on the outside with mud, which they bring
up from the bottom of the pond in their ''hands," and
hugged against their breasts. When the mud freezes
they have a house so strong that no hungry bear
or wolf or coyote could tear it apart and hurt the
beavers curled up inside.

After the outside has become firm and strong they
gnaw out a large room inside, above the water line.
One half is used for a bedroom and has the floor
higher than the other part, so it will be well drained.
They make their bed by tearing pieces of wood
into thin strips like shavings. The other room,
where Jhey dry their fur and eat their food, has two
holes in the floor which serve as their front and back
doors; for the beavers always enter their houses by
swimming under water and coming up through these
holes in the floor.

The little beavers can help with the winter food
supply while the father and mother build the house.
They swim back and forth with the juicy-barked
pieces of aspen or willow in their mouths, making
long V-shaped ripples in the water behind them. If
there is the slightest noise, down they go ! If father
beaver should slap the water with his tail all the
beavers disappear so quickly and silently that it
seems almost like magic.

148 ANIMALS AND INSECTS

The wood that is to be used as food is stored near
the house under water, so they can get it even when
the thick ice covers the pond and shuts the beaver
family away from the world. With a strong dam
and a strong house and a frozen-over pond they can
spend the winter securely and keep warm and com-
fortable. They deserve a comfortable winter — do
they not? — after the hard work they have done to
make their home secure.

In the spring after the ice has gone they often go
to visit other beaver families in other ponds, but
when July comes they hurry home to make every-
thing strong again for the winter. Each little leak
in the dam is patched and mended, and the house is
newly plastered with mud and more wood is gathered
for the next winter's food.

After some years the pond fills up and the beavers
are obliged to leave that home and make another,
for where the pond was is now a broad, flat meadow.
The beavers have turned a mountain valley into a
fertile field where cattle can graze and where men
can plant grain.

St. Paul says, ''No man liveth to himself." That
means that we cannot do things without other peo-
ple being helped or troubled by them. It is just as
true with the animals. Their work helps more than
just themselves. Our little brother, the beaver, is
not only making a home for himself when he works so
hard and skillfully at his building, he is doing his
part toward perfecting God's plans for the up-
building of the earth's surface.

PART III

The Earth Made Ready
for Man

LESSONS 18-29

Before beginning and without an end,

As space eternal, and as surety sure,

Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,

Only its laws endure.
It maketh and unmaketh, mending all;
What it hath wrought is better than hath been ;
Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans

Its wistful hands between.

Sir Edwin Arnold

LESSON 18
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

MEMORY VERSE

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And
the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep: and the Spii-it of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Gen. 1:1, 2.

The Purpose

The Lessons 18 to 29, inclusive, tell of the forces that
have made our planet the wonderful world we know,
and that are still at work, alike in organic and in inorganic
nature, perfecting what has already been done. The
purpose throughout is to show not only th-at there is
change and growth, but that these are indications of
that great watchful love and care which has so far been
present and is still carrying creation on to even greater
perfection.

The pupils should learn, as these lessons of beginnings
are taught, that the same forces are still at work, that
the Spirit of God still moves upon the waters. Then to
his Bible verse which tells him what happened ''in the
beginning" he will learn to add: ''From everlasting to
everlasting God creates the heavens and the earth."

Suggestions for the Teacher

No attempt has been made in this lesson to account
for the actual beginning of our planet. For our purpose
the story may well begin after its position in the solar
system has been established.

1.51

152 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

This first lesson has been told as simply as possible.
Frequent appeals are made to the children's imagination-
A vivid imagination in the teacher, together with an en-
thusiastic manner, as if telling a fairy tale, will be a
great help. It would be advisable also for the teacher
to have in the class a small globe. If the children can be
helped to form vivid mental pictures of the world, the
fog, the clouds, the rain and the great universal ocean,
these lessons about the beginning should not lack interest
for them.

The teacher should read carefully all the lessons in this
section (18 to 29, inclusive) before trying to teach this one.
If the mind has not grasped the picture of the changing
world as a whole, one cannot so well teach it in part.

For further study the teacher is referred to Brigham's
Text Book of Geology, D. Appleton & Co.

OPENING TALK

We have been studying about that part of our world
which is close to us so that we can see it, — the clouds,
the trees and shrubs, grasses and ferns, seeds and flowers;
then about the animals that live upon the earth with
us. Now we are going to think back, ages and ages, and
try to see our world as it was in the beginning. Our
Bible opens with words written about that beginning by
people who lived very long ago. In its very first words it
tells us such a wonderful truth that we must be sure never
to forget it. I will read it to you, and then you may repeat
it together. (Read and repeat the memory verse impres-
sively and reverently.)

Now we will start with something that you have seen,
something you know about, which will help you under-
stand our world as it was in the beginning.

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

Did you ever watch men at work building a new
house? You remember how the ground about the
house looks while the building is going on. And
after everything is finished and the house is ready
to be lived in, how does the ground look then?

What have the workmen done to make that
ground so even and so smooth where it was so rough
before? Perhaps you may have stood and watched
them when they cut away the rough places and
filled in the hollows.

Did you ever wonder what the place looked like
before your house was built there or before any
of the houses were built that make up the city in
which you live?

Do you suppose there were hills and valleys there,
or was it all flat and even before the streets were
made and the houses built? Was there a great forest
covering the place long, long ago, or was it an open
plain where the wind swept over the grass and the
clouds played at hide and seek with their shadows
through all the long August days?

When a new street is laid out and rows of houses
are built on either s^ide, the land covered by the
street and the houses does not have the same sur-
face that it did before anything was built there. For
the people who do this work try to have everything

153

154 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

as level as possible. So they cut down the rising
ground and fill up the hollow places and then the
houses are built to stand in long even rows.

It is so when people make a city. We know, for
example, something about what Boston looked like
long ago before it became a city. When the Puri-
tans came, there were three high hills so prominent
that the first settlers called the place Tri-mountain,
meaning ''Three Hills."

Where are those three hills now? Two of them
have been cut down so low that you could scarcely
guess that they had ever been there. Beacon Hill,
which is left, is very much lower than it was, and
the Common, which was a valley sloping quickly
down to the water's edge, has been filled in until
the whole slope is very much less steep than it was.
This is what men do to their cities because it is
easier to live and work where the ground is fairly
level.

But how about the world itself? Did you think
that the open country, the fields, the hills and the
brooks, have always looked as they do now? No,
indeed! There was not always a meadow where
the brook now winds its way, nor has the water in
the brook always meandered as it does to-day. The
broad, open fields have not always looked as they
do now, nor has the hillside always been gently
sloping. For nature herself has been doing to the
whole surface of the earth, ever since the world
began, just what men have been trying to do to
those places where they build their cities.

Nature, — that means everything in the world

AS IT WAS IX THE BEGINNING 155

working together according to God's will. Every-
thing working together! \"\Tiat a wonderful story it
makes. Would you like to hear the story? Would
you like to think away back to ''once upon a time"
and learn what the world was like before nature
had made it as we see it to-day?

First, then, try to think how everything looks on
a very foggy day, when the fog is so heavy that the
sun is quite hidden and everything seems enveloped
in a thick cloud.

There was a time, long ages ago, when there was
a blanket of fog and mist surrounding the world, so
thick that the sun was never able to shine through
it. The earth was hot then, — very hot. There was
never any winter, never any frost or snow or wind.
There was no rain even, but just that heavy fog
resting like a thick blanket upon the surface of the
earth.

After a long, long time the world began to get
cooler. Then the fog did not rest quite so closely
or quite so heavily upon it. Once in a while the
faintest glimmer of sunlight made its way through
the mist. But almost always it rained, — a gentle,
soft, oozy rain, as if the fog blanket were a sponge
too full of water. This water fell on the hot earth.

Have you ever seen water fall upon a hot stove?
As soon as the water touched the hot surface it
disappeared so quickly in steam that there was not a
drop of water left. But if the stove had been cold the
water which fell upon it would have remained water,
and perhaps some of it would have run off upon the
floor, leaving the stove wet where it had been.

loG THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

Now the water which escapes so quickly from the
hot stove and disappears in the form of steam is not
lost. It is held invisible in the air if the room is
very warm, but where it touches anything cold it
changes back to drops of water again.

Try, now, to imagine the hot earth, somewhat
the shape of an orange, surrounded by the thick
blanket of steaming fog, from which rain at last
began to fall. The water thus falling would go hiss-
ing back into steam almost before it reached the
earth's surface. Next, think of the earth as coohng
gradually, until the drops of water which fell re-
mained longer and longer upon its surface without
going back into steam, until at last the earth became
so cool that the water that fell upon it became great
ponds and lakes.

How it rained in those days! It rained so hard
and so long that the surface of the earth became all
covered with water. There was one universal
ocean with no land anywhere in sight.

For long, long ages this vast, encircling ocean
covered the earth. Nothing could be seen but water
and clouds and rain. But after those long, long ages
had passed some land began to show above the
water.

All this time there was nothing living upon the
world, for it was not ready to nourish any form of
life. The air then was heavy and thick: no one
could have breathed it. The water was still warm
and so full of mineral matter that we could not have
lived at all if we had been obliged to drink it. The
rocks, too, were strange rocks, with the minerals

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING 157

which composed them arranged in such a way that
they would not have been so useful to us as the
rocks we have now.

But God was getting the world ready for us to
live upon, and the constant rain was helping Him, as
you shall hear in another story.

When the soUd earth began to rise above the sur-
face of the vast, surging ocean it began to look like
a world. The rocks were like some that help to
make our own country. In fact it was our own coun-
try of North America that first showed itself above
the encircling waters.

So the world, our world as we find it now, was be-
ginning to grow, and, although there was nothing
alive anywhere even yet over its whole surface, the
Spirit of God was moving over it. That Spirit was
there then, just as it is here now. In obedience to
His thought and His laws the world changed and
grew until it was ready for life to appear.

Always from the beginning God has been with
this wonderful world of ours. His Spirit it was that
moved over and through and in it. He is with the
world now, He has been with the world since its be-
ginning, and He will be with the world forever.

LESSON 19
THE WORK OF THE RAIN

MEMORY VERSE

Behold, God is great, . . .

For he draweth up the drops of water,

Which distil in rain from the vapor thereof.

Job 36:26, 27 (R. V., Margin.)

The Purpose

This lesson, which carries on the story of the change
and gro^vth of our planet, is intended to show the enor-
mous factor that rain-water has been, and still is, in shap-
ing the surface of the earth.

The lesson to be taught is that great things can be
accomplished by continuous effort made according to
God's law. All these lessons should tend to increase the
child's reverence for the earth on which he dwells and for
its Creator. The memory verse will deepen the religious
impression.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The story of the rain-drops can be made a most in-
teresting one to the children because of the fairy-like
quality that can be given to it.

Vividness in telling of the continuous journey and the
changes in form wnll claim the interest of the children
and give them a mental picture that they will not forget .

A lesson on habit should be drawn from the channels
which the rain-water follows so easily after they are

158

THE WORK OF* THE RAIN 159

once made. A good habit formed is as easy to follow as it
is for the water to follow the channel it has cut. Why not
form good habits, then, instead of bad ones?

Hand Work

The children are to watch for some cutting-work done
by the rain and then write the account of it on the leaflet.

They are to fill the spaces in the sentences at the end
of the blank space.

Assign for home reading the Bible passage about the
weather. Matt. 16: 1-3.

OPENING TALK

Can you shut your eyes and see again the picture of
our world as we tried to see it last Sunday? Tell me what
you can see. Is it like this? At first, the round world,
so covered by a thick blanket of fog that not a single ray
of the sun could ever shine through upon its surface.
Then, a globe covered with one vast surging ocean except
for an island which shows above the water, and, sur-
rounding the globe, thick clouds from which the rain fell
continuously.

Now we want to know what it was that this falling
rain did for our world.

THE WORK OF THE RAIN

Now although the rain as it fell upon the surface
of the cooling world did not turn into steam and rise
again into the enveloping fog, yet the water did not
remain long where it fell. For water is always mov-
ing and always changing because of the forces that
act upon it. That is its law.

Think about the water that you see falling as rain.
Does it remain in one place very long? Down it
comes, away it runs in a hundred little rills to the
brooks; the brooks hurry it off to the river, where it
flows a broad, silent stream to the ocean. Yet even
in the restless ocean it does not remain long, for the
sun coaxes it away.

The sun beams are warm; you know yourself how
warm they are. When they rest upon the water
those drops that are moving to and fro upon the sur-
face of the ocean are taken up into the air that has
been warmed by the sunbeams, and become invisible.

Did you ever watch the sidewalks dry off when
the sun came out bright and hot after a summer
shower? Did you ever wonder where the water went
that dried up so quickly? It was going up unseen
with the sunbeams, just as if it had put on an invisible
cap and slipped away straight up those long, golden
ladders. You and I cannot become invisible, but
drops of water can when the sun touches them with

160

THE WORK OF THE RAIN 161

its long, golden rays. We call those invisible drops
''vapor/' and when water dries away from any sur-
face we say that it ''evaporates."

So the drops on the surfaces of the ocean and the
ponds and rivers evaporate. They change into
vapor and, leaving their companion drops, rise up
into the air. They rise until they reach a place where
they can stay comfortably and where many other
drops in the form of vapor join them. We do not see
them as they ascend, but when they stop and collect
in one mass we can see them.

Who can tell what we call those masses of vapor-
ized water-drops that are floating about in the sky?
You have guessed it. They are clouds.

Did you know that those strange and beautiful
clouds which you have watched and of which you
have learned the names were formed in this way?
Did you think that they were storehouses full of tiny
beads of water which had risen unseen from the sur-
face of the earth and ocean at the bidding of the sun?

Ah! would we not love to see those invisible drops
as they rise from the earth and ocean and make their
way up, up on those long, golden ladders into the
sky? Sometimes when the sun is setting behind dark
clouds we can see the long rays of the sun reaching
down toward the earth. Some people say when they
see this, " Look! the sun is drawing water." But the
sun is always drawing water up into the air. Next
time you see the long rays of the setting sun, think
of the countless number of invisible drops that are
traveling up those golden ladders into the sky.

Think, too, of the journeys those drops of water

1G2 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

take. They are no sooner formed into clouds than
they are driven about through the air by the wind.
In that journey, when they come to a place that is
colder than the air in which they came to rest, it is
as if the clouds were squeezed as you squeeze a wet
sponge in your hand, for the colder air congeals the
beads of vapor into drops of water again, and rain
falls from the clouds. Sometimes it is a soft, gentle
rain that only wets the grass and leaves and flowers.
Sometimes it is a driving rain which comes in such
heavy drops that it races away in streams and brooks.
Sometimes it is snow, and sometimes hail.

What an endless task this seems! Is there any-
thing on earth that could tell us more marvelous
tales of travel and adventure than the drops of rain
water? For water is continually in motion and end-
lessly at work. Water is one of God's most active
helpers. Just picture to yourself its wonderful journey.

Up into the air it goes as vapor, keeping the air
soft and moist all the while. Through the air it
floats as clouds and, while it floats, it curtains off
some of the sun's rays and keeps them from scorching
the earth. To the earth it falls as rain, refreshing the
plants as it falls and nourishing the roots as it sinks
into the ground. To the surface again it comes in
springs of fresh, clear water. And away it flows in
brooks and rivers to join again the vast ocean, only to
begin once more its long, changeful journey. Ever
since the beginning, when the heavy, close-lying fog
was raining itself away, water has been traveling like
this. Only at first there was no land to travel over,
and then for a long, long time there was nothing to

THE WORK OF THE RAIN 163

nourish as it fell, for nothing grew upon that first
rocky surface.

But the thought of God was upon the world, and it
was changing and growing. The peak of land which
had first appeared grew larger and larger. Then
more land arose from the sea, until in time a part of
each of the six great continents that you see pictured
upon the maps and the globe in the schoolroom had
emerged from the ocean. The rocks that make up
that land looked more like our rocks, and they were
getting ready for something to grow upon them.

All this long, long time while the land was slowly
rising from that vast ocean, the rain water was busy
obeying God's law and fulfiUing His purpose. For
the rain worked to change the surface of the earth,
and to make it a better home for the plants, the
animals and the people that God willed should live
upon it. The rain not only blesses the things and the
creatures living upon the earth, but it helps and has
always helped to change the solid ground and make
it fit for them to live upon. Ever since the first crust
of rocky land emerged from the vast, enveloping
ocean even to this time the rain has worked in the
same way.

Can you tell what the rain water does to change
the surface of the earth? Do you remember what the
men did when they laid out the streets and finished
the ground around the houses? They evened the
ground by cutting down the hills or ridges and by
filling up the valleys and hollows.

In the same way the rain water is at work, cutting
down the hills and filling up the valleys. Persistently

1G4 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

and endlessly it cuts down and makes even the sur-
face of the earth.

Have you ever seen, after a hard rain-storm, how
gullies had been worn in the road where the water ran
off into the gutter? Sometimes the gullies are so small
that you have to look closely to see them, but many
of them are so large that they make deep cuts in the
side of the road. Men come and mend the road, but
unless they put a hard surface upon it those gullies will
be made again and again whenever it rains very hard.

Do you know why? It is because the water is trying
to make itself a channel so it can flow away faster to
the deep sea, and although many of the drops sink
into the ground or are taken back into the sky while
on the way, yet most of them get to the ocean at last.

The raindrops seem so impatient to get there that
they wait for nothing. They will hurry along the
surface of the road and run off the side into the gutter.
More drops join and follow the others, for drops of
water like to be together. It is their nature, and they
cannot work well alone. These drops make a con-
tinuous stream, trying to get down from the higher
surface of the road. They push away the sand and
gravel, then the little pebbles that are in their way,
until they have cut a channel through which they
can flow more swiftly and surely to the brooks and
the rivers on lower ground.

If the road is not mended, when the next rain-
storm comes the gully will be worn deeper until the
rain water will have made a permanent channel for
itself, through which in rainy weather it regularly
flows from the surface to the gutter on its way to

THE WORK OF THE RAIN 165

join the brook. The rain wears not only one channel
but several. If the road was never mended it would
not be very long, a few years at most, before the rain
water would have worn off the whole surface of the
street in its hurry to get off to a lower place.

It is true that the rain makes the higher ground
uneven at first; that is its way of working, for it can
only do a Uttle at a time. All that material, too,
which it has worn out of the gullies must be carried
away little by little. Even men cannot level off a
hill all at once. They cut into the side, leaving a very
jagged-looking place while they cart away the loose
material, and that always takes time. Even wdth a
steam shovel working all day with trains of cars to
take away the gravel it takes a long time to cut down
a hill. Think of the time, then, that it must take the
rain water which can only work when it rains. For
besides cutting down the raised surface it must take
away the sand and pebbles that it loosens.

Is it any wonder, then, that it makes the higher
ground more uneven in its first attempt to level it?
In time, if no man interferes, the rain water will carry
away the soil and pebbles from the higher places to
the lower and leave the whole surface more even.

That is what it is doing to-day. That is what it has
done for ages. That is what it commenced to do to
the peaks of land as soon as they emerged from the
vast, enveloping ocean.

Over and over again these raindrops do their work,
as they have always done it. And all the while, as they
have been fulfilling God's law for themselves, they
have helped to make our great world more fit for life.

LESSON 20

THE WORK OF THE RAIN: BROOKS AND
RIVERS

MEMORY VERSE

Thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to
walk in his ways, and to fear him. For the Lord thy God bringeth
thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and
springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills.

Deut. 8: 6, 7.

The Purpose

This lesson deals with the tearing-down and building-up
force of rain water as it flows off the earth in brooks and
rivers. The general action is the same as that described
in the previous lesson, except that in this case it is the
larger forces in the brooks and rivers that are at work.

The commandments of the Lord for our lives are as
definite and sure as those which direct the forces of the
rain. Our task is to find out the law of God as it relates
to our owm lives, that we may do it.

Suggestions for the Teacher

A map of a water system like that of the Mississippi
or the St. Lawrence will help the pupils to understand
the way brooks and small streams join to make a great
river. It should be used after, not before, the illustra-
tion of the fingers and the arm.

The teacher should have as specimens to show to the
children an angular fragment of rock and a waterworn

1603

BROOKS AND RIVERS 167

pebble, and should make a special lesson from them as to
the way nature rounds off sharp corners. Anything in
us that hurts those about us is an angular corner which
life seeks to wear down and make smooth. What is not
corrected when we are young the world will correct in us
later, and that causes us more pain.

The question given in the opening talk should be used
in this form only if there has been opportunity for such
observation during the week.

Hand Work

The children should be asked to draw a river system
upon the last page of the leaflet.

OPENING TALK

Have you ever noticed the little gullies cut in the road
by the rain water? Can you think what would happen
if these kept getting larger and deeper as more water
ran through them? That does happen in many parts of
our earth, and you shall hear to-day more of the story of
what the rain has done to our world.

THE WORK OF THE RAIN : BROOKS AND RIVERS

Just as you see the rain water at work now upon
the side of a road or on a gravel walk or any other
surface that is not protected, so it began those long,
long ages ago to work upon the crests of those rocky
islands that have become the six great continents
upon which people live.

Slowly at first it did this, very, very slowly, be-
cause there w^as nothing to work upon but rock.
No gullies can be made in a single rain-storm on a
surface of solid rock. How many, many years the
rain must have fallen upon that rocky surface before
it was able to wear the smallest depression in it!
But in time even rock gives way to water, and
finally those patient raindrops had their reward.
The smallest depressions appeared. These became
grooves, then were worn into channels. Thus, after
years and years there were brooks flowdng to the
ocean in deep beds that they had hollowed out for
themselves from the solid rock.

It seems almost impossible, does it not? But
since God gave the rain water its work to do and its
law to follow, would He not always give it power to
do that work? Yet it seems as if nothing in all the
world had a harder task than the rain water, for the
wearing away of the hard rocks was not all it had
to do. The raindrops must carry along with them

168

BROOKS AND RIVERS 169

in their journey to the sea the small particles, the
pebbles and the larger rocks that they had worn
away or broken off.

It was not far to the sea at first, and the rain
water ran merrily off the shoulders of the rocks into
the surrounding ocean much the way water rolls
off your umbrella. It was working hard, however,
to take some little particles of rock with it, and
these, washed about by the flowing water, helped
it very much in wearing its channel.

As the land rose, and there was more surface
for the rain to fall upon, the water gathered into
these partly worn channels, making them deeper and
deeper. Into them it would wash all the particles
of rock which had been worn away or broken off,
while along the bed of the channel it would push
these rocks as it hurried on its way to the sea. All
along the way the bits of rock would jostle and
bump against each other, wearing down the bed of
the brook and wearing off their own sharp corners.
When they reached the sea they were no longer
sharp and angular bits of rock, but smoothly rounded
pebbles like those you find on the beaches to-day.

When you have played with those smooth, round
pebbles on the seashore, did you ever think where
they came from, and what made them so smooth and
round? Did you suppose that they were always so?
Oh, no. Once those pebbles were part of a great,
solid rock. Perhaps some of them belonged to the
cliffs farther off along the shore where the watei-
pounds and foams all day and all night. Perhaps
some of them came a long distance, brought by a

170 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

river many years ago from the place where the rushing
mountain brook tore them away from their parent
ledge.

In that long-ago time, just as now, not all of the
pebbles in the rushing brooks reached the sea.
Some were worn down almost to powder, like the
sand and clay you play with on the beach or wade
into at low tide. Some were left all along the way
wherever the brooks or rivers flowed through a place
low enough to be flooded over when the water was
high; for after a hard rain the brooks did then ex-
actly as they do now. They overflowed on the lower
parts of their course and spread out in broad sheets
of water where no water had been before. Then
presently, when the rain was over, the waters sub-
sided and flowed away in the regular brook channel.
But although the water flowed away it did not leave
the low land just as it was before, for there remained
on its surface some of the gravel and sand that the
stream was trying to carry away with it. This
helped to fill up the valley. After years and years
of being flooded the valley would be changed from
a deep hollow into a more even plain.

The hollows were filled with the finely worn
pieces of rock where roots could feel their way and
plants could grow when the time was right. That is
the way many of our meadows came to be as they
are.

Now all along throughout the ages the streams
have worked in the same way. If you could watch
a rushing mountain brook you would see it doing
the same thing now. Rapidh^ it pushes along the bits

BROOKS AND RIVERS 171

of rock that are washed into it, wearing the rocks
smaller while it wears its own bed deeper and deeper.

