[A change in the name of the coin and the description of the pictures on it will adapt this little talk to any other country.]
Here is a pile of silver dollars. What a lot of money! And how much good this money has done, passing from hand to hand on its journey over the world. Don’t you wish each coin could speak, and tell you its story? Don’t you think that God can read on every coin a long history of noble deeds and evil deeds in which it has helped? suppose, instead of the pictures you see on a coin,—the goddess of liberty, and the American eagle,—you could see the picture of the last thing that coin had bought; wouldn’t that be interesting?
Hello! It really looks as if that were the way with this pile of coins! See what I have found on the other side of this silver dollar. The picture of a great sack of flour! [These pictures will either be drawn, or cut out of illustrated papers, and pasted on the backs of the coins.] Now I know what dollar this is. This must be the dollar that belonged to little Henry Helpful,—all his own,—and he gave it gladly, to buy poor Mrs. Carlton some flour. Why, this is a noble dollar! It ought to be made of gold.
Now I wonder what is on the back of this coin. A big box of candy! That tells me that this dollar used to belong to little Grace Greedy, who bought a box of candy with it, and ate it all up by herself, so that she got the toothache and became sick. I’m not at all proud of this dollar. It ought to be made of copper.
Well, well! Just look at the back of this coin! A book,—and it’s the Bible. This is certainly the dollar that Theresa Thoughtful saved for the mission-box, to use in sending the good Book to people that have never heard about Jesus. This dollar ought to be all diamond. And here’s a picture of another book, on the back of this dollar; and I see by the name of the book that this dollar belonged to young Stephen Student, who spent it to get himself a history of the United States. That was a good way to spend money, wasn’t it? [Let the speaker add other coins, with their pictures and lessons.]