Did you ever go, by night, near a deep well, that had no cover over its mouth? How you shrank from its black, horrid opening! Let me tell you something. All around you there are just such dangerous pitfalls, though you cannot see them. They are not pitfalls into which your bodies can fall, but pitfalls for your mind and your heart, and that is far worse. I will draw some of them on the blackboard, and you may name them.
Here we are going along a perfectly plain, straightforward path. We got up in the morning sweet and sunny. But something has happened that we did not like, and our brows wrinkle, and our hands are clinched, and our teeth are set, and mean thoughts rush to our head, and mean words to our tongues, and—look out! Right in our way is a great, yawning pitfall, and we have almost tumbled in! I wonder how many can tell me what name to write over the month of it. But, children, if we love Jesus, he will whisper to us gently, and lay his kind hand on our shoulders, and turn us to one side, this way, and we’ll go around the black pitfall of anger, and get safely to the other side.
We travel on a little further in the day, and find nothing to frighten or hurt us. But, all of a sudden, some one asks us to help him a little. It may be mother, who wants us to dust a room; or father, who wants us to run an errand. And our brows knot up again, and we grow sullen, and—dear me!—we have almost fallen into this great, black, deep pit! Name it, children. But if we are Christ’s boys and girls, the dear Savior will save us from falling into this pit of selfishness, just as he kept us out of the pit of anger. We’ll gladly do the little, helpful deed that is asked of us, and thus get around the pitfall, and on to a straight, beautiful road again.
In a similar way let the superintendent talk about the pitfalls of idleness, and intemperance, and pride, and carelessness, and so on.