Sometimes when there is a very hard storm and
the brooks and streams are full of rushing water,
large rocks will be carried along for a great distance,
and when the force of the water has lessened, the
rocks will be left in the strangest places. We call it
a flood when the water of a stream escapes from its
banks and flows over the countr}^, taking with it
whatever lies in its path. You could hardly believe
water could be so fierce and strong as it is when in
flood.

It is not usually so strong as that, but in the moun-
tain brooks, where the water runs very swiftly, it is
always strong. If it were not so it would never be
able to carry the rocks and pebbles down into the
valley and to the river.

It takes many brooks to make a river. From the
higher land and from the mountains the brooks
come rushing and tumbling down into the valleys,
then out of the valleys flow the rivers. All alon^ on
their way to the sea the rivers are joined by brooks
and streams and by other rivers. That is why the
river grows larger and deeper as it flows ever on-
ward to its home in the ocean.

Suppose you hold up your hand with the fingers
outspread, and make believe that each one of your
fingers and your thumb is a brook flowing down
off the mountain into a broad valley. That valley
you can imagine the palm of your hand to be. Then
out of the valley would flow a river which would
grow larger and broader as it went to join the sea,

172 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

as your arm grows larger where it meets your body
at the shoulder.

Now suppose you shut your eyes and try to see,
not your hand and arm, but a long river flowing to
the sea, ever growing l^roader and deepei* as it flows
along while it is fed continually by those swift
mountain brooks.

Long, long ago, when the dry land was slowly
emerging from the ocean, the streams went rushing
to the sea almost as swiftly as the brooks rush off
the mountains now, and the fragments which they
were carrying along with them cut like a saw, deep
into the hard rock of their beds. Just as jewelers
cut and polish diamonds with diamond chips and
diamond dust, the brooks and young rivers use the
fragments they take away from the rocks to cut
into and wear away the rock over which they
flow.

It takes a long, long time. So many, many years
of rain; so many, many years of water flowing off
into* brooks and then into rivers; so many, many
years of the grinding and wearing of fragments!
But those brooks and rivers have made over the
surface of the earth. Things could grow upon it
then; just the tiniest bits of lichen at first clinging to
the rocks, then mosses and ferns, then trees, and at
last animals, as you shall hear later.

During all this time the land was rising from the
sea. How it did this is God's own secret. The
rain water with the brooks and rivers helped to make
more land, too, by depositing at the shore and in the
ocean the great amount of sand and clay they car-

BROOKS AND RIVERS 173

ried down from the heights. It all made great
shelving beaches then, just as it does now.

Think of the patient working of these brooks and
rivers. Think of the ages and ages that they have
worked to make the world ready for life.

Even now they are still busy cutting down our
mountains and filling up our valleys, although to
us the world seems quite finished. They are God's
helpers, as are we. Unless the raindrops and the
brooks and the rivers had done God's work in those
long-ago days, the earth would not have been made
ready for us to live upon; and the work they do now
keeps it fit for life.

LESSON 21
SNOW, ICE AND FROST

MEMORY VERSE

He giveth snow like wool;

He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes.

Ps. 147: 16.

The Purpose

The different forms under which rain water works and
the beauty of those forms is the subject of this lesson.
The purpose is to teach the child to view the w^orld with
reverence. The beauty of the tiny snowflake, whenever
seen, and the wonder it arouses, should bring God very
near to the heart of the child.

Suggestions for the Teacher

This lesson gives the teacher an opportunity to call
attention to the beauty and perfection in form of many
of God's creations which are often umioticed. The sub-
ject of the snowflakes ma}^ impress many lessons besides
reverence, among them the obvious one of the results
accomplished by the combined strength of seemingly
weak things.

Hand Work

Ask to see the work on the last leaflet which was as-
signed as home work.

The passage on the last page of the leaflet is to be

174

SNOW, ICE AND FROST 175

completed by filling the blank spaces with the right
words. This work makes an excellent test of the pupil's
grasp of the lesson story.

OPENING TALK

Question the pupils as to what happens to the rain in
winter. Will they mention all the forms named in the
title of this lesson?

Review^ rapidly the work of the rain as given in the
last two lessons, in preparation for this story of its work
in the form of snow, ice and frost.

SNOW, ICE AND FROST

There are others of God's helpers that work with
the rain-water in changing over the earth's surface.
The wind helps. It drives the rain against the rocks
and upon the ground, so that it strikes very much
harder than it could by itself.

Did you ever come home from school when the
wind drove the rain against you so hard that it went
through your coat, and even spattered through yoiu*
umbrella? Nothing can seem to keep dry in a driving
rain. It gets under the shingles on our roofs, it works
under the window sills, and it turns over and soaks
the under side of the leaves, those poor leaves that
cannot breathe if the little pores upon the under side
are full of water. So when the wind dashes the rain
against the side of a cliff it can wear away that cliff
much faster than if it fell gently upon it.

The wind not only drives the rain, but it drives
sand also. In the great Desert of Sahara and the
Arabian desert the wind wears rocks away very fast
by blowing sand against them. At the seashore in
a terrible storm the wind blows the sand so hard
against a rock or cliff that it cuts away the surface
and polishes it smooth.

If you should ever go to Provincetown and High-
land Light on Cape Cod, you should look carefully
at the great cliffs under the lighthouse, and see how

176

SNOW, ICE AND FROST 177

the wind has cut and poUshed the hard pebbles held
fast in the clay of which the cliff is made. Then you
will know how terrible the force of the wind-driven
sand must have been.

Many things we learn to do in a better way by
watching nature and seeing how she works. A man
once noticed the force with which the wind drove
sand against a cliff, and he thought about it so much
that he invented a new way to decorate glass. It is
called engraving glass with a sand-blast. There is a
pattern cut as you cut your pattern for stencil-work.
Then the glass, excepting where the pattern is to
be, is covered with wax, and a blast of air full of fine
sand is blown against it. Wherever the sand touches
the glass the surface is made rough and white, not
transparent as it was before.

The wind helps, also, in blowing about the finer
particles of sand and dust which have been worn
from the rocks. You have already learned how it
piles up heaps of sand along the shore and moves
them almost as if they were marching. It does the
same thing in the desert.

The rain has another helper in the cracks or fissures
in the rocks themselves. For the rain is caught and
held in these cracks ; then comes the frost and freezes
the water. You know that water frozen into ice takes
up more room than it does as water. That is why
tumblers are broken when water freezes solid in them.
Ice breaks rock m the same way, making the fissure
wider and deeper and splitting off many pieces from
its sides. At the end of the winter you will often find
these fragments of rock lying in a heap at the base
of a ledge.

178 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

After a time soil collects in these fissures, some of
it being blown in by the wind. This makes a home
for the seeds and spores, which grow into graceful
rock-ferns and beautiful nodding columbines. Many
times trees start to grow in these fissures, and their
roots grow and spread until they spht the rocks apart.
In time one part of the rock may even break entirely
away from the other. It takes a long, long time for
this to happen, for the growing roots work very slowly.

Frost, besides splitting rocks, does other work
which the boys and the squirrels appreciate. It
ripens the nuts and splits open their outer shells.
You would have a sorry time getting chestnuts if you
had to crack open aU the burrs yourselves. And how
would the poor squirrels fare, do you suppose? Now,
in the same way the frost opens up the earth and
loosens it.

Have you ever seen on cold mornings in the early
spring long crystals of ice which extend down into
the ground? You break them under your feet as
you walk along. These long hard crystals are like
little plows, loosening and turning over the closely
packed soil at the surface of the earth. They do in
the cold weather a little of the same work on the soil
that the earthworms do in summer. One often sees
these crystals of ice in a woodland path, where they
make little caves just under the surface of the earth.
They look Hke pillars in a fairy temple. When you
see them you will step aside so as not to crush such
beautiful frost-work.

On a bright summer morning you may see the grass
and bushes sparkling with dew. But in the cold

SNOW, ICE AND FROST 179

weather, when the frost is at work, this sparkhng
dew is changed to gUstening frost crystals, every
blade of grass being edged with them, — crystals so
delicate and so exquisite that your heart is filled with
wonder at the sight of them.

When it is very cold the frost makes beautiful
pictures upon the windows. It freezes the vapor
that was hiding in your breath and in the air of the
room wherever it touches the window-pane. You
would never think, would you, that the frost had
such power? Why, there is nothing more wonder-
ful in a fairy story than this! In the make-believe
story a fairy's wand turned a pumpkin into a chariot;
but upon the window-pane the frost really does turn the
tiny beads of moisture that are hidden in the air into
the most beautiful pictures and enchanting forms.

Did you ever examine carefully the frost-work on
the window-pane? Perhaps you saw there pictures
of castles with trees and mountains, or pictures of
open fields with fences and woods on either side,
where birds seem to be flying across the open space.
And did you ever notice the long plumes and the
feathery ferns?

When the cold freezes the vapor which collects
upon the window-pane, or the dew upon the grass,
we call it frost, but wheil it freezes the vapor which
has risen into the sky we call it snow. Hail is frozen
rain-drops, but snow is frozen vapor. Those invisible
drops are changed by the cold into the softest, whit-
est, daintiest flakes of snow.

What a delightful thing it is to watch the white,
starry flakes coming softly down to cover the earth.

180 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

They make no noise, as does the rain with its pitter-
patter. But sometimes, if there are leaves near by,
you will hear the least, little dry rustle among the
leaves when the snowflakes touch them. Then,
even if it is too dark to see, your quick ears tell you
that it is snowing.

The snow, instead of running off as rain does,
collects where it falls until the ground is all white.
It may become so deep that it is hard for us to walk.
Paths and sidewalks are covered up, even the roads
are hard to follow. Sometimes the snow is so deep
that nothing, not even a train of cars, can make its
way through it. Just think of so much snow collect-
ing in a few hours as to be able to stop a powerful
engine! The snowflakes, then, are just as strong as
the many drops of water in the brook, only instead
of moving stationary things away they make moving
things come to a standstill. And yet one snowflake
is so small and so fragile that if you breathe upon it
as it rests a second on your coat sleeve, it is gone!
Only the tiniest bead of moisture is left where that
one snowflake was.

Did you ever catch the snowflakes on your sleeve
and look carefully at them? Sometimes they are
soft and thick like downy feathers. Sometimes they
are clear and hard like tmy pellets of ice. Some-
times they are flat and very thin and of such won-
drous shapes that they fill you with amazement.
Each one is a six-sided crystal, but in what an in-
conceivable number of patterns! Small as they are,
no two of them are alike. How can this be possible?

Do you remember the leaves you examined last

SNOW, ICE AND FROST 181

autumn to see if you could find two exactly alike?
Did you find them? No, you could not. Is it, then,
any more marvelous to you that the tiny snowflakes
are all different from each other?

When you look at those exquisite crystals of the
snow, and see the beauty and the variety of the six-
sided stars, you know that no power but God's could
have formed their wonderful shapes, and that no law
but God's could have given those fragile stars the
power that they possess when many of them work
together. i

When the snow lies thick and soft over the ground
it is indeed like wool, for it keeps the earth sheltered
and warm underneath. Where the snow has lain all
winter the grass is much greener than it is where it
has been exposed to the bitter winds. The new grass
and the plants have a better chance to grow because
the weight of the snow has crushed the dead grass
and fallen leaves down into the soil about the roots.
The earth is more fertile then for having been
wrapped in the soft blanket of snow all winter.

Had you known before that the rain water blesses
the earth in so many ways, and is so useful, and that
it changes into so many different forms? There are
the clouds, the rain, the brooks, the rivers, the
ocean, the bubbling springs, the lakes, and then the
ice, the frost, the snow and the hail. We may well
find joy in all these and not discontent. When the
rain or snow hinders our own plans, we should re-
member that it brings God's blessing to the earth, to
the plants, to the animals and to the people who live
upon it.

LESSON 22
MINERALS AND CRYSTALS

MEMORY VERSE

As for the earth,

The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, .

And it hath dust of gold.

Job 28 : 5, 6.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.

Cowper.

The Purpose

This lesson upon crystals and the one following lipon
metals deal with subjects as wonderful as any in God's
creation, if, indeed, any one phase of that creation is any
more marvelous than any other. The wonder of crystal-
lization is a lesson in itself to any one, young or old.

The special lesson which is to be drawn from it is
found in the way the crystals fit together and fill the
space in which they are formed. For crystals, more than
anything else in the inanimate world, exhibit a truly re-
markable tendency to give each other a fair share of the
space they occupy.

Suggestions for the Teacher

For this lesson the teacher should have specimens of
iron pyrites in slate, of granite, and of a well-shaped quartz
crystal. If possible, have other crystals so the children
may see the different forms. Some crystals, such as rock

182

MINERALS AND CRYSTALS 183

candy (crystals of sugar) and alum, can be bought at
the chemists, if it is not possible to procure minerals.

A striking example of crystals sharing space can be
obtained by dissolving together in a glass of hot water
one ounce of potassium bichlorate and one ounce of copper
sulphate. If a straw or a string is put in the glass the
different crystals will form upon it and show quite plainly.

As these chemicals are poisonous it is not advisable
for the children to handle them, but they should see the
teacher's results. They could dissolve alum in hot water
and watch the crystals form as it cools about a straw or
small stick resting in the glass. Always make a saturated
solution, that is, make the Water dissolve as much alum
as it will hold, when crystals are desired.

Where possible, the children should be taken to a
museum by their teacher or parents. They will never
forget the surprising shapes or the superb colors of the
crystals which they will see there, especially when the
visit is made in connection with this lesson.

Hand Work.

A list of minerals and crystals each pupil knows is to
be entered in the space left for the purpose.

Use the blank page on the leaflet for some original
work. The children may, for example, draw the forms of
different crystals they have seen, or insert pictures of
them, or write an account of their experiment with alum.

OPENING TALK

The object lesson which the specimens of crystals will
furnish is the best introduction to the story, for when
they see crystals the children will be anxious to learn
how they are formed.

MINERALS AND CRYSTALS

The rain water about which we have just been
speaking does its work upon the surface of the earth.
Almost all of it, from time to time, is drawn up by
the sun to make the clouds, and comes back once
more as rain to continue in its work of carving out
and smoothing over the earth's surface.

But some of the drops of rain never see the sun
again. They go down so deep that they do not
come back even in springs. They are not lost,
though, for all their wandering about deep, deep
under ground. Surely the Spirit of God is in the
earth, however far down the drops may go, and He
has given to these drops a work to do as well as to
those which fall upon the earth and flow off into
the brooks and rivers and oceans, and finally make
their way back to the sky. Would you like to know
what these tiny drops do which sink one by one so
deep down into the earth?

The brooks, we know, need to have many, many
drops to make them able to pick up and carry away
pebbles and rocks, or even sand. A^Tiat can these
others accomplish so far underground where the
rocks are almost solidly packed together? Few as
they are, they carry away with them parts of the
rocks they travel through, only, instead of break-
ing off what they carry away, these drops dissolve

184

MINERALS AND CRYSTALS 185

part of the very rock itself, yet a part that we can-
not see. Salt is a part of a loaf of bread which we
cannot see or take away when once it has mixed
into the bread dough. But if that loaf of bread
were turned into a rock, water could go through it
and take out the salt.

If you put a pebble into a glass of water it would
still be a pebble. But if you should put a lump of
salt into the glass of water, would it still stay there
and be a lump of salt? Of course it would not.
We all know that salt dissolves in water. It is there
just the same, for the water tastes salt, but we can-
not see it at all, or feel it. The water holds it in
solution, we say, and it will hold it just as long as
there is water enough to do it. When the water
evaporates it leaves the salt behind and we have
our lump of salt again, only changed into small
grains like sand.

Now this is the difference between the work done
by the water which flows off the surface of the earth
and that which sinks so gradually in toward the
center. The noisy, laughing little brook takes up
rocks and pebbles and carries them along with it,
but the quiet little underground drops, all nice and
warm from their journey into the deep recesses of
the earth, gently coax away the minerals which are
in the very heart of the rocks. Very softly and gently
they sink through the rocks, and when they get to a
crack in the rock or a small hole hke an empty bubble,
they deposit, or drop, the atoms they have been
carrying. Only, instead of dropping them any-
where and hurrying on, as does the water in the

186 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

brook, they often give up a part of themselves and are
drops of water no longer. They unite with the atoms
they are laying down and form some of the most
beautiful and wonderful things in God's universe.

Can you guess what these wonderful things are
that the underground water makes in the cracks
and holes of the rocks? Yes, they are crystals.
Crystals of quartz, of emerald, of amethyst, of
diamonds, of garnets, of topazes, of copper and
even of salt. Some are clear and transparent like
the quartz and sapphires, some are red, some blue,
some green and pink and yellow and purple and
black. The different colors are quite as beautiful
as those of flowers, and yet they are made so far
below the ground that no light can reach them.
You shall learn later how they came afterward to
be so near the surface that we can find and see
them.

It takes a long time for the drops of rain water to
dissolve the atoms in the heart of the rocks as they
sink deeper and deeper, but warm raindrops can
seem to take almost any mineral away from those
deep down rocks because they are under pressure.
The brook can take a rock or bowlder and quickly
roll it along because it is strong from the combined
force of many drops working together.

But the underground drops have to work very
slowly and patiently. One sinks dgwn and takes a
few atoms, then others follow, all going the same
way and all taking away with them in solution, like
the salt in the glass of water, some of those tiny
particles. And then instead of ever reaching the

MINERALS AND CRYSTALS 187

large river and ocean, these drops come to a crack
or a little empty hole, and each drop lays down not
only its load of atoms but itself too, and together
they grow into these beautiful crystals. The first
few drops will grow into a tiny crystal hardly the
size of a needle point; but as more drops come the
crystals grow larger and larger, — some crystals,
like beryl, becoming very large, as much as three
feet in diameter. However small they are when we
find them, or however large they become if they are
left to grow by themselves, they always have their
own shape. A crystal of quartz would never take
the form of a crystal of garnet, nor would a crystal
of sulphur ever become like a crystal of topaz.
Isn't it wonderful that each crystal seems to know
just what form to take?

Every mineral has a law which God has given to
it, and when it has an opportunity to crystallize, it
always forms with just as many faces (as we call its
sides) as had been given to it by that law. Does it
seem strange to you to think of the crystals as doing
anything? Rocks have always seemed just cold,
dead rocks to you, have they not? Did you think
that there was any part of the rock that could change
and grow?

Yet change and growth is everywhere in God's
universe, and God means that the rocks shall change
and grow, as trees and plants and we ourselves do,
only much more slowly. Does He not change the
surface of the earth that we can see? Then why not
the deep places which we cannot see?

Look at the cube of iron pyrites in the slate. Who

188 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

could guess that the plain gray slate had the glit-
tering particles in it that have been made into such
pretty Uttle golden cubes. And how could the
raindrops have helped to make the iron and the
sulphur, which they found in the slate and dis-
solved out of it, into such perfect cubes? It is very
wonderful, is it not?

Or take a piece of granite. In this piece you have
quartz, the transparent particles; feldspar, the
white, pink or red ; and mica, the flat scales ; or horn-
blende, the black (sometimes you find tourmaline
there instead of hornblende). These are all mixed
up together. Although you can see them quite
readily there in the granite, they do not have here
their own particular shape. They have not had
room to grow into separate crystals as the single
crystals of quartz did. Each one of these minerals
has a shape all its own, but when they are all mixed
together in a mass of molten rock and the rock cools
deep underground they have no room to form into
their own separate shapes. They are crowded to-
gether and must do the best they can.

So all together they make the crystalline rock of
granite, just as the starry snowflakes join together
to make the snowbank. The minerals as we see
them in the granite are not so beautiful as the sepa-
rate crystals of quartz, feldspar, hornblende, mica
or tourmaline would be; but granite is a very use-
ful rock. It is as useful as crystals are beautiful.
If every time these minerals came together they
had all gone about making crystals of themselves
without regard to each other, we could have had

MINERALS AND CRYSTALS 189

no granite, and granite is very precious to man as a
building stone. Of it we build walls, bridges,
churches and great public buildings.

It is not only when they cool in a massive rock
like granite that the different minerals give place
to each other. When the rain-drops force their
way through the rocks, they take up more than one
kind of mineral atoms. Now when they come to
the open space, it often happens that each kind of
mineral wants to crystallize and each must grow
into a crystal of its own shape. So they have to
divide up the room. It seems strange, does it not,
to think of crystals dividing fairly the space they
are to live and grow in, just as children divide up
their play room among themselves so each may have
a corner to himself.

How do the crystals know about the room each
shall need, and how they will best fit in together?
Ah, that is one of God's beautiful and wonderful
mysteries. He has given to the rocks and the
different minerals in the rocks certain laws. These
laws the rock which you look upon as dead, obeys.
Whenever there is a chance to crystallize, the
minerals will do so, and under whatever conditions
they find themselves they do the best they can.
When there is room for each to grow by itself,
these minerals make of themselves such beautiful
crystals of such wonderful shapes that when they
are found they are treasured as gems, and people go
a great distance to visit the museums where they
are kept. But when they are crowded God's laws
are still obeyed, whether different crystals form to-

190 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

gether, or whether there is only room for them to
form into a mass of crystaUine rock Uke granite.

Crystals are not the only things in God's world
that are obliged to give place to each other. Noth-
ing can always Uve just for itself. But how many
of these things give place to each other as beauti-
fully as do the crystals? Do we who are taught God's
law and have the will to do it, perform it as well as
these minerals ,do?

This giving place to each other is a beautiful thing.
Every unselfish act is beautiful, whether it is in a
group of crystals that can delight the eye or among
a group of children whose generosity and kindness
to each other delight the soul.

LESSON 23
EARTH'S UNDERGROUND STOREHOUSE

MEMORY VERSE

Surely there is a mine for silver,

And a place for gold which they refine.

Iron is taken out of the earth,

And copper is molten out of the stone.

Job 28 : 1, 2

The Purpose

The intention of this lesson is to show not only the
beneficence of God in storing the underground world
with treasures as beautiful as they are useful, but also
the marvelous working of that law by which the world is
ever changing and always for the better.

This idea will be repeated in many of the succeeding
lessons.

Suggestions for the Teacher

If a visit to the museum could be made between the
lesson on crystals and this one on metals, the children
would have a much clearer idea of the way the metals
are deposited in the veins of the rocks.

Use familiar objects to make the point of contact for
the pupils. What metals do they see about them, in their
homes, in the town? Which is most useful? which most
beautiful? The course by this time should have helped
the pupils to want to know where these common objects
were formed ''in the beginning."

191

192 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

Hand Work

The directions on the leaflet call for a list of metals,
answers to questions, and memorizing of the Bible verse.

OPENING TALK

Where is the great storehouse for our food? Besides
this, there are all the other substances we use from the
earth. Can you tell me w^hat some of them are? (Be
sure that granite, from the last lesson, is mentioned.)
All these we have named came from storehouses under-
ground. How those storehouses are filled is what we are
to hear to-day.

EARTH'S UNDERGROUND STOREHOUSE

Those little yellow cubes of iron and sulphur that
you saw in the specimen of slate look so much like
gold that they have deceived many people. The
Spaniards who came to America with Columbus,
seeking for gold, took shiploads of this yellow sub-
stance back to Spain, only to find that it was not gold
at all. Ever since that time people have called it
^^ Fool's Gold."

There are large deposits of genuine gold hidden
away in the rocks of North and South America, but
it does not look like these crystals of iron pyrites
(py-ri'-tes) . ^Vhen gold crystallizes it has its own
law to follow, and that law does not give to it the
shape of a cube. But the Spaniards did not know
this. They thought the little crystals were gold be-
cause they were yellow and looked like gold, and
they never guessed that it was iron and sulphur
that they were taking back to Spain, instead of the
gold they desired.

Men know better than that in these days. They
know that the color alone does not identify a mineral ;
they know that the shape and hardness of its crystal
tell even more about it than does its color. These
laws for the forms of mineral crystals have always
been the same, but men have not always known about
them. Little by httle we are learning God's laws.

193

194 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

We are learning also how to find and how to use the
gifts which God has stored on the earth, under the
earth and in the au\

You have learned what a great storehouse there
is upon the earth, in the growing things that supply
us with food and clothing. The underground world
is just as truly a storehouse, with everything in it
packed away so methodically that it makes you
think of a real storeroom. It is almost as if that
rain water had fingers, and went under the earth's
surface hke a '^good and faithful servant," picking up
and sorting out the different minerals and putting
them, all labeled 'nicely, in their proper place upon
the shelves. For the minerals do have their proper
places in the storehouse within the earth, and it is
the percolating rain water that has carefully put
them there. The rain water follows God's law, and
it does not make a mistake.

There are certain minerals that are usually found
together. It is as if some minerals make friends with
others and like to go where they go. Children and
grow^n people have special friends and live in groups
and families. Dogs and birds are friendly with cer-
tain others of their kind, and especially so with
human beings. And do you remember about the
plant societies, how certain plants seem to be happier
gro^dng together, and how some cannot seem to grow
■comfortably with certain others? So even the rocks
and minerals are grouped in societies.

Iron and sulphur are two of the minerals which
often get together. When the underground rain
water goes through the slate, it picks out the invisible

EARTH'S UNDERGROUND STOREHOUSE 195

atoms, aiid they associate together to make those
pretty Uttle yellow cubes of '' Fool's Gold." Iron is
not found with sulphur only. It makes friends also
with other minerals, and then it takes a different
shape and color. When it combines with oxygen it
is black, as one would expect iron to be, and often
rainbow colors glow upon the shining surface of the
black crystals.

No one has ever yet found iron all alone. We
know that it is in the rocks, but it is so mixed with
their substance that we can never find it. But the
rain water can and does find it. The water coaxes
the iron out and carries it away, leaving it in some
convenient place. Now as iron does not like to be
alone, it makes friends with other minerals before it
will stay comfortably and accumulate in the cracks
and openings that are like little shelves in a store-
room.

Gold is stored away in many a crack and crevice.
It seems to' take quartz as one of its friends, for these
two minerals are often found together. Only, in-
stead of combining with the quartz as iron does with
sulphur or with oxygen, the gold nestles down quite
comfortably beside the quartz when the under-
ground water leaves them both in a crevice.

Often those cracks are large, but the under-
ground water works away until in time the fissure is
all filled with quartz in which tiny flecks or small
lumps of gold are nestling quite cosily.

Perhaps this gold remains hidden in the ground for
a long, long time. But nothing in this world remains
always the same. God's law is the law of change

196 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

and growth. Even while the vein of quartz was
gradually filling up the fissure, the fissure itself was
changing. It was probably becoming wider and
deeper, by the action of great forces underground.
For there is a great force at work in those under-
ground rocks which cracks and crumples them. It
pushes upon them so they are forced up in many
places, and the rocks that were hidden deep under-
ground are brought to light.

Just as the seed that, hidden in the ground away
from the light and air, comes up when the sun calls
it, so the gold, the bright, yellow gold that looks so
like the sun's rays, at last comes to the surface. But
it was not the sunbeam that called the gol^. It was
pushed up by a force that comes from God, a strange
force, — lifted from its dark underground home where
no sunbeam could ever have found it, or seen its
golden glow.

Then what do you suppose happened to those
flecks of gold? Why, the rain water went to work
again upon that vein of quartz and gold! Only this
time it was the rain water that fell upon the earth
and flowed away in brooks and rivers, and not the
underground water, that collected the gold and the
quartz so long ago and deposited them in the fissures.

Would the rain water, then, flowing in brooks and
streams, spoil what the underground water had done?
Oh, no! not spoil it, only make it better!

This time the rain water goes to work to wear
away the quartz, setting free the gold, so that now
bits of gold, from tiny flecks to large grains and
nuggets, are lying loose in the midst of quartz sand.

EARTH'S UNDERGROUND STOREHOUSE 197

Then the waters of the brooks carry the gold and
the bits of quartz sand as far as they can, and drop
them, nicely sorted in layers according to their
weight.

Do you remember that the brooks dropped their
heaviest burdens in their own channels, and carried
the lighter particles along, spreading some of them
out in the low place, taking others on to the ocean?
Where, then, should you think that the brooks would
drop the gold? The pieces of gold were smaller than
much of the sand and gravel, but were they heavier
or lighter?

Gold is hesivy. It is one of the heaviest of metals
— even heavier than lead or iron — heavier, too,
than the grains of quartz sand or the pebbles in the
gravel. So it would be dropped in the bed of the
stream with the heavier pieces of quartz and rock,
while the sand was carried along toward the sea.
There the gold would lie, not packed close and snug
in a soHd mass as it was for so long in the fissure of
the rock, but lying loose in tiny flakes or larger grains
and nuggets. It had become a free thing. Each par-
ticle, large or small, was an individual, and could
move when the water rolled it along or when the
pebbles and sand pushed against it.

The gold was ready now for men to use, but for a
long, long time they did not find it. Finally some one
who had sharper eyes than the rest noticed the pretty
golden specks in the bed of a stream, just as some one
saw the blackberry bush, and knew that the berries
were better because the bush grew in better soil.
When the gold had been discovered, men learned

198 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

how to get it out of the bed of the stream, how to use
it and how to get more of it. But it was the rain
water that found it first, and that brought it to Ught.
After that, when men came to value gold so much,
they learned to dig deep down into the ground, among
the mountains where it w^as stored, and get it out for
themselves.

So rain water is not only helping to make the sur-
face of the earth more and more as God wills it to be,
but it is filling the storehouses of the earth and then
opening them up, showing us the bounties that God
has provided.

''No thing shall ye lack," said one who trusted in
God.

''No thing shall ye lack," says nature to us.
"Only learn to use aright the bounties that God has
stored away for you."

LESSON 24
GOD'S WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS

MEMORY VERSE

In his hand are the deep places of the earth ;
The heights of the mountains are his also.

Ps. 95:4

The Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is to explain how the metals
were carried first into the deep places of the earth and
then brought to the surface when they are ready for
man's use; and to impress the pupils' minds with the
mystery and majesty of these cosmic processes, thus
preparing them to reverence the power and wisdom of
the Creator.

Suggestions for the Teacher

With a lateral pressure of the hands force sheets of
paper which are lying upon a flat surface into folds to
show the lateral pressure or the ''mysterious force"
which gave birth to the mountains. Compare the leaves
with the picture of the folded rocks on the leaflet. After
the story is read review the main facts about the moun-
tains, which are brought out in the lesson: their beauty
and grandeur; their usefulness in bringing up to us
treasures that had been stored below; their usefulness in
preserving what grows above the ground by bringing
rain and storing it up, and the importance of the forests
that grow on their sides. Try to impress the children

199

200 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

with the mystery and majesty of the mountains them-
selves, and of the forces that brought them into being.

The hymn by Isaac Watts, which is suggested as part
of the memory work for the year, may well be intro-
duced with this lesson and reviewed at intervals dur-
ing the rest of the year. Have the pupils read it from
the hymn book used in church.

They should also memorize the Bible verse and prayer
poem found on the leaflet.

OPENING TALK

The beginning of the story makes a suitable review
and introduction to the account of the formation of
mountains.

GOD'S WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS

Do you remember about that mysterious force
which we called the force of God, and what it did to
the veins of quartz and gold that had been packed
away so carefully in God's underground store-
house? Would you like to hear more about that
mighty force?

Of course not all the cracks and crevices in the
rocks are filled with quartz, and not all the veins of
quartz have Httle flakes of gold lying enclosed within
the crystalline mass. Neither does all the slate rock
have those pretty crystals of iron pyrites. Differ-
ent minerals are distributed in different places.
But in whatever rocks the minerals are, the under-
ground water finds them and carries them away to
be put in their proper places.

There are many, many fissures throughout the
rocks which make up the world. Indeed, rocks
everywhere are full of them. Look and see for
yourselves how those that show above the surface
of the ground are crossed by cracks, small and large.
Those fissures that you see are empty except where
they are filled up by small pieces of rock, and by
earth and growing things. The surface water
enters the surface cracks and tends to make them
wider and deeper; but the underground water fills
up the deep-down fissures.

201

202 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

As you have already learned, the underground
water is like the servant that brings treasures to
the store-room and packs them away so nicely,
while the surface water is like the servant that
opens the storehouse and distributes the treasures
for people to use.

See if you can tell what use we make of some of
these minerals: gold, silver, copper, lead, iron,
platinum, sulphur, salt, tin, aluminum, mercury,
zinc and nickel. There are so many more that it
would take a large book to tell about them. Some
are individual minerals like the gold and silver,
some are joined together like the iron and sulphur
in the little yellow cubes, and like the sodium and
chlorine which make common salt.

Some of these minerals we might do without.
The metals, as we call gold, silver, lead and zinc,
are not necessary for life. The first people who
lived never had them. But salt and iron, in some
form which can be taken up by growing things,
are absolutely necessary to the life of man and
animals alike, and even plants seem to need them
too.

We could live, though we should still be uncivilized
people, perhaps even savages, if we had not found
and learned to use metals like iron, gold and silver.
But we could not live at all, neither could the
animals or the plants, if the rain water in sinking
down did not free those invisible particles of iron
and sodium and potash and the other mineral salts,
as we call them, and carry them to the searching
rootlets of the plants,

GOD'S WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS 203

Would you like to know something more about
the way those filled-up fissures which we call veins
come to be near the surface? You will find it true,
as the poet Cowper said, that

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.

When the world was young, and when the thick,
heavy fog lay so closely about it, there were no
mountains, not even when the first bit of land
showed above the surface of the great enveloping
ocean. For the mountains are earth's wrinkles
and came when it was getting old.

Does it seem strange to you to think of the world
as growing old? Why, everything grows old! The
sapling grows into the mighty oak, the apple-
blossom into a delicious apple, the puppy into a
wise and faithful watch-dog. The young mountain
brooks flow into the older river which sweeps peace-
fully along to the sea. The sun and moon and stars
grow old and change their light and heat. Then
why should not the world grow old?

If our world had always remained young we could
not have lived upon it. It was only after it had
commenced to grow old, only after it had become
wrinkled and had given up some of its secret treas-
ures, that it was fitted to become the abode of man.

Did you ever notice the wrinkles upon a cold
baked apple? When it is just taken from the oven
it is round and smooth, but when it has grown cold
its surface settles into wrinkles. So it is with our
earth.

The crust that was so hot those long, long ages

204 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

ago, so hot that the rain hissed off in steam the mo-
ment it touched its surface, had no great ridges upon
it. But when it became colder and a crust of soUd
rock had formed, the surface began to crack and
wrinkle, that is, the mountains appeared. The
mysterious force within our earth which God used
pushed and crumpled the crust of the earth as it
grew cold, making cracks and fissures all through
the rocks, and finally raising them up in long ridges.

If you should take the leaves of your book, or
some sheets of paper which are lying flat, and push
them from each side they would rise up in a ridge.
Try it and see if they do not. If it had been the
book cover that you had pushed, it would have
cracked and broken where you bent it.

In the same way the rocks of the earth's crust
cracked and broke when they were bent upwards,
and the chains of jagged mountains were formed.
This opened up to the action of rain water the
hidden rocks, bringing them nearer to the surface
where man can find their treasures. The moun-
tains, you see, are the doors through which God
opens the storehouses of His underworld.

Those long chains of mountains which have been
folded up on the earth do even more for us than to
bring the storehouses of the underground rocks
within our reach. They help to fill the storehouses
which we have learned are upon the surface of the
earth. For they cover their own slopes and the valleys
below with growing things. They catch the clouds
that come floating in from the ocean and cause them
to give up the rain which they hold. They store up

GOD'S WONDERFUL MOUNTAINS 205

the snow and give it slowty back, as water, to the
brooks. The deep moss that carpets the floors of
those great forests upon the mountain sides holds
back the rain water Uke a sponge, slowly letting it go.

If it were not for the mountains with their slowly
melting snow and with the thick moss holding back
the snow and the rain, the water would rush down
the mountain sides into the brooks and into the rivers
and into the sea in roaring torrents. It would carry
away everything in its path, and then leave a dry
river bed and a dry world behind it. In some coun-
tries where they have cut off all the forests from
the mountain sides the streams are like that, —
raging torrents when it rains, dry gorges soon after.
But where the forests clothe the mountains the
brooks flow constantly and not too swiftly, as do
also the broad, peaceful rivers.

The mountains serve us in other ways. They
unlock to us the secret treasures stored up for our
need. They tell us, too, in the rocks they bring
up from the deep places of the earth, such wonder-
ful stories of the way they were made and of the
strange plants and animals that lived on the earth
before we came. For all the rocks tell a story about
our world and how it has grown to be what it is
now. Men have been learning to read the stories
the rocks have to tell, as well as to dig mines to
secure the precious metals and the minerals that
came up with them, so carefully stored away in their
ancient fissures. Are not the stories precious too?
For they are part of that wisdom and knowledge
which is worth more than gold.

206 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

But they tell us the greatest message of all when
they speak to our hearts of the power and majesty
of God. He has made them very beautiful with
their great, rocky cliffs, with the delicate fronds of
ferns growing in their crevices and carpeting the
floor of the mighty forests on their sides. The
marvel of these great mountains is part of the won-
der of God; and, as our Bible verse tells us, the
heights of the mountains are His. Is it not true
that ''the strength of the hills is His"? And is it
to be wondered at that people have called them
''the hills of God," or that men feel very near to
God when they see those massive mountains lifting
their peaks above the clouds and hiding their feet
deep down in the recesses of the mysterious under-
ground world? When we see these hills of God or
think about them, I believe we will understand
what the writer of the hymn meant when he said,

I sing the mighty power of God
That made the mountains rise.

LESSON 25

LIFE COMES UPON THE WORLD:
ROCK MAKING

MEMORY VERSE

O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom thou hast made them all:
The earth is full of thy riches.

Ps. 104:24

The Purpose

That every particle of the whole world, even the un-
seen and minute, is used in God's plans for its develop-
ment is the lesson to be brought out in this story. Also
the important fact that nothing is lost or put aside, but
it is used over and over again for better and better ends.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The lessons so far studied in this section will have
given the children some idea of^ the vast changes that
have come to our world as well as of the agencies which
have been at work to make them. Subsequent lessons
will deal wdth the strange and interesting forms of life
which occupied the world before man came upon it. This
lesson does not follow in chronological order, but goes back
to an indeterminate past while all the agencies were still
at work making the world ready for its inhabitants.

The teacher needs to note that two separate things
are here to be taught: the appearance of primitive forms
of life in the water, and the formation of rock from s.and

207

208 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

and clay and stones, and from tiny shells in the depth
of the sea.

If it should be possible for the teacher to see specimens
of foraminifera or rhizopods through a microscope she could
impress upon the children in a very vivid way the minute-
ness and beauty of those (probably) first forms of animal
life with which our world was peopled.

The children should be encouraged to look for the
different kinds of rock mentioned in this lesson. If they
have no chance to visit the open country, let them see
the rock of which different buildings are made. They
should be told what kind or kinds of rock are the common
or ''country" rock of the vicinity.

Hand Work

The answers to questions on the leaflet may be made
at home, or time may be given for that work at the next
lesson period.

OPENING TALK

Did you know that there are different sorts of rock in
the world? We have talked of one kind that is much
used in building. What is its name? Yes, granite.
You can tell me, too, what it is made of — that is right,
crystals that did not have room to take their usual forms.

Now not all of the rocks are granite. Wouldn't you
like to know the other kinds, so that when you see
rocks you could tell one from another as you can plants
or animals? You would like to know, too, how they are
made; and you will find that the busy worker you have
heard so much about is the one who had much to do in
making the rocks, — water. This time it is not alone the
falling raindrops, or the snow and ice, or the brooks and
rivers; it is the great ocean itself and the forms of life in
it that does part of the work, as you shall hear.

LIFE COMES UPON THE WORLD:
ROCK MAKING

While the earth was gradually cooling, long before
it had become cold enough for its surface to be folded
into mountains and valleys; while the rain water
was busy wearing away the rocks, and while the
underground water was storing up the many minerals
hidden there, living things began to grow.

It was not upon the land that these living things
commenced to grow, but in the water of the vast
ocean. They were such tiny particles of life, those
first plants, that no eyes like ours could ever have
seen them. But God was working in and through
them. It was because of His thought and His love
that they had appeared upon the world. Those in-
visible plants were cared for, even though they were
seemingly lost in the vast, surging sea. For God is
everywhere, in the tiny ocean plant as well as the
massive mountain. His care is for each and every
thing upon the earth, under the earth, in the water
and in the air which is about the earth.

Then other forms of life appeared. These were
the tiniest of tiny shell-forming animals. Both those
very, very small plants and shells increased in such
countless numbers that they filled the vast ocean
with their minute forms.

Ages and ages rolled by, and during all that time

209

210 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

empty shells were dropping slowly to the bottom of
the sea and accumulating there in thick masses.

During this time, too, the land was gradually rising
out of the ocean, and the ocean was becoming less
vast. You will remember that not all of the rain-
drops that rose to the clouds in the form of vapor got
back to the sea again. They gave themselves up to
becoming the beautiful minerals. There were still
other drops that never even started up into the
clouds to begin that long journey, but sank into the
gravel and the sand and the clay which the rivers had
brought with them to the ocean and, combining with
these, helped to make new rocks.

That sounds odd, does it not? Who would think
that the pieces of rock, the pebbles, the sand and the
clay that the rain water in the brooks and rivers had
been so patiently wearing away from the earth's
crust would ever be used for making new rock? Yet
you know that the leaves that drop off the trees are
turned into soil to make other trees grow. Does it
seem very much stranger that the worn pieces of
rock should be used to make new ones?

Those pebbles which the rivers had been bringing
down to the ocean had been accumulating upon the
ancient sea beach for countless years. The sand and
the clay, also, had been accumulating there in such
thick masses that the layers upon the top pressed
very heavily upon those below. The pressure was so
gi'eat that the pebbles and the sand and the clay,
saturated as they were with the water of the ocean,
became gradually compressed into masses of solid
rock.

ROCK MAKING 211

Did you ever see any rock called pudding-stone?
That is what the pebbles made when the thick mass
of them, lying by the ocean's edge, was pressed with
such force that it was cemented into a solid rock. The
sand was pressed into sandstone and the clay into
slate.

All through the world immense deposits of sand-
stone and slate are found, but the conglomerate rock
is not very common. It is often called Roxbury pud-
ding-stone, and it is used for buildings. Sandstone
is used for trimming buildings, and often for the build-
ings themselves; also for paving sidewalks and street
crossings. Slate is most useful for covering roofs,
although it is used in many other ways.

You would not have thought when you saw that
piece of slate that it was made under the bottom of
the sea, out of particles of older rocks that the rain
water had washed off, and the brooks and rivers had
carried into the ocean.

You would not know, until you were told, that the
sandstone was made in the same way. Yet if you
look very closely at a piece of sandstone you will see
the grains of sand plainly enough, and it is quite easy
to see the rounded water-worn pebbles in the pud-
ding-stone.

So all the material that the rain water had been
wearing from the earth and carrying to the sea was
changed back into rock, and in time raised to the
surface of the earth, there to be worn off again.

Other rocks besides these were being made with the
help of the percolating drops of sea water, but tlie
particles that went to make thorn had never been

212 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

upon the land. These particles had accumulated far
out upon the ocean floor beyond the thick beds of
sand and clay. Can you guess what they could have
been?

You remember we spoke of those countless, im-
perceptible creatures that lived in tiny shells in the
ocean. These slowly sifted down throughout those
long, long ages, and settled upon the ocean floor.
One would hardly think there would be enough of
them to make a thick mass of rock. But so it was, —
age after age they collected in great quantities upon
the ocean floor, and in the course of time they
were pressed into solid rock called limestone and
marble.

You have seen many things made of marble, —
statues, table tops, mantel-shelves, and the stairs
and floors of large buildings. The glistening white
marble of which statues and table tops are made is a
crystalline form, made by the underground water
carrying a mineral in solution.

Other kinds of marble are made under the floor of
the ocean by the help of those drops which soak
through into the mass of accumulated shells. The
pressure and the water and the heat make marble of
the mass of shells, because in them are found the
same mineral that the underground water carried in
solution to make the glistening white marble. In
some kinds of limestone we can see many of the little
shells quite plainly. There they lie embedded in the
stone, perfectly preserved.

How marvelous it is that those pretty Httle shells
should be preserved through all these ages. They

ROCK MAKING 213

were part of a living creature when no eye could see
them to enjoy their delicate beauty. There were no
children then to run and pick up those shells which
had been cast up on the beach. But after millions
and millions of years they are seen preserved in their
marble bed.

It seems very strange that drops of water, working
together, could have the strength to do such wonder-
ful things. It seems quite as strange as that those
dainty, starr^^ snowflakes we were talking about
could accumulate into such a powerful mass as to
stop steam engines. Who could believe that the
fragile shells made by those little marine animals,
some of them quite invisible, could accumulate in
such quantities as to be pressed into rocks massive
enough to make towering mountains!

Yet in such marvelous ways does God work. To
those small and often unobserved creations He gives
the chance to do something great when they act to-
gether. They not only accomplish what might seem
an impossible thing, but they are so under the direc-
tion of His laws that they do their work at all times,
wherever they are. The raindrops are still wearing
away the rocks; the loosened fragments and particles
are still being deposited in the sea, where they all
even now are being made into rock. In the depths
of the ocean the shells are still accumulating, where
they rest upon those underneath with a pressure that
will make of them chalk or limestone or marble.

LESSON 26
FOSSILS

MEMORY VERSE

The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea.

/s. 11:9

The Purpose

This lesson about the fossils is intended to increase
and deepen the child's wonder at the marvelous pro-
cesses going on in the world beneath his feet and under
the sea.

His love for God should be deeper and his trust stronger
after he has learned about the way the delicate forms of
life have been cared for, and then wonderfully preserved,
so that the earth may indeed be filled with the knowledge
of the Lord and of the processes through which the
divine forces work.

Suggestions for the Teacher

If any of the children are fortunate enough to Hve in

the vicinity of fossihferous rocks the teacher can apply

this lesson with peculiar force. Specimens in a museum

or from some one's collection will help in teaching. In

all these lessons the children should be encouraged to

hunt for rocks, collect them and learn their names.

Show the picture on the leaflet after the story has been

read to the class.

214

FOSSILS 215

The teacher should make very impressive the length
of time that must have elapsed while these different
forms of life were growing and changing and while the
rocks that preserved their shape were being made. Show
how the prophecy given in the memory verse is fulfilled
through the records of nature's book.

OPENING TALK

Have you seen any of the rocks that we talked about
last Sunday? Can you tell what is the common rock
about your home? What can you tell about the way it
was made?

Think of some of the ways you find qut what you want
to know. You ask questions, or you read books which can
tell you. When people wanted to find out what hap-
pened before any one lived on the earth they found a
record which could tell them. We call it nature's book,
and that means God's book, too. It is not printed or
written on paper; it has lasted many centuries and will
last ages more. What that book is, how it was made,
and some things it tells, you shall hear from our story
about fossils.

FOSSILS

Have you ever been to the seashore and watched
the waves come rolUng up over the beach? Have you
ever noticed how one wave will roll up and leave its
burden of shells or seaweed, and then hurry back to
give the next wave its turn?

Sometimes the next wave will be higher and will
push the seaweed farther up on the beach ; but if the
tide is going out the wave will not reach so far, and
the seaweed and the shells will be left upon the sand
until the next tide comes in. It may be that the
waves of the next tide will bring in quantities of sand
which will cover all the shells and seaweed, and leave
the beach as clean as if there had never been anything
there excepting the smooth, white sand. But under-
neath, the shells and seaweed lie flat and close, while
the wet sand is piled higher and higher over them.

Now in that long ago time that we have been tell-
ing about, the waves did just the same as they do
now. They would roll up on the sandy beaches and
leave shells scattered here and there on the wet sand.
Then after the tide had gone out the new tide, coming
in, would bring sand, and they would be all nicely
covered up, where they would lie undisturbed.

Sometimes there would be a sudden shower, a
shower where the raindrops were very large and beat
upon the sand, leaving little dents wherever they

216

FOSSILS 217

fell, just as we have showers now when the rain-
drops are so large that we say they make ''cups and
saucers."

Sometimes the wind ruffled the water in the shallow
pools left upon the beach by the receding tide. The
ruffled water sometimes rippled the sand underneath,
leaving it in ridges which we call ripple marks. You
must have noticed these when you were playing on
the seashore.

Those ripple marks and those indentations made
by the raindrops so long ago would be covered over
by the sand which the next tide would bring in, just
as the shells and the seaweed were, and there they,
too, would rest undisturbed by any footfall or any
little spade or shovel.

So the years went by. Slowly, oh, so slowly, the
sand deep down underneath was turned to rock, and
in that rock, all nicely preserved, were the shapes of
those sea shells, the shapes of the seaweed, the marks
made by the rippled sand and by the raindrops.

Those shapes were locked in the deep rocks and
hidden away from sight, just as the minerals and
metals were. They, too, were treasures in God's
underground storehouse, and, like the rocks holding
the minerals and metals, they have been brought up
to the surface where we can now see them.

But the shapes of the Httle shells and of the sea-
weed, and the marks of the raindrops and of the
rippled sand are treasures of a different kind from the
useful metals and the beautiful minerals. They are
treasures because they give us knowledge. They
form a part of the book of nature, and they tell us

218 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

what lived on the earth so very, very long ago. Did
you ever know before that rocks, just the common
rocks that you see all about, were part of a great
book?

The pebbles lying by the side of the road or on the
sea beach have a history, and they tell to all those
who can read from them where and of what they
were made. They do not tell us exactly how they
were made, for that is one of God's secrets. The great
cliffs, and the boulders and the blocks from which
our walls and buildings are made, all tell us stories,
such wonderful stories!

The great cliff of pudding-stone will tell you, if you
can read, ''I was made out of the pebbles that the
rivers brought down to the margin of the ocean."

The large squares of sandstone which make your
sidewalk will say, ''I was a part of a sea beach long,
long ago."

The slate upon your roof will say, '^I was the
clay that made the floor of the ocean ages and ages
ago."

The granite blocks built into a church will say,
''I was made deep under ground where there was no
room for all the minerals of which I am made to form
in their own pretty shapes."

The marble that makes such bright patterns on the
floor of a bank building will say, ^'T was made deep
under the sea from thousands and thousands of tiny
shells, the first there ever were."

Then what shall we read when we see a piece of
sandstone with the surface all curved into little
ripples like those upon the beach? ''Oh," we shall

FOSSILS 219

cry, ''the wind blew and rippled the water in the httle
pool on the beach long, long ago." Or if we see the
pitted marks upon the sandstone, we think, ''The
falling drops made these in the days when there
were no little children to run under cover to get away
from those heavy raindrops."

Do you understand, then, why the rocks form a
wonderful book of knowledge? They write for us the
history of the world itself. Men write for us the
history of what people have done upon the earth ; but
the rocks tell us more than about themselves, they
tell us what plants and creatures lived upon the
world before we came here, and before the animals
came that live here with us now.

Would you like to know how the rocks tell these
things? Then think of the sea beach with all the
shells buried under the sand. Think of the sand be-
ing pressed into sandstone, and then being forced up
to the surface of the earth !

Then when men cut into the sandstone, and take
out the blocks, what do they find there? The shapes
of the perfect shells ! The shapes of things that really
lived on this world in those long ago days when the
world looked so different from what it does now. Is
not that like reading a book, — a book, moreover, that
is all filled with pictures?

Many different kinds of shells are found pictured
in these rocks, and not one of them is shaped just like
any that we have now. There were coral insects in
those early seas building their branching reefs. Later
there were starfishes and sea urchins, but all were
different from those that are now in existence.

220 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

While these thousands and thousands of different
shells were dropping one by one onto the floor of the
ocean and being cast up on the sea beach, there was
another form of life growing in the vast ocean, a
higher form. These creatures were not covered with
shells as were all those which had lived before. They
could move freely, they could swim. Can you think
what they were?

Fishes; yes, but strange-looking fishes, not at all
like those found now in our seas. Most of them had
armor, a hard, bony armor arranged in scales like
coat-of-mail, and having these for protection they
grew to be of enormous size. The whole ocean seemed
to be full of them, as it had been before so full of the
shell-covered animals.

Do you ask, ''How do we know?" Can you not
guess that the rocks tell us?

There the fishes are, in the rocks; caught in the soft
clay and mud of the ocean floor when they died, or
cast up on the sea beach and covered by the sand.
Such extraordinary looking fishes as the rocks pic-
ture to us. With their strong armor, something like
a turtle's shell, and their huge size, we wonder how
they ever moved about' in the sea.

Gradually, however, there was a change. As the
ages rolled by the forms of the fishes became more
and more like those we see. For the world changed,
and the forms of the animals and plants changed also
to accommodate themselves to the changing world.
The rocks that were formed under the sea in that
later period show us the fishes and the shells as they
changed and grew to look like those we now see.

FOSSILS 221

Such a wonderful book is this book of nature. In
it we may read the record of the past. The stones
which make for us this picture-book bear God's
record of creation, and tell the wise men who learn
to read that record how God works in our world.
Shall we Hsten to what has thus far been read from
their stone pages printed over with ripples and holes,
with shells and queer fishes, that we may know more
about God? For all that we learn of God's way in
nature teaches us to love and trust Him more.

LESSON 27
HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE

MEMORY VERSE

Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or. What
shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

Mail. 6 : 31, 32

The Purpose

A lump of coal, black and serviceable, tells us a re-
markable story of how the poisonous gases that covered
the earth at first and would have made life impossible
were absorbed into strange forms of vegetation; how
these were buried in a mass under rocks for ages; and
how men now dig the mass up as coal, thus using what
once would have brought death, for the promotion of the
fullest life. The children are to learn this, one of the
strangest stories in the book of nature, and see how it
bespeaks a Providence that works on long lines for the
welfare of all the children of earth, and turns every-
thing into good. It is this age-long preparation of earth
by God who knows all our need which warrants the trust
of which Jesus spoke when he said to his followers, *'Be
not anxious."

Suggestions for the Teacher

If there is a peat bog in the vicinity or a deeply wooded
marsh arrange for the children to visit it and show them
the black leaf mould that has been accumulating there.

222

HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE 223

Tell them that under the right conditions that would
also make coal. They may like to learn the differences^
between peat, and soft and hard coal.

The teacher should try to get as vivid a mental picture
as possible of the coal-making process before attempt-
ing to tell of this interesting phase in the development
of the world.

The lesson of trust taught by this story and the words
of Jesus in the memory verse will have value only as the
child who says ''God did all this for me" learns that
every child of earth has the right to say the same thing.
It is another emphasis on the thought of living together
and serving one another, which the Beacon Course en-
forces as a fundamental principle of religion.

Hand Work

Try to secure thoughtful answers to the questions about
the sort of thanks we may give for earth's bounty and our
responsibility in sharing it. The other three make a test
of the pupil's attention to the lesson story.

OPENING TALK

Have you ever seen a fossil fern-leaf on a stone? (If
possible, secure one to show to the class.) Can you tell
how it came there? Would you like to hear how not
only leaves, but great tree trunks, whole forests, were
buried in the earth, and what use we now make of them?

HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE

What was happening on the surface of the earth
during all that time when the life in the sea was
spreading and growing and being pressed between
the leaves of nature's book? Did the dry land re-
main bare and lifeless?

Oh, no. The dawn of life had come there too, at
last. Earth's garment was beginning to creep over
the rocks and to cover the marshy places with
green. The same lowly plants that start to clothe
the bare rocks now, the lichens and the mosses,
long ages ago commenced to creep over those
water- worn rocks. Tiny ferns began to tuck their
little feet into the cracks and crannies of the cliffs.
And in the hollows, where the waters of the streams
had spread out with their load of pebbles and sand,
rushes sprang up and made a mass of green.

The earth and the air were warm and moist, so
that these new forms of life grew and increased in
number and in size, as did the shells and the fishes
in the sea. The small rushes that first started to
grow in the shallow pools changed as ages rolled
on, so that by the time the large fishes swam pon-
derously about in the cooling seas these rushes had
grown so large in the wet clay that they made great
dark forests of tall, strange-looking trees along the
margin of the seashore.

224

HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE 225

Think of our common horse rushes, slender stalks,
scarcely ten inches high, growing as trees taller
than your house and as large around as a tub. It is
difficult to imagine how they would look, is it not?

Do you know the club moss that grows upon the
mountains and the ground-pine that is twined into
wreaths and festoons for Christmas decorations?
Try to think of these as trees, queer, rough trees,
three times as tall as your house and as large around
as a cartwheel. The thick, bristling branches were
covered with long scales, instead of leaves, which
dropped off, giving place to new ones, as the pine
needles do.

In the wet, swampy forest land ferns grew in as
pretty clusters as they do in our swamps, their
graceful fronds almost sweeping the surface of the
shallow water. Some of the ferns were very small,
with dainty little fronds that were almost lost in the
immensity of the dark forest. Some grew so large
that they made trees like the tree ferns that grow
now in tropical forests. Like the tropical ferns they
had tall, thick trunks, with a bunch of long fronds
drooping from the top. So the forests stretched
out, dark and somber, with pools of still, black
water lying between the huge trunks of the trees,
and reflecting in the dim light the groups of pretty
ferns.

But there was no bright green grass filling in
every nook and corner between the roots of the
trees; no plants covered with brightly colored
flowers, no fruits, no spreading foliage. Silent, too,
was the forest, for there were no leaves to rustle.

226 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

no branches to sway, no chattering squu*rels to
gather the nuts that fell to the ground, no birds to
sing and fill the growing world with joy. Only the
hum of insects broke the absolute quiet of those
long, long stretches of marshy forest land. Big
dragon flies skimmed over the water of the black
pools, and locusts flew up from the ground with
their pecuUar buzzing sound.

The rain still fell almost continuously and the
clouds hung low over the young world. The air,
too, was heavy over the thick, dark forests. It was
not like the clear, fresh air that we breathe with its
life-giving oxygen. Instead it was full of carbonic
acid gas, a gas which plants need for their growth
but which we cannot breathe and live. The long
scales of those early trees drank from the air that
gas which would have been a poison to the lungs of
animals or men. But to the trees it was life and
strength, and they grew so luxuriantly that no others
in all the world have been hke them.

With their roots in the wet earth drinking in the
water, and their scales breathing in the heavy gas-
laden atmosphere, the trees of the mighty forests
grew and flourished. They flourished for so long a
time that you could not even measure it in your
thoughts.

The long, slender scales dropped off from time to
time, and lay decaying in the water of the swamp.
The great, bristling branches dropped away as the
immense trees lifted their heads higher and higher
into the heavy atmosphere, moist with many showers.
The ripened spore cases scattered about their thick,

HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE 227

brown, powder-like spores, and the fronds of the
ferns, large and small, dropped down, too, into the
water. The trees grew old and died, and, falling,
filled the swamp with their great decaying trunks
and branches, until what had once been long sheets
of water became thick, oozy marshlands Uke a
bottomless bog.

Often during those ages in which the forests were
growing and filling in the pools with the thick,
black mold, the sea would try to reclaim a part of
the marshy land, and make it into a strip of beach
once more. The waves would come rolling in, bring-
ing clay and sand which would spread over the sur-
face of the marsh and cover up the masses of branches
and stems and fern fronds that lay there. If the sea
held its sway long enough, the mighty trees would
finally die and, falling, be covered by the burden of
sand each rolling w^ave brought in, until all evidences
of a forest would be gone, — buried far beneath the
waves of the victorious sea.

In time, however, the sea would build a barrier
even against itself, so that the waves could no longer
roll in over the higher beach, and cover the swamps
with sand and clay. Then the rain and river water
again collected behind the high beaches, again
made swamps in which trees and ferns commenced
to grow. So in time there was another immense
forest growing upon the clay and sand that had
covered up the older one. In some places the ocean
overthrew and buried many forests, one after an-
other, before it was finally conquered and the land
along the seashore rose and became dry ground.

228 THE EARTH jMADE READY FOR MAN

Do you feel sorry that those great, silent forests
were caught and overwhelmed by the floods and by
the ocean tides? Do you wish that there might be
such wonderful forests growing now and that you
might see them?

That could never be, for the trees of those im-
mense forests could not live in the air you breathe.
They grew until they had used up the carbonic acid
gas that so filled the moist, heavy air in those early
days. When that was used up and they could grow
no longer, they gave place to new kinds of trees
more suited to the different air, and more like those
we know.

But the carbon was not really lost, although the
great trees had taken it out of the air. None of those
elements of which the world is made are ever lost.
They are used over and over again, but always kept
in some form. Are not the pieces of the old rocks
made into new? Are not new rocks made also from
the cast off and broken shells of the countless little
animals of the sea? The carbon, too, that was once
in the air in the form of a heavy gas has been saved
from that day to this.

But how? Those mighty forests were no longer
there. They had been buried so deep under sand
and clay that no trace of them was left. Yet they
were never lost to God's sight or to His purposes.
They had only entered the wonderful underground
workshop where God's forces are making over into
new forms substances that have done their work in
another.

Deep under the ground the same pressure was at

HOW OUR COAL WAS MADE 229

work upon that thick, black, oozy marsh, full of the
fern fronds and the scales, the branches and the
tree trunks that had fallen into it. Then the marsh
was changed into a black, shiny mass of rock in
which was stored the carbon that the leaves and
trunks of those immense trees had breathed in from
the heavy air.

Can you guess the name of this black rock? Yes,
it is coal. In the underground storehouse the car-
bon that was not needed by the growing world was
packed away and saved to be given back to the world
again m a form it did need. For the carbon that
would have poisoned us, had we breathed it in that
heavy atmosphere, could be used for giving warmth
when the world was getting cold. In such wonder-
ful ways does God provide for all His children.

When the pressure upon the buried marsh turned
the black soil into rock, the clay and sand below the
swamp, and that with which the waves had covered
it, were changed into rock also. These rocks, too,
became a part of nature's book, for they were
changed into slate and sandstone and they have pre-
served for us the record of what grew in that ancient
marsh. In many a strange and beautiful way they
show us what sort of plants and trees those were
which made our coal.

Underneath the black coal, standing upright in
the slate that had once been clay, are trunks of trees
all turned to stone, with long roots stretching through
the mass of rock. While above the coal, between it
and the layers of the slate, are the forms of delicate
little ferns, of large fronds and of the scale-covered

230 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

branches. Even the dragon flies and locusts were
caught and pressed; for when anything fell from the
forest upon the soft clay that the sea had brought
in, it was pressed closely and preserved.

In the layers of slate or shale above the coal
there have been found more kinds of ferns than we
now have. The shapes of many of them are so per-
fect that it seems as if the most careful fingers had
smoothed out the delicate fronds and pressed them
between the leaves of a book.

Shall we not sing a song of praise to the Creator
who has kept for our use in the beautiful marble the
excess of carbon taken from the water, and in the
useful coal, the carbon taken from the air? Who
has also preserved the forms of the shells and plants
that made the marble and the coal, so that we may
now see and know in what a wonderful way they
were made.

LESSON 28
MORE WONDERS FROM NATURE^S BOOK

MEMORY VERSE

A thousand ages in thy sight

Are Hke an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night

Before the rising sun.

Isaac Watts

The Purpose

The rocks themselves tell us by what gradual and
age-long steps God has been accomplishing His purpose
in the world. They give a picture of change and growth,
of that ''increasing purpose" which runs through the
ages.

With even the slighest knowledge of the growth of the
world the feeling of God's constant presence should grow
and deepen in the child's consciousness.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Any fossils that can be used in these lessons should be
shown. Those children who live in the Connecticut
valley where the red sandstone out-crops should have an
opportunity to see the remarkable footprints in the
rocks. Fossil remains of trilobites and other early forms
are found in the rocks in northeastern Iowa. Use what-
ever can be found in your own locality, or any specimens
or pictures you can secure for illustrations.

Adaptation to environment and the fulfilling of God's
231

232 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

laws is exemplified by the continuous life of the ant upon
the world for long, long ages of time, while other animals
have died off or changed.

The hymn on the leaflet expresses a profound religious
sentiment. Have the pupils learn at least the verse
from it given with this lesson, or better, the whole.

OPENING TALK

Suppose that you should be digging sand upon the
seashore and that you stayed so long do\^Ti by the water
that rain began to fall and a high wave surprised you,
how quickly you would jump up and run to a place of
safety, leaving your footprints on the wet beach, and
your pail and shovel just where they were. If the waves
of the incoming tide should be full of sand, your aluniinum
pail and shovel would be hidden from sight before the
tide went out, and you would never get them again.

Long, long ages afterward, some one might find your
pail and shovel and your footprints in some sandstone
that was being quarried for a building. Then he would
know that a child had been playing ages before on the
beach where the sandstone had been made.

Now you shall hear how animal footprints and other
marks were left in the sand and made into stone ages
ago, long before there were any people in the world.

MORE WONDERS FROM NATURE'S BOOK

After those great forests had done their work by
clearing the atmosphere of its burden of carbon, a
great change came. The sun began to shine through
the clouds; not peep through with a soft glimmer-
ing light, but shine directly through, with rays so
bright that they would make a shadow.

Then all the living things upon the whole world
changed. Some kinds of the giant trees died out and
were seen no more. Other kinds became smaller and
smaller from age to age until they dwindled down to
the size of our queer little horse-tail rush and our
ground-pine. New trees of a different kind com-
menced to grow on the higher ground, and the sun
caused them to flourish and to spread. Among these
were the conifers or cone-bearers, the first of the
group of trees to which our pines and hemlocks
belong.

The animal life, too, was changing, for the air was
now fit to breathe. Out of the water came the queer-
est-looking creatures that you could ever imagine.
They were the amphibians; that is, animals that
could live either on the land or in the water. You
remember how the little tadpoles, after they are
hatched from the eggs, live in the water almost like
fishes, and how, when* their legs grow and their tails
shrink away, they leave the water and hop out on the

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234 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

land. Well, away back in those times when the giant
trees grew, these creatures commenced to walk out
of the water and onto the seashore. They were the
same kind of animals as the frogs, and they could live,
too, in the water or on the land, but they were as
much larger than toads or frogs as you can think or
imagine. Sometimes they walked on the sea beach
and left their great footprints in the wet sand and
mud.

And what do you suppose happened to those foot-
prints? They were preserved for us in the sandstone,
and now make some of the pictures in nature's book
of the rocks.

Sometimes in among the footprints there are rain-
drop marks — big ones — showing that there was a
hard shower with great, heavy drops. But the queer
animals did not care. They could live in the water
if they chose, so they walked right along and did not
try to get under cover.

Sometimes in the slate that used to be the muddy
flats of those days there are marks that we call sun
cracks. Have you ever noticed those queer cracks
on the surface of dried mud? The same shaped
cracks were made in the drying mud long ago, and
when we see them in the rock we know that the sun
came out bright and hot, and dried the mud quickly.

After the amphibians had had their rule in the
water and on the land, reptiles came, — the strange,
huge lizards that would make even the dragons of
fairy tales seem quite ordinary. These reptiles lived
by the side of the marshes and walked about on the
exposed mud flats. They may have gone down at

WONDERS FROM NATURE'S BOOK 235

low tide to get theii' food from among the seaweed,
or to catch some of the smaller fish. Of com-se we do
not know just why they walked about upon the shore,
but we know that they did walk there, for they, too,
left their footprints. They went lumbering along,
some of them w^alking on four feet, some of them
walking on two with a pair of shorter forelegs to rest
on, and dragging long tails after them, much as a
kangaroo does. They left their tracks upon the sand
and mud they walked on, and these were preserved
so that we see them many, many years afterwards.

Many of their bones have been found, too, and
so we have been able to picture to ourselves how
these monstrous creatures looked. It was when
they ventured out too far upon the soft mud that
they were caught in it, for how could they pull
their huge feet out from the soft, sticky mass?
Then the mud hardened into rock, and their bones
were preserved. Whole skeletons have been found
and set up in museums, so we have these, as well
as the footprints^in the rocks, to tell us what huge
creatures lived upon the earth when it was still
young.

Not only those great footprints but even the tiny
tracks of insects are perfectly preserved in the rocks
that were once mud. There were many insects then,
grasshoppers, dragon flies, beetles and spiders. Some
of them walked along on the fine, damp mud and left
their tracks and often they, too, were caught where
the mud was too soft. Their feet were small enough,
but they had so many that while they were pulling
out a pair of feet all the others would be hopelessly

236 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

caught. So we have their tracks and their bodies all
nicely preserved for us in nature's book.

By the leaves and pictures of this marvelous book
we can tell how the earth went on changing and
growing; for learned men who love nature have
studied the rocks, to read what is told there. They
have put together the huge bones there preserved
and so can tell us what those strange animals looked
like and what kind of feet made those tracks.

They tell us also that strange birds came which at
first looked like winged and feathered lizards, but
which changed from age to age until they became the
birds we know and love so well.

There were other creatures of the bird family,
something like ostriches. They walked about on
the land, being quite too heavy to fly. Queer foot-
prints they have left. Men find also the fossil forms
of great bats, six times the size of ours, and of enor-
mous turtles and crocodiles. Even flies and ants have
been preserved from that early time. Only think
how much longer ants have been living on the world
than human beings. When next you see an ant, stop
and think how long its kind has lived upon the earth.
Many of the other creatures were too large and too
clumsy to adapt themselves to the changing world.
So the large creatures died off and gave place to
smaller ones. The amphibians, that were once as
large as alligators have changed and become in time
the frogs and toads that we see; while the reptiles
that were so extraordinary in their size and shape
have changed also, adapting themselves to the
changing world until they have become the turtles,

WONDERS FROM NATURE'S BOOK 237

lizards, snakes, alligators and crocodiles of our
time.

The world was all this time getting ready for a new
form of life. Man was coming, and his four-footed
friends were coming; and many changes must still
take place before the world could be a home for
them.

With the sun shining brightly between the clouds,
the seasons came. There could have been no summer
or winter when the thick clouds hung so heavily
about the world. They kept the atmosphere close
and warm like that in a greenhouse; and strange as
it may seem, those immense trees that made the first
coal tell us that there were no seasons then. For there
are no rings in their fossil trunks to show any signs
of yearly growth. But the later rocks that show us
sun cracks, show us tree trunks with annual rings
like those our trees now have. We know that there
was summer and winter then in the temperate zones,
because the trees of that time grew for half of the
year and rested the other half.

So, with a change of climate trees like ours com-
menced to grow. Besides those early conifers, the
oaks, maples, elms, and willows, the walnut and the
sassafras trees began to clothe the earth with their
graceful, swaying branches and fluttering leaves.

Then the flowers came. They did not at first have
all the lovely colors that we now see. They were
green in color, like the leaves.

Do you remember what has helped so much to de-
velop the bright colors of the wild flowers? Yes, it
was the bees. It should not seem strange, then,

238 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

should it, that those same pages of nature's book
that show us the flowering plants should show us
bees?

With trees like our trees and flowering plants be-
ginning to be like ours, the world commenced at last,
after so many countless years, to look much like the
world as we see it. There were shells like ours washed
up on the beaches, fishes like ours swam in the sea
and in the rivers. Smaller dragon flies skimmed over
the water, butterflies fluttered over the blossoms,
sipping their nectar, while bees gathered the pollen.
The ants were there, and June bugs, and many more
of the insects that we know. And all, the leaves of
the trees, the flowering plants, the insects, as well as
the shells and the fishes and the bones of animals are
pictured for us in that wonderful book which has
earth's rocks for its pages.

Throughout those countless ages of change and
growth God watched over the world and blessed it
with His love and thought. When there was no hu-
man mind to observe what was going on, everything
was working together in the love and harmony of
God's perfect law.

LESSON 29

THE STORY THAT A SCRATCHED
ROCK TELLS

MEMORY VERSE

Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.

Job 12:8

The Purpose

This last great change in the world before man came
is of special interest because to it is due the contour of
the land in the greater part of North America and Europe.
Wherever the great ice sheet plougjied its way it left a
changed world.

It altered river systems, caused waterfalls, left lakes
scattered here and there, spread out wide plains, lowered
mountains and raised valleys. To that ice sheet mankind
owes all that has made the north temperate zone the
fitting home for his onward struggle in civilization.

Use the story to illustrate how the earth may indeed
speak to us of the wonderful things God has done.

Suggestions for the Teacher

This lesson offers excellent opportunity for review of the
last three, which deal with diiTerent sorts of rocks and call
them nature's story-book. Here we have one of those
stories for the lesson.

The glacial scratches, the smoothed rocks and hills
and the ''mantle rock" that was left every where by the

239

240 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

melting ice form the last page in nature's book before the
advent of man.

The children should be well impressed with the idea
that the world is still changing, in spite of the fact that
the changes are so slow that we do not realize them.

We are still in the Glacial Age. That our chmate is
growing warmer is proved by the fact that the last rem-
nants of the great ice sheet are gradually retreating, but
we are insensible of any change ourselves.

Impress upon the children's minds, as always, the
countless ages which have elapsed while this last change
was going on, causing the earth to be plowed over and
adapted for God's highest creation, man.

OPENING TALK

Can you think away the thick masses of ice and snow
that cover Greenland, and picture that island as covered
with a luxuriant forest?

Can you forget for a moment the stories you have
read about the Eskimo hunting over frozen seas for the
walrus and the polar bear, and think instead of soft,
blue, tropical seas like those around Bermuda, where
white coral reefs gleam beneath the surface of the water?

Try, while we have the story; for then you will know
why it once deserved the name Greenland, and how it
came to be the land of snow and ice that it is now.

THE STORY THAT A SCRATCHED
ROCK TELLS

How many of you have read about the Eskimo
children and that singular land of ice and snow in
which they live? It is called Greenland, though it
is far from being a green land now. Yet it is quite
true that Greenland had once as warm a climate
as the island of Cuba has now.

It seems very hard to believe, yet the pages of
nature's book tell us that it was so. The rocks of
Greenland, where the snow has left them uncovered,
tell us strange stories of what once grew upon that
land now buried under snow and ice.

Did you ever learn about the coral polyps and the
work they do, making great coral reefs in the warm
southern seas? Once they built in the warm seas
that were then about Greenland. On the land great
palms lifted their feathery tops high in the air.
Ferns of all kinds made the ground green with their
graceful fronds, while Sequoia trees, like the giant
trees of California, towered above such other trop-
ical trees as the fig, the ilex and the magnolia.

For ages and ages Greenland was like a luxiu-iant,
tropical island. But there came a time when all
that was changed. It was after the ''coming of the
seasons."

At first the difference between summer and winter

241

242 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

was not great, but the winters grew colder and colder.
In time they became so severe that even the summer
sun was not hot enough to melt away all the snow
that had accumulated during the long, cold winters.

First the mountains became snow-capped. Then,
as the cold grew more intense, the snow caps grew
until great bodies of ice commenced to flow down the
mountain sides and into the valleys. Rivers of ice
these were, not rivers of water which had been frozen
into ice, but rivers composed of ice, which flowed
down the mountain sides with a great force.

There are a few such ice rivers still left upon the
world. We call them glaciers. They are not at first
rivers of solid ice; they start as rivers of snow, that
kind of hard, icy snow that we see left on the ground
in the spring. They are pushed on with such a force,
however, that the icy snow is soon pressed into a
compact mass of ice which really flows slowly along
over the ground, scouring for itself a bed out of the
solid rock.

If you take up a handful of snow and press it hard,
you will soon have a ball of ice instead of a snow-
ball. So the enormous pressure of the snow accumu-
lating above, forces the icy snow out from beneath,
and then presses that into ice as it slowly creeps
down the mountain side.

You remember what a power snow has to stop a
railroad train. Yet when snow moves as it does in
a glacier its power is much more tremendous, for
then nothing can stop it. It pushes everything out
of its way, and grinds rocks to powder.

Think what a mighty force a sheet of ice half a

STORY A SCRATCHED ROCK TELLS 243

mile thick must exert when it moves over a whole
country as it does in Greenland. So long as the
snow accumulates faster than it melts, nothing, not
even mountains, can stop the ice sheet thus formed
as it slowly moves over the surface of the land to
the sea.

Sucli a glacier as that once passed over the north-
ern part of our country. In places it was a mile
thick, and it covered such high mountains as Mount
Washington and the Adirondacks.

If you ask how we know about such a strange
thing as this, we answer as we have answered so
many times before, ''Because the rocks tell us;"
not from their structure or from the fossils they en-
close, but from the marks upon their surface. For
they are smoothed over as if a mighty force had
been at work upon them, and often those smooth
places are scratched with straight parallel lines and
grooves.

''What sort of writing has nature made upon
these rocks?" men have asked. "Why should the
rocks north of a certain line be so smooth, with long
parallel scratches upon them, while those south of
that line are just as the rain-water has left them?"

So people wondered, until a great man named
Louis Agassiz, who came to America from Switzer-
land, showed us how to read this part of nature's
writing.

He had seen glaciers at work in his native coun-
try, for there are many of these rivers of ice among
the high Alps, and he had vvatched them carefully.
He had noticed the strange appearance of the rocks

2U THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

wherever the ice in melting had left them bare.
They were smoothed off and almost polished, while
deep scratches ran parallel to the direction in which
the glaciers were moving. So when he came to this
country he knew what those marks meant which
had puzzled our learned men.

Glaciers had made the marks, — glaciers of such
extent that they stretched in one mass of ice across
the northern part of North America. As high upon
the mountain sides as the rocks were ground off,
so thick was the ice that had flowed over the land.
It had scoured off all the rocks on its way toward
the south, and carved them with straight lines and
grooves.

What do you suppose were nature's carving
tools? They were the pieces of rock that had been
broken off the ledges as the mighty glacier pushed
its way irresistibly over the land. Frozen into the'
mass, they were held as tight as in a vise. Thus they
traveled with the moving ice, scraping the rocks
smooth while the harder, sharper fragments scratched
parallel Hues on the surfaces that had been already
bared and smoothed. Such records do the glaciers
leave now upon the rocks in the Alps, in Green-
land and in Alaska. Such records the glaciers have
left upon the rocks in the northern part of North
America and Europe.

Nature has many other ways of telling us about
the "Great Ice Age" besides the telltale lines and
the smooth rocks. She tells us by the changed
shapes of the mountains, by the filled-up valleys,
by long, even ridges and rounded hills, and by the

STORY A SCRATCHED ROCK TELLS 245

great stretches of land covered with gravel and sand
and boulders. These the great ice sheet left scat-
tered about over the ground when it finally melted
and retreated toward the north.

Although nothing upon the earth's surface could
stop a great glacier, the sun's rays could. So, when
the climate became warmer, the vast ice sheet melted
into rivers of water and gradually shrank away
until now only a few mountain glaciers, those of the
Alps and Rockies, and those in the polar regions,
are left.

In Switzerland rivers of water come pouring out
of the end of the melting glacier. So in our country
long ago rivers must have poured out all along the
southern margin of the ice-sheet as it gradually
melted away. Here and there vast beds of gravel
and sand were spread out by these gushing waters;
here and there huge boulders that had been carried
under, in, or upon the ice were dropped and left,
sometimes piled up in strange confusion.

When at last our country was free from its ice
chains, and the rushing waters that had carried the
melting ice to the sea had finally subsided, what a
changed surface was laid bare! The sharp peaks of
the mountains had been rounded over, and smooth,
round hills of clay were scattered about where no
hills had been before. Plateaus of sand stood high
above the level plains. Long even ridges of gravel
stretched along like artificial embankments, while
thick sheets of gravel were spread over great tracts of
land, often blocking up the river channels and dam-
ming back the rushing water into beautiful lakes.

246 THE EARTH MADE READY FOR MAN

Although the ice had plowed through the forests
and ground them to powder as it advanced, when
it had retreated the land was not so desolate as
one would think. It did not leave the rocks wholly
bare, but it covered them as it melted with the
gravel and sand, as with a mantle. So the little
flowers that follow the melting ice and grow up to
its very edge had soil to grow upon. So did the trees
and the other Alpine plants, as they slowly ad-
vanced, following the retreating ice sheet.

It took very, very long for all this to happen,
but by the time the warmer climate had locked the
ice sheet up in the polar regions, our country was
clothed again with forests and ferns, with shrubs
and plants of more varieties than had ever grown
before. Animals, birds and insects came again to
inhabit the land, and most of these, too, were different
from any that had formerly lived here. These ani-
mals are those that we know as man's four-footed
friends. And with the animals came man.

To what a world the human race came at last!
What a storehouse of riches, what a place of beauty,
what a land of resources was this world that God
had prepared to be our home. As marvelous as the
riches which God has stored away for us, or as the
beauty with which He has covered the earth, or as
the bounties which He has scattered aboard, are
the records which He has left on the rocks of the
world so that we may learn in what divine, wonder-
ful ways those gifts which we see and use were pre-
pared for us.

PART IV

The Coming of Man

Thou hast made him but Httle lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honor.

Ps. 8:5

LESSON 30
MAN COMES UPON THE EARTH

MEMORY VERSE

Who knoweth not in all these,
That the hand of the Lord hath wrought this,
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind?

Job 12:9, 10

The Purpose

There has been no attempt in this lesson to make any
scientific statement as to how man came upon the earth,
or just when and where human beings appeared. In as
simple and straightforward a way as possible with such a
complex subject the children are told of man's humble
origin, the slow steps of his progress, and the means by
which it was achieved.

The purpose is steadily held to make clear at the same
time the endowments which place man above the lower
animals, and the spiritual inheritance which reveals
itself in his worship and his steady advance.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The teacher should study all the lessons of Part 4
before undertaking to teach any of them. With a clear
picture in mind of the growth of the human race in civil-
ization it will be possible to make a far more vivid pres-
entation to the children.

If the teacher can succeed in making those earliest
249

250 THE COMING OF MAN

days when man was just beginning to grope his way
into consciousness seem real to the children, the purpose
of the story will not be lost.

The rehgious thought running through all these lessons,
that God is with us continually and leads us on to all
that we accomplish, should never be lost from sight.
The opening talk suggests it as the atmosphere in which
the story of this lesson should be given and received.

Hand Work.

'To prepare the pupils to do the work asked for on the
leaflet it will be well to talk a little about the two subjects
in class. Encourage original expression, and ask to have
the work brought next Sunday to be read in class.

OPENING TALK

Do any of you know those lines named ''Baby,"
written by George MacDonald? (The teacher may well
read the poem to the class. It will be found in many
collections of verse.) Notice these two lines:

How did they all come to be just you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.

Isn't that true about all people, even those that first
lived on the earth? In the story of creation as told in
the first chapter of Genesis, a verse says, "And God
created man in his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female created he them." Shall
we remember, as we read those words, that the thought
of God created mankind to be like himself, and that
through long ages people grew better in all ways because
God still thought about them and led them on?

MAN COMES UPON THE EARTH

So to the world that had grown beautiful and
useful under God's love and thought, human beings
came. '

Just how they came or just when, no one knows;
but that they were living here when the thick ice
sheet was melting away, we are quite sure. For,
buried in the masses of sand and gravel that the
rushing waters spread around, have been found some
of the stone weapons that those early men had used.

The animals have left shells and footprints, and
many of their forms preserved in nature's book; the
plants have also left their forms and shapes; but men
have left the things that they have made and the
record of what they have done. Tools, weapons,
pottery and sculpture, buildings, drawings and writ-
ings, these are the things that tell us about mankind,
where men have lived, how they have lived, and often,
too, what kind of people they were.

The very first men did not know how to make any
of these things. They came upon the world like the
animals, and for a while they must have lived some-
what as the animals did. But it was not for that sort
of a life that God had sent them upon the world. He
had given mankind gifts that the animals have never
possessed: an upright figure with swinging arms;
hands with five, flexible fingers; a thinking, reason-

251

252 THE COMING OF MAN

ing brain and a throat and tongue which can be
trained to communicate the thought of the mind.
But even more than all these, God has given to man-
kind a loving spirit which is a part of Himself. Be-
cause of this precious gift men became the children
of God.

How do you suppose they began to use those gifts
that made them so different from the animals?
What impulse first made them stoop to pick up a
stone and then throw it in self-defense at some
animal prowling near by? What made them notice
that a sharp stone would defend them better than a
round one? And what was it that prompted them to
chip one stone to a point with another?

Monkeys and apes will throw stones to defend
themselves, but they have never been known to
sharpen them to a point. They have not the seeing
eye and the thinking brain that men have. The eyes
of men see not only the objects about them, but they
see what can be done with the objects.

Did you ever watch a baby trying to put one block
upon another, and hear its happy laughter when it
succeeded? Probably those early men laughed with
surprised delight when they found that they could do
new things, for they were but babies, after all, in this
great, new world.

There is something within us all that urges us on to
try always to do things in a better way. That is our
spirit, the supreme gift of God. And even in those
early days, the spirit which was a part of each man
and woman urged them on to better ways of life.

They first lived in caves. They ate roots and

MAN COMES UPON THE EARTH 253

bark, nuts and berries, while they defended them-
selves from the dangerous animals with stones.
Soon they learned to eat the flesh and wear the fur
of those they killed in self-defense, and then, after
they had succeeded in making weapons for them-
selves, they went upon the chase to find those animals,
the meat and skin of which they liked the best.
With the chipped and sharpened rock fastened to a
stick of wood as an arrow or a spear or a hatchet,
they could be quite brave, hunting down the wild
creatures they wanted; not just huddling together
and protecting themselves.

So they learned to make many implements. Some
were of chipped stone, with bone or wooden handles,
some of sharpened bone and some of sharpened wood.
They learned also, that if they were brave and watch-
ful they could overcome even the most dreaded of the
animals. It would not take them very long to see
that the animals always went about their hunting in
the same way, each according to his kind, and never
changing it, while they could always do things in a
different way. They saw, also, that the braver and
more courageous among them were the more sure of
outwitting the dull beasts.

In some way they learned the use of fire. How
surprised they must have been when they found what
a useful friend it could be to them! It would cook
their food; it would keep them warm; and, best of
all, it would \eep away the prowling animals.

At first these cave men must have saved the fire,
probably from the embers of a forest fire; for nature's
book tells us that there were some forest fires long

254 THE COMING OF MAN

before careless men set them. These embers that the
cave men saved they tended carefully with dried
leaves and twigs. Very, very careful they had to be
of those fires, for if they let them go out where could
they get another? But after a time they learned to
start their fire. Perhaps it might have happened this
way.

Suppose that two of those men were busy in their
cave long, long ago, boring a hole in a piece of wood
with a sharpened stick. That was the way they made
the handles for their stone implements. Now it
might have happened that the wood they were using
was much harder and drier than usual, and the man
who twirled the pointed stick was very strong. He
twirled so fast that the wood became quite hot, and
smoked a little. But neither of the men knew what
that meant, and so they kept on with their work.
Then, suddenly, a flame leaped from the hole they
were making and burnt them and their sticks of
wood, and even the dry straw spread over the floor
of the cave for a bed.

Now it may be that the first man was angry, seeing
that all their work was ruined and their beds gone.
But the second man, the one who twirled the stick,
waved his arms and shouted for joy, because he saw
how men could make that mysterious and useful fire
when they wanted it.

So the stick-twirler ran for more wood, and, squat-
ting down at the entrance of the cave before all the
other inhabitants, showed them how to get a spark
that they could coax into a fire. That was a joyful
discovery, for it meant that they would not have to

MAN COMES UPON THE EARTH 255

stay always where the fire was, but that they could
move about and make a fire wherever they happened
to be.

Later these cave men learned to make fire in
another way, by striking very hard pieces of stone
together and getting a spark. Even so recently as
our great grandfathers' time a piece of flint and a
rod of steel had to be used to start a fire, when the
old one went out.

These ancient men looked upon fire as a friend, a
mysterious friend, that they could not understand.
The animals were all afraid of it and so it kept them
away. Then, too, it kept the people warm through
those long, cold nights. The climate was still much
colder over all of Europe and North America than it
is now, for the great ice sheet had not entirely melted
away. And these men, even after they had learned
to chip stone weapons and make a fire, yet did not
know how to clothe themselves comfortably.

Finally, those early cave men learned to use the
fire to cook the meat and nuts that they had been
eating raw. Then they soon learned to grind the
seeds of the tall grass which they had gathered, and
cook the meal with water. When they learned to
cook their food, mankind commenced to be civilized.

Seeing what a benefit fire was to them, they came
gradually to believe that fire was the source of all
their blessings. The very mystery of it was fascinat-
ing to them. It came from the sky ; they knew that,
for was it not the sun, that golden, fiery ball, that
kept them warm during the daytime? And was it
not the lightning that brought fire to earth? But

256 THE COMING OF MAN

where it had been hiding before it showed itself in the
spark that flew from the pounded flints or in the Uttle
traiUng flame that came at the end of the twirUng
stick, they could not guess.

As they wondered more and more about the
mystery of the fire, they began to worship it, for the
Spirit of God which is in all human beings longed to
reach above itself and its surroundings toward some
greater power. Fire was the greatest friend the earth
could give them, because without it they could not
have become civilized. But they had an unseen
Friend, closer even than the fire, and a giver of
greater gifts, for it was He who had given the fire,
and He had given also the power to learn how to use
it and how to make it.

For thousands of years men worshiped the fire,
and the sun and the lightning which seemed to them
to be the sources of the fire. But God knew that they
were trying to reach Him, and He loved them and
helped them, for were they not His creatures? He
knew that they were feeUng for Him in obedience to
the impulse of His spirit within them.

They were like children, those early people, and
had to learn so slowly for themselves those things
that we are taught by our parents and our teachers.
But because they did learn how to live in this won-
derful world, how to use its wealth, how to obey its
laws, and, finally, how to worship God aright, we are
able to live now, the people that we are, with all the
blessings that we enjoy.

LESSON 31

MAN'S PROGRESS: THE WORKING HANDS
AND THE THINKING MIND

MEMORY VERSE

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.

Ecclesiastes 9:10

The Purpose

The fact that skill of hand helped to develop the mind
of man is brought out in this lesson. For the child, as
for primitive man, hand work well done stimulates the
mind.

Mere increase in physical comfort does not mean a real
advance for any individual or any nation, unless there
goes with it a corresponding progress in mental and
spiritual life.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The teacher should impress upon the class that as
soon as the savage men commenced to use their hands to
make the articles they needed, they became less and less
like savages and more and more civilized, their civiliza-
tion increasing with their skill. As an application of the
lesson the children should be urged to pay attention to
their own hand work, that the increase in the skill of
their hands may produce a corresponding keenness of
their minds.

Interest should be aroused in the children over the
257

258 THE COMING OF MAN

probable fact that the animals and insects taught our
earliest ancestors many of their first lessons.

Hand Work

The leaflet offers opportunity for original expression,
and variety according to the abilities of the pupils should
be encouraged.

OPENING TALK

Let me see the lists you have made of the ways in
which people are superior to animals. You have thought
of a good many. Now let us think of one of the ways in
which the mind came to be so well developed that peo-
ple came to be civilized beings instead of savages.

WORKING HANDS AND THINKING MIND

Do you suppose that it took those early men very
long to notice that their hands were quite unlike
the fore paws of the animals among which they
lived? A bear can walk on his hind legs and put
things into his mouth with his paws, but he cannot
move the different joints of his paws. The monkeys'
fore paws, which look so much like the hands of the
cave men, cannot be used as the cave men learned
to use their hands.

Those cave men, like ourselves, had fingers which
could be moved as they wished. They were able,
as we are, to touch the thumb with the tip of each
finger, and that no animal can do. The more those
early men tried to do, the more easily their hands
and fingers obeyed their wish. The training which
they gave their fingers by using them helped to de-
velop their minds. So the more skillful their hands
became the quicker and brighter their minds were.

Did they learn to weave by watching the spiders
spin their thread and weave their webs overhead in
the roofs of the caves? Many times they must have
lain on beds of leaves, looking up into the smoke-
begrimed roofs where the little spiders were busy
making festoons and spreading out their carpets.
Spiders had been making webs for millions of years;
it would not be strange if they should have taught

259

260 THE COMING OF MAN

mankind. Perhaps, too, from watching the birds
weave straw and grass into their nests, those early
men tried themselves to plait grass into small
mats, just as you learned first, in kindergarten, to
plait the colored strips of paper into a little square
mat.

In some way those early men and women did
learn to plait grass and then weave it. Later they
learned to use the fibers of the flax in making cloth.
That was a most useful discovery. They have
handed it down from generation to generation even
to our own time, and we still make from the flax
fiber our much-prized linen cloth.

Now when these cave people found what they
could do with their hands, and in how many ways
they could use the things that were growing about
them, they were not content to live in caves as
their ancestors had done. They wanted to make
homes that would be lighter and drier and more
comfortable. Where did they get the idea? We
do not know. Perhaps it was from seeing the birds
build their nests, or from using some shelter made
by trees that had fallen against each other. Be
that as it may, the cave men learned to make huts
for their homes, placing poles in a circle, one end of
each upon the ground while the upper ends met in
a point above, much like an Indian's tepee.

When they learned to do this they were no longer
like wild men, because they could live in separate
families then, not all crowding together in a cave,
as many as it would hold. They scattered around
in tribes, no longer dependent upon the place where

MAN'S PROGRESS 261

the cave happened to be, for they could choose any
place that seemed best fitted for their homes. By
this time they had learned to plant the seeds of the
grasses that gave them grain and flax, and some
fruits. Then it became necessary that they should
live in communities near the cultivated ground.

Some of the peoples made their houses on piles
that they had driven into the bottom of the lake.
May we not beUeve that they had seen their little
brother, the beaver, at work upon his house in the
pond? How could they help wishing to be as safe
as he? Don't you suppose it was from the beaver
and from the birds that those early men learned to
plaster their houses with clay?

Then, later, when they found how hard the clay
would become when dried in the sun or baked in a
fire, they learned to make dishes of it. Indeed, our
own dishes that we call chma, and prize so highly,
are all made of clay. So from these early people
has come down to us the knowledge of making dishes
of clay, as well as of making houses, and of spinning
and weaving the fiber of flax into cloth.

They watched the beaver fell the trees and roll
them down to the water, float them over to the dam
or to their house, and anchor them securely in the
mud. Their own way of felling trees was almost as
toilsome as that of the beaver, for all they had to
use were hatchets made of stone. Much patience it
must have required to chop down the trees with those
rough tools. But those men knew nothing of metal
and its uses, and all their implements were made of
stone or carved out of the bones and horns of animals.

262 THE COMING OF MAN

It is remarkable how many useful tools they
made for themselves from these simple materials.
They used the antlers of the stag for rakes, or as
picks, and parts of them for fish hooks and spears.
From their weapons it looks as if the lake-dwellers
speared the larger fish in much the same way that the
North American Indians did. They carved the horn
into drinking-cups, into awls, and even into such
civilized articles as pins and needles, combs, buttons,
beads and earrings.

Now you are going to ask how we know about
these things that were made so many thousands of
years ago. Have you forgotten natm-e's book?

Just as the water at the sea beach buried and
preserved the shells and the footprints of animals,
so the water of those lakes where the lake-dwellers
lived has preserved for us the hunting and farming
implements, the household utensils and bits of food
and clothing that fell into the lake and were buried
in the mud. Such multitudes of articles as those
ancient men had learned to make, and so skillful
had they become with their stone tools! Think of
it, a comb made of boxwood! Pins and needles
made of bone!

If, when you were working in your garden, you
should dig up an old coin or an Indian arrow-head,
would you not look at it with a strange feeling of
wonder, knowing that some human being of long
ago had lived upon that very spot? So when we
open natiu-e's book and see in its pages the combs
and the buttons, the needles and pins that some long
forgotten people used at their toilet; when we see

MAN'S PROGRESS 263

the pitchforks, rakes and hoes that they used on
their farms, the fruits and grains they raised, the
hnen cloth they made, the piles upon which they
built their houses and the ladders and boats by
which they reached them, and even the Uttle toy
boats of the children, we know a great deal about
these people who lived so long ago.

It seems as if those ancient people needed only the
knowledge how to use the bright metals that were
in the rocks about them, to become really civilized.
In some way they got even this knowledge. They
must have learned that secret by themselves, for the
animals could not teach them that.

Perhaps the fire did. Perhaps some of the rocks
they heated for cooking their food had copper or
tin in them. Perhaps the metal softened and
changed its shape under the heat of the fire. Then
some one whose eyes were quick and whose brain
was quick, too, would see that the bright shining
substance was softer than the rocks and could be
shaped and so used for new and useful objects.

The use of bronze (which is a mixture of copper
and tin) for weapons and implements of all kinds
began a new era in the civilization of mankind.
Then came the use of gold and silver, and later of
iron. We owe our present high civiUzation largely
to the use of iron and the steel that is made from
it, — that iron which the rain water collected from
the rocks, and deposited in a form that we could get;
to the coal that was made from the great forests of
ages ago; and to the knowledge that has come to
us from countless generations of people all trying

264 THE COMING OF MAN

to improve on what they had abeady done, and to
learn new things.

What but the Spirit of God implanted in those
men, and the loving care of God in helping them to
follow that Spirit, could have led them so far along
from the state of the early, savage man? With
those simple tools, the chipped and sharpened
stones, and the fire that they had learned to make,
these lake-dwellers had done all this!

It was from beginnings like these of the early men
that we have come to be what we are. And as we
ourselves train our hands and our minds to make the
best use of the materials and forces that are all
about us, we shall always be finding new ways and
new materials, so that we, too, shall bless all those
who come after us to this wonderful world that God
has made.

LESSON 32

MAN»S PROGRESS: GROWTH IN
RELIGION

MEMORY VERSE

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me
with all your heart.

Jer. 29:13

The Purpose

To impress upon the mind of the growing child the fact
that we grow to be like whatever we look up to or worship,
is the main purpose of this lesson, although the quicker
growth in civilization because of the social mingling of the
different peoples is the subject of the story.

There are two other truths contained in this lesson:
the mutual help which men and nations should be to
each other; and the danger which comfort in material
conditions brings, in shutting away from our lives the
desire to reach up to the true spiritual Life that em-
braces all.

Suggestions for the Teacher \

A map of Europe should be used in the class in order
that the voyages of the adventurous sailors may be
traced from their home city of Tyre to England and on
to the Baltic Sea. The countries of Egypt, Greece,
Italy and Palestine or Canaan should also be pointed
out.

The teacher should make much of the daring, ad-
265

266 THE COMING OF MAN

venturous spirit of the Phoenician merchants, for by so
doing she will arouse the interest of the children in them,
and so be able, quite naturally and easily, to lead to the
thought that moral life and noble ideals must accom-
pany advance in thought and skill. This shows man's
progress in religious thought in that most advanced re-
ligious nation, the Hebrew people.

Hand Work

The work on the leaflet may easily be done in class.
Notice the assignment of home work, and bring maps
next Sunday to test its accomplishment.

OPENING TALK

If you were to go from A (your own town) to B (a
neighboring city), what ways might you travel? (Train,
trolley, automobile, carriage will probably be men-
tioned.) How long would it take to walk there? If you
want to make rapid progress, you will take the quickest
way. But the walking trip might make you stronger,
might give you many chances to do a kindness. to some
one on the way. You might learn many things in the
slower journey about the country and the crops and the
people.

Our story to-day will tell us how people learned more
rapid ways of traveling, and so made progress through
their commerce and by learning from one another. But
to know if they had truly advanced we must ask not only,
How fast could they go from place to place? but. What
kind of people were they when they got there? That
shows why growth in religion — that is, in man's thought
and goodness — is a measure of his true progress.

MAN'S PROGRESS: GROWTH IN RELIGION

After men had learned the use of metals they
progressed much more rapidly, not only in the arts of
building and in making articles for household com-
fort, but in knowledge of the world and the treasures
for their use that it contained. Once having learned
how to use the metals, they could not do without
them. When their supply was used up they were
obliged to search for more.

That meant that they must go about, travel to
other places, visiting other tribes and exchanging
goods with other people. This was commerce, and
commerce, even on so small a scale as that, is a great
civilizer. The very need of going about makes it
necessary for new methods of travel to be invented.
Besides, people who trade with one another learn
from each other better ways of living and working.
So the discovery of metal helped them in these two
ways, by the better implements that they were able
to make with it, and by the need to go about to get
new supplies.

At first, of course, men traveled only on their own
feet. They did not need any help, for they were
strong and fleet of foot, and they did not go long dis-
tances from their caves or their fires. When need
arose, they would carry their burdens on their backs,
or upon their heads, or in their arms. But when the

267

268 THE COMING OF MAN

first simple commerce started, there was need of going
farther and of carrying burdens that were too heavy
even for those strong men.

What made them think of taming animals and
training them to carry their burdens for them? How
did those ancient men learn that they could catch
and tame and harness the swift-footed, wild horses,
or the fierce and enormous wild elephants, or the
camels or the reindeer? We do not know. Yet in all
the different countries men have trained the native
animals to be their burden bearers. In many of the
countries the burdens are still placed upon the ani-
mals' backs, but in the more civilized countries the
animals draw the burdens behind them. That means
that the people have devised some sort of sledge or
wagon, and it means, besides, a cleared road for the
wagon to go over.

What do you suppose ever made men think of
making wheels and fastening them to an axle so they
would turn around when pulled, and so carry the
burden along more easily? Yet somewhere the first
wheeled wagons began to be used, and somewhere
the first roads began to stretch out over the country.

Then some enterprising men, not content to have
only their goods carried, wished to be carried them-
selves. So chariots came into use. The first two-
wheeled chariots, set upon an axle without springs,
were not comfortable, but they were often gorgeous
enough to make up for that lack. It has not been
very long that people have ridden in four-wheeled
carriages, furnished with comfortable springs; and
only quite recently that rubber tires upon the wheels

GROWTH IN RELIGION 269

of carriages and automobiles have made riding so
easy and agreeable.

Now with tame animals to carry the goods, roads
to travel upon, and a desire for the articles made by
neighboring peoples, commerce was assured. After
this, civilization progressed more rapidly, because
men began to learn from each other and were not
obhged to find out everything for themselves. And
the different tribes or nations — for people had
banded themselves into nations by this time — set
to work earnestly to make as well as possible those
articles they used in trade. For there was something
that the people of each nation had learned to make
better than the peoples of other nations did.

Some had learned to make their clay dishes and
utensils much better than their neighbors. They
learned to decorate them with painted and with
raised figures. Other peoples found how to use the
flecks of gold they had noticed in the sands of the
river beds, and they learned to make such beautiful
ornaments that they carried on a regular trade in
them. Still others had learned how to use the wool
of the sheep and goats that they had domesticated;
how to spin it into yarn and how to weave it into
firm, warm cloth.

As commerce increased it came to be carried on
largely by water. As a result, those peoples who lived
along the margin of a sea like the Mediterranean
advanced more rapidly than those who could only
trade across the land. Dangerous as it was to trust
to a water journey in those small rude boats of theirs,
it still was not so hard as a journey by land.

270 THE COMING OF MAN

The Phoenicians, who hved just north of the place
Abraham chose to be the home of his people, early
learned to trust themselves to the sea, or, as it says in
the Bible, 'Hhey went down to the sea in ships."
At the time when remembered history begins, and
we do not have to depend on nature's book alone for
all we know about those who went before us, we find
the Phoenicians the greatest traders. Other people,
like the Egyptians and the Assyrians, traded between
themselves across the desert by means of camels; and
in central Europe where our lake-dweller had lived,
they probably traded with laden horses. But the
Phoenicians put out to sea in ships and went to all
the countries that bordered the Mediterranean,
carrying back and forth, from one people to another,
the articles each desired.

As far as England those small and unseaworthy
ships went in their search for tin. This is a rare
metal, and most useful in giving the desired hardness
to copper. They even went to the Baltic Sea for
amber. That was a venturesome voyage for those
days. Those were brave men and ready for adven-
ture, or they never would have trusted their lives so
far from their home on the frail boats which they
called ships. Out of the Straits of Gibraltar they
sailed, over a rough ocean to a land of savages, to get
the much treasured tin, and far, far beyond to get
other things they wanted.

For years and years theirs were the ships that
sailed back and forth in the Mediterranean and in the
Atlantic Ocean, carrying about to the different
peoples many a new idea as well as the articles of

GROWTH IN RELIGION 271

trade. It was they, as we shall see in the next
chapter, who carried from Egypt to Greece many of
the things which the Egyptians had discovered and
used, but which the Greeks made more useful and
more beautiful.

The Egyptians were the most civilized nation at
that time, but the Greeks possessed the greater souls
and the keener minds. Because of their love of
beauty and their desire to do and to make every-
thing in the best way, the Greeks became the teach-
ers of the other nations in Europe. To them we
ourselves owe much of our architecture, our art and
our literature. But it was the Phoenician traders
who first taught the Greeks some of the very things
that the Greeks themselves improved upon and after-
ward taught the world.

Now these Phoenicians, although they were so-
brave and courageous in spirit, and so useful in start-
ing Europe toward a higher civilization than any
other countries of the Old World have attained, were
not themselves truly civilized. They did not grow
as God meant that mankind should grow, and this
was largely because they had the wrong thought of
God. They believed that He desired human sacri-
fices. In their mistaken worship they did such cruel
and wicked things that they became cruel and
wicked in their own Uves. All the other nations
came to hate them for these traits, and finally they
were conquered, their rich and powerful city was
destroyed and they were a nation of traders no
longer.

One nation there was at that time whose people

272 THE COMING OF MAN

worshiped God in ways and with thoughts that
made them truly great, because it made their lives
truly moral. These were the Hebrews, the descend-
ants of Abraham, whose history is written in the
Bible.

You have heard the story of Abraham, how he
started out from the land of his fathers to worship,
in a new place, the unseen Spirit whom he had come
to know as the true God. His people were the
Chaldeans, who had always worshiped the sun and
fire. They used no image; no temple roof had shut
away their rising thoughts from the vast firmament
that is full of the evidences of God's work and of His
love. Nightly they studied the stars and learned by
their devout study many of the laws that govern the
heavens.

It is not to be wondered at, then, that a child of
such a reverent people should have felt his way to a
truer thought of God, that God of whose Spirit we all
partake and in whose loving protection we all share.
Nor does it seem strange that the people who began
so long ago to feel that God is Spirit and that He
demands that His children shall offer to Him lives that
are pure and good, should be the people who have
given to the world its highest religion as well as its
holiest leader.

So mankind has grown, reaching onward and up-
ward to a better and a higher life.

LESSON 33
MAN'S PROGRESS: THE WRITTEN WORD

MEMORY VERSE

Let not kindness and truth forsake thee:

Bind them about thy neck;

Write them upon the tablet of thy heart:

So shalt thou find favor and good understanding

In the sight of God and man.

Prov. 3: 3, 4

The Purpose

This lesson which tells the story of the invention and
adoption of the alphabet, and its subsequent benefit to
the future ages of men, has the purpose of impressing
upon the children the importance of thought and of being
able to communicate thought; also, that the written
thought, if it be worthy and true, lives on to help
mankind.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The story of the invention of the alphabet can be made
as fascinating as a fairy tale, if read with the right spirit
and emphasis; and it ought to interest the children in
those words which often, in their daily lessons, have
seemed tedious and uninteresting to them.

Let it be impressed upon them that even children be-
come more or less like thpse companions that they admire;
and that the best companions, the best books and the
best thoughts will lead them to become better and more
useful men and women.

273

274 THE COMING OF MAN

Hand Work

The pupils should be encouraged to attempt the vari-
ous ways of expressing thought without the use of spoken
or written words. The leaflet gives opportunity for the
study of picture-writing on a totem pole, and for reading
and writing a rebus. If the children should now learn the
deaf-and-dumb alphabet, it might sometime add greatly to
their ability to do helpful service.

OPENING TALK

How many of you can talk by making signs with your
fingers? What do those signs stand for? Letters! But
l)eople had words and spoke together long before they
had letters to represent the sounds. Can you think of
some signs you would make to some one who could not
understand English? What motion would you make if
you wanted to say river? hill? something to eat?

How people came to have an alphabet with which to
write makes our story to-day. When we have finished
it we will look at another and earlier way of writing, by
pictures and signs, and see if you can make out the rebus
on your leaflet.

THE WRITTEN WORD

There is one thing that the Phoenicians invented
that has made a vast difference to all the world. It
is the alphabet.

Did you ever wonder why those little letters that
make up our words came to represent the sounds
we give them when we read? Before you went to
school you never thought of letters when you heard
any one talking or when you talked yourself. But
when you learned to read, you had to learn the
sound of all those letters that make up our written
words. For each one represents some sound that
we make with our throats, our tongues and our lips,
the sounds which form our spoken words.

Savages and uncivilized races have a spoken lan-
guage, but they cannot read or write. Learning to
speak has been a natural growth in human beings,
like learning to use their hands, but the art of writ-
ing they have had to invent.

Those very earliest men of all could only grunt
and make sounds something like the sounds the
animals made all about them. Some of those sounds
we still make when we are pleased or surprised or
hurt. We say, ^'Ah!" and ^^Oh!" if we are sur-
prised or pleased, ''Ugh!" if we are quite displeased
and ''Umph!" if we do not care much about a thing;
and it was by making sounds like these that the first

275

276 THE COMING OF MAN

men talked together. But when they commenced
to think more clearly they found it necessary to
talk to others about their thoughts, and they needed
more than those simple sounds. So they helped t6
explain their thoughts with signs that they made
with their hands.

That is the sign language, and it is still used by
persons who wish to speak together and yet do not
know the same language. All children enjoy play-
ing with sign language and trying to see how well
they can make each other understand what they are
talking about.

Very gradually those cave men commenced to
make new sounds as a help in making themselves
understood. Perhaps they tried to tell about the
different animals they saw in their hunting by imi-
tating their cries. In that way they learned to
change the sounds by moving their tongues and
lips. This soon gave them words. With words they
could say much more than with sounds alone. With
words they could give names to the living creatures
and all the objects that they saw about them, and
when they began to make other words which de-
scribed people and things and told what they were
doing, then they began to have a spoken language.

Now with a spoken language men seem to have
been content for a long, long time. They became
quite civilized without having known anything of
a written language. If they wished to record a fact,
they represented it by drawings, as the English
found our North American Indians doing when they
came here.

THE WRITTEN WORD 277

All uncivilized peoples use picture writing, for
they have never learned any other way. Even those
early cave men made pictures. Some have been
found in the caves they used to inhabit, and the
drawing is done so well that we can easily understand
what animals those rough and savage men were
trying to represent. They drew, too, with a sharply
pointed rock upon bone or ivory, which was a much
harder way to draw than your way, with a pencil
and paper.

As men began to live in tribes and afterward in
nations, they wished to record their deeds; but the
only way they had was by this ancient way of pic-
tures. Even such a great and civilized nation as the
Egyptians recorded their deeds by picture writing.
You must have seen their hieroglyphics in the
museums. But you could never imagine what they
meant, because their hieroglyphics are not simple
pictures telling about simple objects, but long
records of many deeds told by mixing pictures with
symbols much in the way we make up a rebus. As
time went on the Egyptians used fewer pictures
and more symbols, and many of the symbols repre-
sented sounds; but further than that they never
went.

Now, when the Phoenician traders came sailing
along in the Mediterranean they found that the
Egyptians were far more advanced than any of the
other peoples with whom they traded. Being quick
to learn new and better ways of doing things, and
observing how the Egyptians made their records,
the Phoenicians learned to use the Egyptian writ-

278 THE COMING OF MAN

ing and to spread this knowledge among the other
nations.

But they soon found all those pictures and symbols
too cumbersome to use in their trade, and no wonder;
for how could the Phoenician merchant in Tyre send
a definite order, made out like a rebus, to the miners
in the tin mine in Britain. It took too long to make,
and it was too hard to read.

Business men could not spend time writing orders
that at best were puzzling, even in those long-ago
days. So they invented a simpler method. They
changed the Egyptian symbols into simpler forms,
choosing one to stand for each sound that they made
in their words. Twenty- two plain little symbols
they made, and these put together in different ways
represented all their words. We call such symbols
the alphabet. These little symbolic sounds having
been agreed upon, the merchants in Tyre could
send definite and simple orders to their miners, their
traders and their sailors, which would be understood
and obeyed. So their business prospered.

Now the Greeks at this time were marvelous story
tellers. They imagined that every different thing
in nature was the work of some god or goddess.
They imagined, too, pretty stories to explain why
nature is as it is. They had poets who told these
stories and who sang long songs of the wondrous
deeds] performed by their heroes. But as they had
no way to write these things down, they could only
preserve them by committing them to memory.
Bards went about from place to place singing and
reciting the stories of the gods and goddesses and

THE WRITTEN WORD 279

of the heroes. In this way the tales were handed
down from father to son.

When the Phoenician traders came with their neat
httle letters arranged into written words, you can
imagine how eagerly the Greeks seized the idea,
and how quickly they adapted those letters to suit
their own sounds and words, by dropping some and
adding others, as their spoken language demanded.

With their alphabet arranged to represent all the
sounds that they made, and grouped to represent the
spoken words, the Greeks wrote down their stories and
their poems. They became great writers and thinkers,
and also great artists. Everything they made and
wrote they tried to make beautiful and noble. ' ' Noth-
ing too much" was the motto they went by, and
they tried to do everything in a symmetrical way,
without exaggeration and without excess.

From telling the stories about the gods who, they
thought, represented everything in nature, they
learned to love nature itself. They studied the
forms in the world about them and tried to represent
truly the beauty of what they saw. They thought
about the beauty and wonder of the world and how
it was made; how it could be helped by good and
lovely thoughts and deeds, and how marred by bad
and unlovely ones. Their statues are the most
beautiful that have ever been made, their temples the
finest type of architecture, and their writings some
of the best things we have in all literature.

Because of the high endeavor of these Greeks they
have become the teachers of all the rest of Europe.
Their alphabet it was that the Romans took, and,

280 THE COMING OF MAN

having made the letters straighter and simpler,
they passed them on to us. The very word *' alpha-
bet" which we use is made from the names of the
first two Greek letters, alpha, beta.

The Hebrews were another nation that adopted
the Phoenician alphabet and changed it to suit
their own spoken language. They were of the same
race as the Phoenicians, but their worship had
elevated them above those neighboring merchant
people of Tyre and Sidon. These trading Phoeni-
cians were rich in goods, in gold and silver and
tin, in amber and silks and spices; but the Hebrews
were rich in thoughts and in their love of the unseen
Spirit who '^made the world and all that therein
is." They knew that He had made them and they
tried to find out His will and to do it. They, too,
wrote their thoughts, so that, like the Greeks, the
Hebrews have given to the world a great literature.
It is largely found in the Bible, their sacred book
and ours, for it has come down to us from that time
long ago when it was first written.

For a long time people have been writing their
thoughts, and the world contains many books which
tell us the thoughts of others. These may be a
great help in our lives or they may do us harm^ ac-
cording as the thoughts of the writers are noble and
high or low and unworthy. Books can be good
friends or they can be bad friends. When we choose
the best books to read we are filling our minds with
the best thoughts. When a good book is written it
lives on and on, often influencing the minds of
generations of men and women.

LESSON 34
THE STORY OF STEAM

MEMORY VERSE

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And estabhsh thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Ps. 90:17

The Purpose

This lesson is given to open the eyes of the children
to the extraordinary use man has been able to make of
such comparatively simple things in nature as rocks and
water. That these things always existed on the earth
with the same laws that they have now, and only awaited
the thoughtful notice of man to become his most useful
servant, is the special lesson to be drawn.

The prayer in the memory verse may well be used
with the thought of man's many inventions in mind.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The story of the progress of mankind is here brought
up to modern times by the story of steam. The children
should be made to realize how simple a thing steam seems
to be when looked at without thought; and yet what an
extraordinary force it has proved to be because it was
looked upon with thought. The lesson that the common
things often bring the greatest blessings will be repeated
in other forms. It should be impressed upon the child's
mind.

281

282 THE COMING OF MAN

How rapid man's progress has been in recent times will
be miderstood even by young children when they realize
that every mile of railroad in the world has been built
since 1814. The same thought may be carried into the
next lesson and applied to electrical inventions.

Hand Work

Encourage the pupils to think out for themselves what
they shall write on each of the topics suggested on page 4
of the leaflet. Let one member of the class tell the story
of Watt and the teakettle when the work is inspected the
following Sunday.

OPENING TALK

What moves a railroad train? What moves the engine?
Can you think of a world in which there are no trains of
cars? It is not so long ago that just such a world as that
was the one people had always known. The genius of
one man brought about this great change, and the sub-
stance that he used, water, was the one which has done
so much to make over our world.

THE STORY OF STEAM

By the time the alphabet was invented and the
most advanced nations along the Mediterranean had
begun to use it, they had begun to use iron also.
With the use of the sharp iron implements the skill
of the people became greater and greater, and as their
skill increased the quickness of the mind increased
also. They began to inquire more and more into the
nature of those mysterious forces which they could
feel and use but could not see. In this way the race
of mankind had been going to school. Nature had
been the teacher, and they learned well the lessons
she was trying to teach them.

The cave man, partly covered with a lion's skin,
would not think much: for he did not know much.
Even the lake dweller, dressed in a coarse linen cloth,
would only look out over the lake and wonder what
luck he would have in his fishing the next day.

But the civilized and cultured Greek, dressed in a
closely woven tunic of the softest wool, would look
about him with seeing eyes and with a bus}^ mind.
As the rays of the setting sun fell upon a plant of
honeysuckle growing near him, he would see what a
graceful decoration it would make about the base of
a golden bowl, and he would use what he had seen
to make more beautiful the common things of daily
life.

283

284 THE COMING OF MAN

The Hebrew shepherd would look up into the clear
vault of the heavens and watch the stars come out
one by one, until the night was wondrous with their
clear and sparkling light. But his inner eyes would
see beyond the stars, and his spirit would feel the
nearness of the unseen Friend, the Maker of it all.

So by thought, which written language has pre-
served, mankind has grown. All the great ones who
ever lived have become great because their thoughts
were busy upon things of importance, and their eyes
looked searchingly into the truth of God's creations.
They became inventors and discoverers, poets and
prophets.

Now as the discovery of iron and the invention of
writing sent those early nations that learned to use
them so far ahead of the others, and as the invention
of printing has helped still more, the use of steam has
also given the civilized world another great push for-
ward, by making it possible to do much more than
could be done in any other way. Through the use of
steam articles of daily need, such as our clothes, ciu"
furniture and our dishes, and books containing the
thoughts of great men, can be manufactured by
machinery in great quantities, and so cheaply as to
come within the reach of all. Because of steam, too,
commerce and travel are made so much easier that
people of different nations not only send to each
other great quantities of goods, but travel about,
visit each other, see the different countries, and so
become more highly developed.

Just as the people about the Mediterranean Sea
became most civilized through their commerce and

THE STORY OF STEAM 285

their travel, so the great ease with which steam
enables the trading and traveling of the present day
to be done, has advanced the nations of the whole
world.

Useful inventions made in one country are pro-
cured and used in other countries. Never a book is
written but may be translated and sent to all other
nations. Because of the ease of manufacture all the
people may now have the books and comforts that
only the well-to-do could procure a century or more
ago.

Now the ancients knew about steam, and used it
in ways to frighten or amuse the people, but it was
centuries before the thought of one man found a way
to put it to practical use.

You have all heard how the boy, James Watt, used
to amuse himself watching the steam come out of
the nose of the teakettle and seeing what it would do.
His eyes were quick to see that the steam lifted the
lid of the teakettle, because steam filled a great deal
of space and wanted to fill more. He also saw that
that same space-filling steam could be reduced to a
few drops of water again as soon as it was chilled.

In after years the thoughtful play of his boyhood
helped him to invent an engine that would harness
steam to do work that it would take thousands of
people and horses to do. This boy, who used to
spend his playtime doing mathematical problems,
watching steam, making experiments in chemistry
and constructing useful machines, became such a
benefactor to the world as few could ever hope to be.
He invented the steam engine.

286 THE COMING OF MAN

Although Watt and all his friends knew, at the
time, that his invention was very important, they
could never have dreamed what great changes would
come because of it. When he first invented the
steam engine it was used to do work in just one place,
that is, it was a stationary engine. After a time some
one thought to have the engine itself move as it does
now in the railway locomotive. Watt himself had
said it could be used for that purpose. He lived long
enough to take a trip on a steamboat, and to hear that
some one was trying to use his engine for a steam
carriage. Whenever you see a railroad train you will
think how well that attempt has succeeded.

The stationary steam engine, with its appliances,
does the work that the hands of men, women and
even children used to do in mills and factories; the
steamboat makes travel upon water faster and safer ;
and the steam locomotive draws a load a thousand
times heavier than • strong horses oould draw, and
does it with much greater speed.

Now what is this steam which people had known
about for so long but which the thoughtful young
Watt discovered could be harnessed to do most of
our work?

You remember, do you not, that it is another form
of water? It is water heated so hot that it evaporates
rapidly and fills a much larger space than it did be-
fore. So that very same water, which does such a
work in making over the surface of the earth, and
changing about the minerals hidden in the ground, is,
when turned into steam, harnessed by man and used
to help him in his work.

THE STORY OF STEAM 287

Iron, coal and water are three most useful servants
working together under man's thought and direction,
enabling him to do great things. Without coal, the
great iron and steel engines could not be made, nor
could there be water enough converted into steam to
fill them.

Rocks and water, such common things, yet what
use we make of them ! What a power to help is the
black metal in the rocks; the black, glistening rock
that will burn; and the water that is so abundant
on our earth.

Do you not suppose that the world contains many
more gifts as useful, if we could only find what they
are?

But that is man's duty, to search throughout the
world with seeing eyes and a reverent mind, looking
for the gifts God has given to us in nature, and for
the laws which enable us to understand and use
them.

LESSON 35
THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY

MEMORY VERSE

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock,
and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth;
and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened.

Matt. 7: 7, 8

The Purpose

That the treasures with which God has filled the world
are here waiting to be used and can be found by the
earnest seeker is a lesson well adapted to the questioning
minds of children from nine to ten years of age. The
added truth that God bids us seek is the special purpose
of this lesson.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The lessons to be drawn from the story of electricity
are much the same as those from the story of steam.
Here, however, stress should be laid not only upon the
fact that the laws have existed from the beginning, but
also upon the truth that what we earnestly search for
we shall find. The teacher should provide herself with
one of the sets of articles to be rubbed, which is given in
the list of the handwork, and show the children how
the electricity was obtained that amused and interested
people for so many centuries.

288

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY 289

Hand Work

The children are to try as manj^ of the experiments
given on the list as possible, putting a cross beside the
names of those objects they have electrified.

OPENING TALK

You may each tell me how many things you have in
your homes that employ electricity. Can you remember
when your family first owned and used any of these?

How men thought and asked questions of nature until
they found out how to store up electricity, and how many
ways they have found of using it make a real story.

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY

For a much longer time than they had seen
steam, people had seen lightning, but they did not
know what it was or how it came to be. They
thought that it was sent to the earth by an angry
god, who used it to show his displeasure. Even such
civilized nations as the Greeks and Romans be-
lieved that, and they represented their principal god,
Zeus or Jupiter, as holding the thunderbolts. The
Hebrews thought thunder was the voice of Jehovah.
Later on, when people became Christians, they
still looked upon the lightning as something mys-
terious and not at all to be explained or understood.

None of these people ever dreamed what the
lightning really was. Little did they think that
the peculiar power which they had noticed in amber
when it was rubbed was the same power that made
the flashes of hghtning. Most of the ancient peo-
ples were acquainted with amber and they had
noticed its peculiar qualities. As early as the be-
ginning of their trade, the Phoenician merchants
used to carry amber to the different cities around
the Mediterranean. The Greeks named it ''elec-
tron," or, ''the shining thing," and they made
up a beautiful story about the pieces of bright
amber. They said that they were the tears of
the sisters of Phaethon. Have you ever heard the

290

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY 291

story of Phaethon, how he drove the chariot of the
sun?

Now, amber is really pitch, — pitch that fell from
great pine trees that grew long before man lived
upon the world. Whenever these pine trees grew
near the shore, the pitch, dropping into the water,
or being washed into it, was covered over and so
preserved for us in nature's book. But the Greeks
knew nothing about that, they only knew that it was
a strange substance. They thought that it must
have something to do with a god; for, when they
rubbed it to polish it, there seemed to be something
alive in it, — something that would reach out and
take hold of little particles of dust or straw and
draw them to itself. The little particles sprang to
it and stuck for a moment to its sides.

Did you ever rub an amber bead on a piece of
woolen cloth and see how bits of paper would fly
to it? If you do not have amber, use a rod or plate
of glass, a stick of sealing wax, or a rubber comb.
Have you ever seen your hair follow the comb some
cold winter day, or made sparks come by scuffing
across the carpet and then touching some one with
your finger tip?

As people came to see more and more of such
strange effects from different substances, they
studied into the matter until they learned to col-
lect this amazing something in such quantities
that it could be stored away and kept.

It is no wonder that the Greeks- could not explain
what they saw. Indeed, it has taken thousands of
years for men to find out what a strange power it is

292 THE COMING OF MAN

that makes the amber act as it does when rubbed.
We call that power electricity, from the name the
Greeks gave to amber; but, although we know how
to produce it, how to store it and how to make it
work for us, we do not know even yet what elec-
tricity really is.

Now, while people were trying to learn more
about this extraordinary power to which they gave
the name electricity, there was a man living in
America who made an important discovery. His
quick eyes told him that the jagged flash of light,
which leaped through the air from one to another of
those surfaces that had been charged with elec-
tricity, was just like a flash of lightning. He de-
termined to find out if it could be true that the
lightning, one of the greatest mysteries of nature,
could be caused by the same power that made the
tiny flash or spark in the electrical instrimients nien
had been making.

So this man, Benjamin Franklin, went out of
doors when a thunderstorm was coming on, taking
a silk kite that he had made and pointed with wire,
a silk ribbon which he tied to the cord of the kite,
and a key to hang upon the ribbon. With these he
hoped to coax the lightning out of the sky and bottle
it up in a Leyden jar.

You must have heard the stoiy, and know that
he succeeded in proving to the world that the mys-
terious lightning was electricity, not an unknown
thing to be feared and dreaded, but a force of nature
that, like everything else, had laws of its own to
follow.

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY 293

The story of electricity is even more marvelous
than that of steam. We have come to depend upon
it in our daily life, and remarkable are the things
that it will do. Men have discovered how to collect
electricity, how to store it and to measure it. They
learned too what wonderful things it can do when it
is harnessed in the right way. Each new discovery
about the laws that govern it, each new invention of
a way to make a practical use of it, has helped to
bring about even better ways, for many wise men
are using all their thought to find new uses still for
this invisible servant.

Have you ever seen a telegram handed in at the
door by a messenger boy? Do you know what that
telegram really is, and how the words came to be
upon that slip of paper? Or how do you think it
happens, that when we talk through the telephone
we can hear our friend's voice so distinctly? And
what is it that makes it possible for us to hear the
voice of a great singer coming out of the phono-v
graph? It is electricity that does all these things,
but electricity held in control by the inventions of
men who have studied its nature and its laws.

We are quite used to seeing wires stretched across
poles and we know well that those wires carry elec-
tricity. We know, also, that wherever those wires
go, into a factory, into a station, or into a house, the
electricity which the wires carry will be made to do
some work. Have you ever thought much about
those wires and the electricity that is traveling along
them?

That little box by your telephone holds a machine

294 THE COMING OF MAN

that i« the result of the thoughts of generations of
men, who have been ready to give up their own
comfort and ease in Hfe, in order to search out new
laws in nature, and apply them for the benefit of
mankind. Some of these have thought of new things
that could be done, leaving others to find the way,
— just as Watt said his engine ought to be able to
move a carriage, but Stephenson found the way to
make it do so. Many other men have seen in a flash
with their mind's eye some new way to use an old
discovery.

As iron and coal must be used with steam to make
it the useful servant it is, so electricity could not
be what it is to us unless we had learned the use of
certain metals and minerals, such as iron, copper,
platinum and carbon. It is no longer a plaything
merely, as it is when we rub amber or rubber to get
its effect; not something frightful, as lightning once
seemed to be. It is one of the great workers of the
world.

Perhaps we shall not always need in making elec-
tricity just what we need at the present time.
Probably thinking men from year to year will find
new ways that are simpler and better. Perhaps
some boy or some girl, who hears or reads these
words, may find an easier,* quicker way to do some-
thing that we now look upon as quite wonderful.

Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph, and
Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone,
thought that electricity must always travel over a
wire if messages were to be sent by it; but Marconi,
the Italian inventor, has found that he can make

THE STORY OF ELECTRICITY 295

machines that will send and receive messages with-
out wire. It is not so long ago that Marconi, then
almost a boy, startled the world by sending across
the ocean his first message through the air. Now,
one ship in trouble can be helped out by the other
ships that receive its '^wireless" messages of dis-
tress sent through the air.

A person living in the world to-day can receive in
a few moments a message by telegraph from a friend
Hving more than a thousand miles away. He can
talk by telephone with a friend who lives even three
thousand miles away. He can send home a message
under the ocean by cable, if he is travehng in Europe;
and he can even send word back to his family when
he is in mid-ocean, telling them that he is safe and
well.

He can travel on trains that go so swiftly it
takes our breath away to watch them; he can
travel on electric cars or in an automobile. He
can cross the ocean in great safety and comfort in
a swiftly moving steamship; he can even travel
under the ocean in a submarine, and in the air in
an airplane.

Does it seem as if more than this could be done?
Yet nature still beckons to the mind and to the seeing
eyes of mankind. She has many more secrets to
tell to those who desire to learn them. Many of
the boys and girls of to-day will join the ranks of
those who, by their thought and devotion, have
benefited the lives of all mankind. It was only a
short time ago that Marconi was a boy, and think
what he has done!

296 THE COMING OF MAN

Nature has a reward for every diligent searcher
after her truths. Did not Jesus say, ''He that seek-
eth, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be
opened"? ■

LESSON 36
SEARCHERS AFTER NATURE^S TRUTHS

MEMORY VERSE

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

H. W. Longfellow

The Purpose

This lesson serves as an introduction to the three
lessons on astronomy and also as a suggestion to the chil-
dren of the marvelous power that God has given to the
mind of man. The nearness of God to man, leading him
ever onward through his mind and soul, and helping him
in that way to help the world itself, is the special lesson
to be given the children.

Suggestions for the Teacher

This lesson should be given in such a way as to awake
the child's interest in thought itself — the thought that
is able to prove things true that we cannot see or touch
or feel. It is a difficult subject for their comprehension,
and yet it is felt that their minds can take the mere sug-
gestion of it that is given here. If the lesson is given to
them in the spirit of wonder, they will learn to look with
wonder toward the God-given mind of man.

The brief accounts of the three great discoverers help
make the subject concrete.

297

298 THE COMING OF MAN

The opportunity to awaken international interest, be-
cause Poland, Italy and England gave these great men
to the world, should not be missed.

Hand Work

Many pupils will need assistance before making the
lists called for on the leaflet. Let the preparation be a
class interest, each sharing with the rest his present
knowledge of inventors or discoverers, the teacher
suggesting the names of one or more about whom they
may learn.

OPENING TALK

Name some of the great men our own country has
produced. We know of these because they lived in our
own land and spoke our own language. Bui} many lands
have produced great men, and in time, no matter what
language they spoke, their thoughts and discoveries have
gone all over the world. Our story to-day is about three
of these, from three different countries, whom we shall
want to remember.

SEARCHERS AFTER NATURE'S TRUTHS

The great men who have taught us the uses of
steam and electricity are only a few of those who have
spent their lives in searching to learn the laws of
nature, those laws that God has given to the world,
and to know those things that make up the world'
whether gas, or rock, or plant, or living creature, or
an unseen force.

At first all men thought the earth was flat, because
the Httle we can see at one time looks flat. They
believed that it was surrounded by a mighty ocean
into which the sun sank at night, and out of which it
rose again on the other side in the morning. They
saw the sun and the stars rise in the east, move
through the sky, and sink out of sight in the west.
Why should they not beUeve what they saw?

Most of them rested content with taking things
to be just what they appeared to be, but some ques-
tioned and wondered. ''What is the world ? " they
thought. ''What is the sun, and what are all those
myriads of stars, which flash and twinkle through
the nights, and which seem to change with the differ-
ent seasons?"

They noticed that the sun did not seem to travel
through the sky along the same path among the stars
month by month. In the winter it was much nearer
the horizon than it was in the long, summer days.

299

300 THE COMING OF MAN

The moon, too, was always changing its position,
sometimes travehng low, sometimes high. They
noticed that it changed its shape from day to day,
from a thin crescent into a round, full moon, then
changing back, until in twenty-eight days it would
begin again as a narrow silver crescent in the w^est.
You see it change in this way yourselves.

All those things they pondered over, until some
whose eyes were keen to notice the things in the
world as well as those in the sky, and whose minds
were keen to think about what they saw, concluded
that the world must be round like a ball. But they
still thought of it as fixed in space, with the sun,
moon and stars revolving about it. They believed
that the world was the center of all things; and when
they noticed that the stars did not seem to change
their positions in regard to each other, they thought
that those twinkling stars must be fastened to the
dome of the heavens, which itself revolved around
the earth, carrying the stars with it.

Men thought this for hundreds of years. If you
had Uved then, you would have been taught just
what the rest believed. But you might have been
one of those who saw more clearly than the others,
and could not believe in a fixed earth with a revolving
dome above it. You might have wondered about it,
and tried to understand it better.

That is just what Copernicus did. He was a
searcher for truth who was born in Poland. He
watched the movements of the sun, the moon and
the stars, and after thinking about them for a long
time he announced to the world that the sun was the

SEARCHERS AFTER NATURE'S TRUTHS 301

center of the solar system, and that the earth did not
stand still, but moved around the sun as did all the
other planets.

''What makes the sun and stars seem to move
around the earth," he said, ''is that we are moving.
It is just the same if you are riding in a carriage.
The trees and houses seem to go past you in the
opposite direction from the way you are going.
You know they do not move, it is you who are
moving. In the same way it is the motion of our
earth itself which makes the stars seem to move
around it."

Great was the consternation created in the world!
Such a thought was wicked ! It could not be believed !
"How could it be possible," men said, "for our
earth to be anything but the center of the universe?
Was it not made for us, and was not the sun made to
warm us and light us by day, and the moon and
stars to give us hght by night?" So in their self-
importance they would not listen to the thought of
that great searcher after truth.

The book in which Copernicus set down what he
had found was printed and placed in his hands just
before he died. Some people read it and beheved
what it stated. One of these was Galileo, an Italian,
who was born in Italy just twenty-four years after
the death of Copernicus. He heard that the Dutch
had found a way to make distant objects look nearer
by using lenses. He grasped the idea at once and
made his first telescope. With it he searched the
heavens for more knowledge of the sun, moon and
planets. How Galileo has opened the eyes of man-

302 THE COMING OF MAN

kind! What wonderful things men have been able
to do and to learn because he showed them how to
see into space!

Did you ever look through an opera glass or a spy-
glass and see how near it seems to bring a distant
object? Perhaps you have had the good fortune to
look through a telescope at the moon, and to have
seen some of the mountains and valleys that Galileo
first saw upon its surface and told the world about.
There are much larger telescopes now, and they bring
those distant orbs much nearer to us than the small
telescope of Galileo could; nevertheless, he showed
us the way to see beyond the world we live in, and to
see under standingly.

By studying the sun and the planets he was con-
vinced that Copernicus was right in saying that the
sun was the center and the earth moved around it,
and he boldly proclaimed this in his teaching. For
daring to state, and for trying to prove, this new
truth, so different from what was generally believed,
Galileo was persecuted and put in prison. But his
statement was true, and in time everybody believed it.
Those people who opposed Galileo could not stop
the progress of knowledge, for all their trying.
''Truth is mighty and shall prevail," and the truth
about the revolution of the earth around the sun did
prevail. What Copernicus discovered and Galileo
proved with his telescope is now taught to boys and
girls in the schools of all civilized countries.

There is one more of these searchers after truth
who discovered a great law of our universe and whose
name is associated with that of Copernicus and

SEARCHERS AFTER NATURE'S TRUTHS 303

Galileo. It is Sir Isaac Newton, who was born in
England the very year that Galileo died.

Perhaps you have heard the story of Sir Isaac
Newton sitting under the apple tree, and asking him-
self the question any child might ask: ''What makes
an apple fall to the ground?" And this searcher for
truth thought about that falUng apple and other
motions of bodies on the earth and of the planets out
in space, until he found an answer. He said there
was an invisible force everywhere pulling particles of
matter toward each other, moving smaller bodies
toward larger ones. This force he called gravitation.
He knew that if he was right about the pull of that
force, he could prove it from the movement of the
moon around our earth, and of the planets around
the sun.

Do you think that was easy to do? Oh, no! Even
after his keen mind had thought out a reason for
what he saw, Newton had to work very hard to prove
his law. He covered whole pages with figures. How
long do you think his patience lasted? One year?
Two? Three? For seventeen years Newton kept on
thinking and trying, and still he had not proved what
he believed to be true.

One day he heard that another scientist had found
a new measurement for the curve of the earth's sur-
face, more accurate than before, which would give a
different number for the mass or weight of the earth.
Newton hurried home, put that new number into
his pages of figures, worked his long problem all over
again, — and this time it was right. He had proved
his great law of gravitation, and helped people to

304 THE COMING OF MAN

understand the mighty unseen force which keeps
each planet in its course, and holds all the vast
systems of suns and worlds to regular paths and
orbits.

These men, and those who came after them, who
spent their lives searching for truth, have found how
the earth and the planets move, and they can tell
just where in the sky they will be at any time. You
have only to see a page of the neat little figures with
which these thinkers calculate the orbits of the
planets, to be filled with wonder at the power that
God has given to the human mind; for these men
have gone beyond the world with their thought, and
they have proved the truth of things that they can
neither touch, nor feel, nor see.

They seem so far above ordinary mortals that we
look up to them with amazement; they seem like
different beings from us. But no! They were chil-
dren once, looking just like ordinary children. Some
of them were delicate and sickly ; some were poor, so
poor that they had to work hard at their daily tasks
before they could begin to do the work they loved
and dreamed of day by day. Some of them were well
educated in the schools, but others gained by them-
selves from books and experiments that knowledge
which led them on to success.

Many of these boys had mothers whose love and
ambition for them made them what they were. Some
had sisters, daughters, and nieces, without whose
patient and loving help they could not have suc-
ceeded. And many of these wonderful minds be-
longed to women: Maria Mitchell, the astronomer,

SEARCHERS AFTER NATURE'S TRUTHS 305

and Madam Curie, who discovered radium, are among
the number.

So God blesses the world of men and women
through the men and women themselves, — the men
and women who were once children. In every child,
then, lies the possibility of becoming one of those
world helpers; and every child, whether or not he
becomes himself a discoverer of new truth, may learn
to keep an open mind to receive the discoveries made
by those who are searchers after truth.

LESSON 37
GOD»S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT

MEMORY VERSE

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon,
and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another star
in glory. 1 Cor. 15: 41

The Purpose

These lessons on the heavenl}^ bodies (37-39) follow
those which relate the progress of mankind as a natural
sequence, because thej^ give the results of the power of
thought to which man has attained.

They can do little more than to awaken in the minds
of the children wonder and amazement at the vastness of
God's universe. But a reverent wonder aroused in child-
liood over the heavenh' bodies will ripen in later years to
a breadth of mind which of itself will insure truth-seeking.

The religious purpose of this lesson is to acquaint the
children with the vastness of the system to which our own
wonderful world belongs, and to show them that it is be-
cause of the power of God's spirit dwelling in each one of
us that the truths about these worlds beyond us have
been revealed.

Suggestions for the Teacher

The teacher should be prepared with some known
distances to be used as an illustration of the different
measurements given. If possible show the children how

306

GOD'S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT 307

an opera glass is constructed, how the lenses are inserted
in the tube, the convex lens at the back and the eye-piece
at the front. The opera glass is the same form of tele-
scope that was used by Galileo.

The children should be made to realize as much as
possible the immensity of space which the telescope has
opened up to us; and the knowledge that the prisms have
enabled us to obtain of those other vast suns that appear
to us as points of light.

Hand Work

If possible, have the pupils study light through a prism
before attempting to do the work asked for on the leaflet.

Interest in the Bible passages about the sun may be
aroused in class. Remind the children of certain inci-
dents and verses they know already which mention the
sun: (1) in the story of creation, (2) in the parable of
the sower, and (3) in the story of the transfiguration.
Do they know where to find these in the Bible, and how
to write the abbreviations for the books, and the chapter
and verse when found ? A little class teaching and prac-
tice on this use of the Bible may be needed. Then the
pupils may like to look through a single book, like Psalms
or Ecclesiastes or Revelation, to find how many times the
sun is there mentioned.

OPENING TALK

Shall we repeat together the memory verse for this
lesson ? A glory indeed is the bright shining of all these
heavenly bodies. Let us name them again (sun, moon,
stars). Which is nearest our earth? Which gives us
the most heat? The most light? Our story to-day will
tell you about God's gift of sunlight.

GOD'S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT

Do you remember what a great change came over
our earth when at last the sun pierced the thick fog
and began to shine directly upon it? What is the
sun, that it should have made so much difference in
the condition of the earth's surface? What does it
still do for our world?

The first people who lived on the earth must have
noticed some of the things we see: that when the
sun shines, its beams are warm, even hot in summer;
that night comes when the sun disappears below
the horizon, and that the night is cooler than the
day.

They noticed, too, that the sun must be far away,
because it was beyond the clouds, which seemed
quite far off themselves. In time they observed
that the sun seemed to change its course at different
seasons, sometimes climbing high up in the sky and
pouring down hot rays, sometimes going much lower
and sending dow^n slanting rays that seemed to
warm the earth very little. Probably it took a long
time for those early men to see the relation between
summer's heat and winter's cold, and the position
of the sun in the sky. They became used to the
changes and took them for granted, just as you
children do.

But there came a time, as it comes to you, when

308

GOD'S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT 300

they began to ask questions about these changes
and what the sun had to do with them. You can
ask some one who knows, but they could not.
They had to think out answers for themselves.

Many long ages it has taken men to answer these
questions. They have felt their way along, making
many mistakes, yet always coming nearer and
nearer to the truth; for was not the spirit of God
leading them on?

The thinkers came to beheve at last that the
earth was round like a ball, but it was centuries
before a daring Portuguese mariner started out to
sail entirely around our globe. One ship of the ex-
pedition succeeded in sailing around and coming
back to port. Then people knew that, indeed, the
earth must be round.

''If the earth is round like a ball, the other
heavenly bodies must be round also," said the
thinkers. But, until Galileo made his telescope, no
one could prove it. When he looked at the moon
through the leaden tube in which he had placed the
two pieces of lens-shaped glass that he had made, he
could see that it really was round. With larger and
larger telescopes the men who have searched the
starry sky have discovered many wonders in the
universe. Do you think those searchers of the sky
were eager to find out about the sun, what it really
is, what makes its light and heat, and how far away
it is? Indeed, many men have spent their lives trying
to learn more and more about the great orb upon
which the world itself and everything on it depends.

You shall hear some of the truths that they have

310 THE COMING OF MAN

learned. You would not understand it all — none
but the great thinkers themselves can do that —
but even a part of what they have discovered is a
wonderful story.

This, then, is the story of the sun.

It is an immense ball of glowing Ught, so large that
we cannot picture to ourselves its size, and so far
away that we can hardly imagine its distance, for
there is nothing upon the earth with which to com-
pare it. It may help us to get an idea of its distance
to think how long it would take one of our fastest
express trains to get there — those trains that take
away your breath when they dash by you.

It would take — now put on your thinking caps —
it would take about one hundred and seventy-eight
years for that express train to get to the sun, going
straight on and never stopping an instant. That is
twice as long as a very old man lives. That same
train, traveling at the same rate of speed, could go
around the equator of the earth, which is its largest
part, in seventeen days.

Just think of it ! To be only seventeen days going
around our great world, but one hundred and seventy-
eight years on a journey to the sun!

Can you think how far that would be? Or, can
you think how much larger the sun is than our world,
when you hear that this sixty-mile-an-hour express
train would require five years to go around the sun? ^
There is a great difference between seventeen days
and five years. Why, 3^ou are only about twice
five years old, and it is a long time since you were a

1 Figures given by Dolmage.

OOD'S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT 311

Imby; but seventeen days go by very quickly, they
are even fewer than the days between Thanksgiving
and Christmas. ^ ^

To this immense globe, the sun, that is so far away,
we owe all cm- light and heat. "How can the light
and heat reach us when they come so great a dis-
tance?" you ask.

Ah! that we do not know, -it is still a mystery. It
IS one of God's laws that we have not yet discovered.
Men have a way of explaining it by saying that it
comes on waves of ether, but what ether is no one
can tell. But you do know that some of the sun's
heat does get here, if you remember one of those hot
days m summer when the sun would have blistered
your skm if you had remained out in it long.

Yet they tell us — those searchers of the sky —
that "only about one-hundred-millionth part of the
sun's heat is caught by all the planets together"-
and there are seven other planets besides our world'
Now that is something that our minds cannot grasp
at all! Try to picture to yourself a huge bonfire in
an open field, with eight children scattered here and
there withm a circle five miles across. How much
of the heat of the bonfire would each of you children
receive? The one nearest the fire would feel its heat
the most. The child who was one-fifth of a mile
away would seem to get but little of its heat yet
that child would represent the earth's distance from
the sun. It is quite easy to understand, then, that
the heat which comes from the sun is very much
greater than the heat which comes from any fire
that we could possibly make.

312 THE COMING OF MAN

As for the light we receive from it, who can ever
look at the sun when it is shining brightly in the sky?
Have you noticed how feeble and dull even the
brightest electric lights look in bright daylight?

Now the heat and the light that come to us from
the sun are the very things upon which the whole
life of the world depends; yet what causes this light
and heat has been a study to many great men.
Wonderful inventions they have made, trying to
find out, if possible, what is in the light of the sun,
and much has been already learned about the
quality of that light, and about the sun from which
it comes.

You know what a rainbow is, for you have been
taught at school. It is the beautiful, white light of
the sun divided into its seven principal parts by the
drops of falling rain. You can divide a sunbeam
into its seven rainbow colors yourself with a prism
of glass.

What a simple-looking object a three-sided piece
of glass is, yet with that simple device men have
discovered a great thing, — that the white light of
the sun is made up of the seven brilliant colors that
we see in the rainbow.

Men have discovered also by means of these
prisms of what the sun is composed, what makes
its heat and its light, and even which side of the
sun is turning toward us. They tell us that the sun
is an immense ball of burning gases, and what those
gases are. For by a combination of prisms they
spread out a beam of white light into a band of
colored light crossed by dark lines. This they call

GOD'S GIFT OF SUNLIGHT 313

the solar spectrum. Then they burn the different
minerals which make up our earth, and taking the
spectrum of these and of different gases have com-
pared it with that of the sun. In this way they
found that the sun contains some of the same metals
and gases, such as iron, copper, platinum and hy-
drogen, that we know on our earth.

In the same way, by a combination of glass prisms,
they have made the light that comes from all those
distant stars resolve itself, and tell us of what they
are made. A great secret those stars have given
up, — those stars so much farther away from us
than even our own sun. It is nothing less than that
they themselves are suns, and that our sun is a
star!

Just with glass, which is made from such a com-
mon thing as sand, have these wonders been dis-
covered. But the hand of man first shaped the
glass, and the thought of those who searched deeply
and reverently into nature's secrets helped to ex-
plain what was seen.

It is by the eager search, continued through cen-
turies, that people have learned about this vast uni-
verse of which our world is a part. And all that we
learn makes us more reverent, more willing to trust
God, more eager to learn His real purpose for our
lives.

LESSON 38
THE SOLAR SYSTEM

MEMORY VERSE

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained,
What is man, that thou art mindful of him^i*
And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

Ps. 8:3, 4

The Purpose

The religious lesson to be given from this story of the
solar system is that the children of God should have no
fear or dread of the forces of nature. When we seek to
learn the truth about these forces we are set free from the
fears that ignorance causes.

Suggestions for the Teacher

Talk of the members of our solar system as near
neighbors in the sky. The children will then begin to have
a feeling for the friendly stars which may be carried over
in the next lesson to the more remote fixed stars or suns.

Use Bible references like Ps. 19: 1 ff. and the memory-
verse to show how even in remote times men were im-
pressed with the wonder of the heavens and moved to
worship at sight of them.

Hand Work

The teacher who has planned in advance may direct
the children's observations of the moon for a month be-

314

THE SOLAR SYSTEM 315

fore the work required on the leaflet is done. It will not
be necessary to tell them this lesson story before they
make their observations.

OPENING TALK

How would you like to live on a star? Well, you do
live on one, the kind of star called a planet. What other
stars there are like ours, all part of the sun's family, and
how the moon belongs especially to our star the earth,
you shall hear to-day.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Long ago Syrian shepherds, keeping watch over
their sheep in the quiet of the night, used to gaze at
the myriads of stars that twinkled down upon them
with a friendly light. They loved these stars as if
they were friends, for they were the only companions
the lonely shepherds had during those long, dark
nights. They had noticed the way the stars are
grouped in constellations, and they watched from
night to night to see when the same group of stars
would come above the horizon and swing up into the
sky. To some of the brightest stars they gave names,
and they learned just when and where to look for
them, and for the constellations of which they made
a part.

Among the brighter stars they had observed some
that were not always to be found when looked for.
These changed their places from time to time, and
did not seem to stay long with the same set of com-
panion stars. So they called them planets, which
meant wanderers.

For a long time men did not know what the planets
were, or why they acted in such a different way from
the other stars. Still less did they suspect that our
earth, on which we live, is just another one of these
planets. But we know now that the planets are
worlds, as is our earth, and shine by reflected hght like

316

THE SOLAR SYSTEM 317

the moon; while the real stars are suns, shining by
their own glowing light.

These worlds, or planets, all revolve around the
sun, and from the sun they borrow the light with
which they shine. They make up a sort of family
which we call the solar system. The sun is in the
center and around it revolve the eight planets.
Mercury comes first, almost hidden by the sun; then
Venus, like a great lamp hung in the sky. This is the
beautiful evening star that you sometimes see low
down in the west after the sun goes down. Then
part of the year it is the morning star, and shines in
the east before the sun rises. Our earth comes next,
carrying the moon with it in its journey round the sun.
Then, in order, are the red planet Mars, the splendid
Jupiter, and Saturn, which shines with a yellow light.
Then comes Uranus, quite lost among the smaller
stars, and last of all Neptune, not to be seen at all
excepting with a telescope.

All the planets except Mercury and Venus are
known to have moons. Could you think what our
sky would look like if there were eight moons to be
seen at night? The eight moons that both Jupiter
and Saturn have, or the four that go around Uranus,
would make our midnight sky almost as bright as
day. Even the two moons of Mars would seem quite
a sight to our eyes, especially since one of them rises
in the west and crosses the sky in just the opposite
direction from all the stars and the other moon.

But there are stranger things to be seen upon these
planets than just a moon seeming to go the wrong
way, for Saturn is surrounded by three rings. That

318 THE COMING OF MAN

is a thing so singular that we are at a loss to imagine
how our sky would look if those three great rings be-
longed to our world.

Jupiter, the largest of all the planets, is surrounded
by a thick, dense fog. It is warm, quite warm, by its
own heat, as if it were now going through the same
changes that our earth went through when it, too,
was so warm that the dense fog lay close and heavy
all about it. It is partly from what they see of these
other worlds, that the searchers after truth can tell
us what our world is like. Is it not strange that
we can look up into the sky and learn what our
world reaUy is, and see other planets going through
the same stages that our earth passes through? The
wonderful telescopes through which they look, the
carefulness with which the scholars observe, and
the wisdom with which they think upon those things
have all brought us nearer and nearer to some of the
great truths of God's universe.

Supposing, now, that some one living on one of the
planets could look at our earth, what would he see?
If he were as far away as Venus he would see a
steadily shining star like those we call the planets.
If he were upon the surface of the moon he would see
a glorious orb which would flood the moon with a
silvery light much brighter than that the moon gives
us. When our sky was clear and the sun was shining
brightly upon the earth, that ^^ someone" on the
moon could see the markings of our continents as
plainly as we see the markings on the face of the
moon.

While the moon's face is always bright to us unless

THE SOLAR SYSTEM 319

our clouds hide it, the moon has no clouds in its sky,
no atmosphere for them to float in, no water upon its
surface to make them. The moon is an old world. Its
face is wrinkled and marked with many mountains,
all of them sharp and ragged. There is no running
water to smooth the sharply wrinkled surface; no
trees or shrubs to make it beautiful; no air to soften
all the outlines and temper the fierce glare of the sun,
which shines steadily upon it.

Yet once, they tell us, there was water upon the
moon, for the dried-up seas have left their marks.
Those are what make the pictures that we see in the
moon. Some see a man's face; some, a man shooting;
and some, the face of a woman with hair rippling over
her shoulders. But when we look through a telescope
or even through an opera glass, the man's face and
all the other pictures are seen no more. We see in-
stead vast empty beds of dried-up oceans and the
peaks of mountains scattered over the surface. Dead
volcanoes we believe these to be, but far larger and
higher than any volcanoes that we have on our earth.

The moon is our nearest neighbor among all the
heavenly bodies. It is called our satellite, because it
revolves around the earth while the earth revolves
around the sun.

Besides the planets, which, with their satellites or
moons, revolve in regular order around the sun,
there are those wonderful objects that we call comets.
These also travel about the sun. Did you ever see a
picture of a comet? It is like a star with a long,
sweeping tail of light. The larger comets do not
often visit us, but when they do come they make a

320 THE COMING OF MAN

marvelous spectacle in the sky. Sometimes the tail
is so long that it reaches one quarter of the way
across the heavens.

These wonderful visitors to our skies move in
regular orbits of their own. They come toward the
sun from far away, turn around it, and then go off
to a distance so great that we cannot follow them
with the strongest telescope.

People used to be very much frightened at the
sight of a comet. They did not understand its
appearance, and were alarmed by it just as they were
when the moon went between the sun and the earth
and cut off the sun's light from the earth, causing an
eclipse. These things frightened them because they
did not form a part of the regular changes in nature
that men had become accustomed to, and they did
not understand what caused them. Although we do
not know what the comets are or where they come
from, our searchers after truth have found that they
obey a law, as does everything else in the whole uni-
verse, and they have figured out the path that many
of these comets follow.

For a longer time, however, men have known what
makes an eclipse. When there is a full moon it some-
times happens that the earth gets so exactly between
it and the sun that the shadow of the earth falls upon
it. There is always a great shadow cast by the earth,
but it is not often that there is anything for it to fall
upon. So, when the moon gets in its way the circular
shadow that the earth makes goes across the moon's
face. Sometimes it only seems to take out a bite, but
at other times it covers the moon's face entirely, and

THE SOLAR SYSTEM 321

we have a total eclipse of the moon. Those ancient
people who used to be so alarmed had never thought
of a shadow for the earth, it seems.

An eclipse of the sun happens when the moon, in
revolving about the earth, goes directly between the
sun and the earth, and when the sun is entirely
covered by the moon it is called a total eclipse.

A total eclipse of the sun is an awesome event, and
one that would alarm those earlier peoples who
could not think what would cause it; but no one is
alarmed now, because the reason of the eclipse is
known. The men who study about the laws of God's
universe can tell, long before it happens, just when an
eclipse will come, even to the exact second; and they
print all this in almanacs so we can know about it
each year.

No one fears a thing when he knows that it is pro-
duced by a natural cause. We no longer dread the
magnificent comets. Though they fill us with awe,
as the marvelous works of God always must do, they
fill us with no dread. Knowing about them takes
away our fear. That is what Jesus meant when he
said, ''Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
make ye free.''

LESSON 39.
THE STARS

MEMORY VERSES

The heavens declare the glory of God:
And the firmament showeth His handiwork.
Day mito day uttereth speech,
And night unto night showeth knowledge.

Ps. 19: 1, 2

The voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks also unto thee.

Adapted from Isaac Walts

The Purpose

This lesson on the stars is given in the hope that the
wonder of the stellar universe may touch the hearts of
the children and live with them as a friendly interest all
their lives. There is no reason why we should not have
the same friendliness toward those constant companions
of the night as did the Syrian shepherds of old. Such a
friendliness developed in childhood will help to keep the
heart in tune with the harmony of nature throughout life.

The special religious lesson is contained in the memory
verses. After these lessons on the immensity and grandeur
of space, it is well that the children should be reminded
that God dwells also within their own hearts.

Suggestions for the Teacher

There are so many interesting and amazing facts
about the stars, that it has been difficult to decide just
which should be chosen for this necessarily short story,

322

THE STARS 323

but it is hoped that enough interest may be aroused to
make the children want to learn more of the stars and
constellations than can be described here. The teacher
should urge this, encouraging the children to choose cer-
tain stars as they did trees, to watch and study and have
for friends.

If it can \)e instilled into the minds of these growing
children that the vastness of the universe only brings
God nearer to them, none of these lessons will have been
in vain.

A chart of the sky showing more of the constellations
than are given in the handwork would give an added
interest to the lesson. The stars which are in the summer
sky are not so brilliant as those in the winter heavens,
but the long warm evenings offer better conditions for
their observation. The Big Dipper, Cassiopeia's Chair,
and the Milky Way can all be seen at the season when this
lesson is taught, and the chart on the leaflet will help the
children to locate them.

OPENING TALK

Have you seen the moon during last month? Tell
me how it looked, and show me what you have written
about it on your leaflet. Have any of you remembered
the names of the planets in our solar system? Let us see
if we can name them all together, beginning with the one
nearest the sun, and be sure not to leave out our earth!
(Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus, Neptune.)

You have learned something about the sun, the planets
and their satellites, comets, and our own moon; now you
shall hear the story of the stars.

THE STARS

On bright, sunny days, as we look up and up into
the deep blue sky, it seems as if we could see much
farther than we can at night, when the darkness
shuts in around us; yet in the depths of that blue
sky there is no sign of a star. We know that stars
are there, because when we look through a telescope
or a long, narrow tube we can see them. Yet we
do not see the stars by day, because the rays of the
sun are so bright that they flood the sky with light.
Only by cutting off the sun's rays by means of the
long, narrow tube can the feebler light of the stars
and planets reach our eyes. But just as soon as the
sun has set and its light is beginning to fade away,
from out the darkening sky the stars appear one
by one.

Sometimes they seem very far away; sometimes,
when the air is clear, as on the top of a high mountain,
the stars seem very near, — just above the tree-
tops. But they are, in truth, so many billion miles
away that the mind cannot grasp the distance. It
is of no use to try to tell you how long it would take
an express train to reach one of those distant stars,
for the number of years would be so- great that it
would not mean anything to you.

Many of the stars seem grouped in our sky as if
they belonged together. But those stars are not

324

THE STARS 325

companions at all; they only seem so to us, because
we see them from so great a distance. In reality
there are vast spaces between them. They are not
fixed stars, either, as the ancients believed them to
be, and as we still call them. Each one is moving
through space at an incredible speed, and so, they
tell us, is our own sun.

Where are they going? No one knows. That is
another of thos6 secrets which in time the searchers
after truth may discover and so be able to reveal
to us more of God's universe. Yet we believe that
they are not moving hither and thither without any
law or order, because we have learned enough about
God's universe to know that nothing is without law
and order, be it a speck of dust or a stupendous sun.
So we feel sure that these millions of suns are moving
through space in some such regular order as that
in which the planets and the comets in our solar
system move.

In the vast space, without beginning and without
end, which we call the universe there are millions
and millions of suns, each revolving upon its own
axis as our sun revolves, and each traveling in its
own path. Around many of these suns, perhaps
all, swing worlds or planets, each sun with its worlds
forming a group in the vast space of the universe.

Shut your eyes and think of the sky at night when
all the stars are shining. Can you see the sparkling
stars looking as you saw them last night or the
night before?

Can you imagine, too, our sun traveling along
through space with its eight planets revolving about

326 THE COMING OF MAN

it, and all their moons about them, with the comets
coming from we know not whence, and after tm*n-
ing about the sun going back again to we know
not where? If you can do this, you will have a pic-
ture of our solar system as the men we have called
''the searchers of the sky" see it. They think of
each star in the sky as the center of a system like
ours, moving as our sun moves. Is it not a vast and
wonderful universe in which we live?

There is one star, the light of which fades and then
grows bright again. The Arabs long ago noticed
this, and named the star Algol, or the demon, be-
cause it seemed to wink at them. Now our as-
tronomers have found that that winking star is a
great sun, having a dark companion which revolves
around it, which cuts off part of its light from us.
Is that dark companion a world, moving around
the sun Algol? They think it is. So when Algol
seems to wink we are really seeing an eclipse of a
sun billions and billions of miles away.

Among the stars are many that are double; that
is, instead of having a dark companion revolving
around them, as our world revolves around the sun,
two brilliant suns revolve around each other. What
would we do in summer if we had two suns in the
sky at once; or if one was in the sky by day and one
by night? We should have no night then, only a
short twilight twice a day; and how should we get
any rest or sleep?

There is one of these star systems that to the
naked eye looks like a single star, but when seen
through a telescope it becomes three dazzUng suns, —

THE STARS 327

one a beautiful blue, one a brilliant green and one
a glowing yellow. With our eyes we could not live
upon a world revolving around three such suns as
those, could we? This world that we live upon with
its single sun, shedding upon us its pure, white hght,
is much better for us, — indeed it is the only world
for us, made as we are. To it God has adapted our
bodies, and we could not live on a world that was
quite different from this of ours.

Some stars shine with a clear, white Hght, like
that of our sun, and those, they tell us, are all about
the same age. Others shine with a steely blue Hght,
and those are younger suns than ours, while others
stiU are yellowish or a dull red. Those are older
than our sun. Look at the stars on the next clear
night and see if you can find one that shines with a
reddish light, and one whose hght is bluish, and
others of which the light is pure white.

The brightest and the largest star is Su-ius, or
the Dog Star, which we can see only during the
winter months. This star shines with a clear, white
light, but it is such an enormous sun that the light
it gives out is more than forty times as much as
that shed by our sun. But Snius is a younger sun
than ours, and in the ages to come it will shrink and
give less light and heat, for suns as well as planets
shrink as they grow older.

Sirius is near Orion, the most brilliant constella-
tion, or group of stars, in our winter sky. Try to get
some one to point it out to you next winter, and to
tell you the story the Greeks told about the great
hunter Orion with his dog Sirius following him. In

328 THE COMING OF MAN

winter, also, you will see a pretty little star cluster,
called the Pleiades. About this constellation, too,
the Greeks told a story of which you heard in the
chapter about electricity; for these are the seven
sisters of Phaethon, those who wept the amber tears.
The Greeks believed that the gods had such pity
for the poor weeping sisters, that they changed them
into stars. The Hebrews knew and loved these
stars, and wrote about them. In the book of Job, a
part of our Bible, written many centuries ago, are
these lines:

Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the bands of Orion?

You need not wait for winter to see the Great
Dipper. It is always in the northern sky, for it
never sets. Sometimes it is upside down, and some-
times on one end or on the handle, but it is always
there. The two bright stars of its front edge point
directly toward the North Star, so we call them ''the
Pointers," because by them we can always find the
North Star.

In the bend of the handle of the Dipper is a beau-
tiful double star. Some persons have such strong
eyesight that they can see that it is double without
the aid of an opera glass. See if you can find the
star, and whether it appears to you single or double.

You surely know that gleaming band of thickly
clustered stars stretching across the sky; that you
can always find. It is called the Milky Way. It
is made up of multitudes of stars, so far away that
we cannot see them separately. Their light blends

THE STARS 329

together, making what looks Uke a faint, milky
pathway along the sky.

When we learn to know the brighter stars and the
constellations, they become our friends as they
have been the friends of so many of those who went
before us. We call the stars by name, and pick out
in the twinkling mass those that we like the best,
knowing that ages and ages of men, women and
children have looked upon the same stars and have
regarded them in the same friendly way.

The winking Algol, the glorious Sirius, the red
Arcturus and the bluish Vega have been named and
watched by people for countless ages; so have Orion,
the Pleiades, the Dipper, the Northern Crown, the
Sickle, and all the other sparkling constellations.

And shall they not speak to us, those giant suns,
rolling through endless space at the command of
God? Let them say to us that the all-powerful God
who made all things is yet our Father and Friend.

LESSON 40
THE TORCH BEARERS

MEMORY VERSE

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made,
even his everlasting power and divinity.

Rom. 1: 20

The Purpose

The intent of this closing lesson is evident. The
teacher will have little trouble in awakening the desire
to pass on the torch of truth with its light undimmed.
Let the story make its own appeal, keeping the im-
pression of awe and reverence over this universe and its
Creator to the end of the course.

Suggestions for the Teacher

A brief review which shall bring out the subjects of
the four sections of this book and its general purpose may
seem desirable at this point. If so, it must be carefully
planned so that it may be interesting and not take up
too much time from the last brief lesson period of the
course. The work asked for on the leaflet makes such a
review.

The poem printed on the leaflet should be read in class
before the story is told.

The story of the torch bearers should, then, be given as
the last thing in the lesson period. There will be no need
to emphasize the thought of the responsibility of each child

330

THE TORCH BEARERS 331

to carry on the truth and let its Ught shine in the world.
The story makes the point clear, and by its illustrations
puts an ideal of life before the pupils.

The memory verse is used as a summary of the re-
ligious thought and ami of this course of lessons. Very
exalted it is, both in thought and expression, but it will
do the pupils good to reach up toward it now, and to
store it in the memory, that later its full meaning may
come to them.

OPENING TALK

We have talked together about the seeing eyes and the
seeing mind. Tell me some of the things our eyes were
to see in the sky, among growing things, among animals,
among the rocks. Did we study anything that we can-
not see? Electricity, yes; and that force to which Sir
Isaac Newton gave a name — gravitation — and other
forces in our universe. How did we learn to know these
forces if we could not see them? It was through their
effects, through the things we can see and touch.

Now we think when we come together here of the One
whom none of us can ever see with these eyes of ours as
we see each other. But there is a way in which we may
see the invisible God. Our Bible verse tells us: "For
the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that
are made, even His everlasting power and divinity."
(Rom. 1:20.)

The poem on our leaflet tells us the same thing — one
of the loveliest of poems for a child to learn. Shall we
read it now? Then we will have the story that tells us
what we may do about the truth which has been dis-
covered concerning our wonderful world and the dear
God whose thought has created it all through the ages.

THE TORCH BEARERS

In days gone by there used to be a religious festival
in which the children took a part. They would run
with hghted torches, each guarding his own torch
most carefully as he ran, to keep it alight. It must
have been a pretty sight to have seen those chil-
dren, in their short, white garments, each lighting
his torch from the one behind, and running forward
to light that of the one in front; then, when all
were lighted, to have seen them run on in a long line,
eager to lay their still burning torches at the altar
of the goddess in whose honor the festival was held.

No longer do children run in this festival of the
torches; no longer do those peoples worship their gods
and goddesses with fire, for they have become Chris-
tians who worship God ''in spirit and in truth." But
the idea of the lighted torch still remains, and is for
us a symbol of the reaching upward of our hearts and
of our thoughts.

Fire is a gift of God to our world. It is very useful,
as we know, but it has for us a deep meaning, too.
The family hearth where the ancients used to wor-
ship their household gods, and where the fire was
never allowed to go out, has now come to mean to us
the happy tie that binds a family together. So, too,
the lighted torch has come down through the ages
as a symbol of knowledge and wisdom.

332

THE TORCH BEARERS 333

Boys and girls are still torch bearers for the world.
The sacred torch each carries is the light of truth and
knowledge which the mind receives from those who
know. You who have studied this book have lighted
your torches from the burning thoughts of past ages.
What people worked hard to discover you may now
learn easily. And when you have learned and are
eager to know more, your torch is ablaze.

Then you want both to keep your torch alight, and
to give of its flame to others; for in this way the light
of truth and wisdom is carried on through the ages.
If the first man who learned how to make fire had
kept the knowledge to himself and had not shown
others how to make it too, the world would have been
much longer in becoming civilized.

If the Phoenician merchants had not shown the
Greeks and the Hebrews how to make an alphabet,
we might not yet know how to read or write, nor how
to record our thoughts in books. If the followers of
Jesus had not gone out into the world, carrying the
gospel of the truth he taught, we might never have
heard his message nor wanted to live as he showed
men how to live.

So throughout the ages, men, women, yes, and
children too, have carried the torches on and on,
each mind lighted by the thoughts of all who have
gone before; and we, if we are faithful, must carry
on the flame undimmed to light the torches of
future generations.

Now this power of the mind and of the spirit with
which God has endowed His children is the most mar-
velous thing in the whole world, — much more mar-

334 THE COMING OF MAN

velous than steam or electricity, because it is able to
discover all the forces and the materials upon the
world, how to use them, and what laws govern:them.
The searchers after truth who discovered great laws
of the universe, or who found the way to harness
steam and electricity to do our daily work for us, are
not the only ones whose torches have burned so
brightly that they have kindled others. For Uttle
things count in this wonder world in which we live,
and many a one has seen or done an apparently
simple thing that has carried the world of men on to
better ways of living.

The steam rising from the kettle of boiling water
was of no significance to many people, but it meant
vsomething to young Watt, who saw that it could be
successfully harnessed to do great work. The fine
white grains of quartz sand upon the sea beach
seem to most of us only a diiTerent form of the ground
we walk upon ; but some one found out how to make
glass of them, and others learned to shape the glass
into lenses for the telescopes, by means of which
undreamed-of truths about other suns and worlds
than ours have been found and proved.

There is a man living to-day who spends all his
time trying to make our flowers and fruits and vege-
tables larger and of better quality. When Luther
Burbank produces a new fruit, combining the deli-
cious flavor of one with the larger size of another, is
not this a benefit to mankind? He says that everyone
can make the flowers more beautiful if they will
watch the bees and work as they do. He himself is
showing us how. When he discovers a way to make

THE TORCH BEARERS 335

the spiny, useless desert cactus grow without spines,
so that it can be used as nourishing food, does he not
keep his torch burning brightly, and pass on its light
to others?

Oh! there are so many, many ways to help the
world; so many, many ways to bless mankind; so
many, many ways to learn God's laws.

We must hold our torches high and guard the
flames carefully. The shame would be far greater
for us should our torches go out, than it was for
those children who carried real ones. They were
obliged as they ran to guard the flames against the
wind, and to watch most carefully lest the light
should blow out.

If the flame of the torch we carry dies down and
goes out, it is because we neglect it. The fire is ours,
and God, the giver, watches over us to aid us in our
endeavor to lift high the torch of true knowledge and
wisdom.

By its light we enter into the mystery and the
marvel of this world in which we live. By its light
we learn to ''think God's thoughts after him," as
Kepler said when he studied the stars. B}^ its light
we find the true pathway of life. We may, if we are
faithful, be of those who carry on, undimmed, this
torch of truth, so that its light shines steadily and
grows brighter through the years, to liglit the lives of
all who live in God's wonder world.

THE END

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