MUDDY WATER—OR, HOW TO GET RID OF OUR SINS

[Illustrate with a little bottle of dirty water and one of pure water, to show at the close.]

There was once a drop of muddy water, just like the dirty water in this little bottle. It lay in the middle of one of the blackest puddles in the whole length of the road. Horses splashed through it, wheels stirred it up, drivers complained about it, and the poor drop of water at last got thoroughly ashamed of itself.

“O, I wish I could get away from all this ugliness and meanness and dirt!” it cried.

“Well, why not?” asked the breeze, blowing over it.

“Why not? How could I?” answered the muddy drop.

“Ask the sun. He is strong and kind, and he will lift you out of the puddle.”

“But the sun is far away, so far away, millions and millions of miles.”

“No, his rays are here, all about you. Can’t you see them, and feel them?”

“But the sun is so great, and I am so little.”

“Yes, the sun is great, but not too great, you see, to send a special ray of light to shine just on you, small drop as you are.”

“But I am so black, and dirty, and ugly, down here in the mire; and the sun, I am sure from his light, is pure and beautiful. I do not dare ask him.”

“Never mind that. Just ask him, and see what will happen.”

So the muddy drop asked the great, pure, beautiful sun to lift her up out of the disagreeable, black mud-puddle, and the sun did it at once. Up, up, up, went the drop, drawn by the sun’s kind heat, until she rested in a lovely cloud, floating across the sky, and the cloud let her down on a magnificent mountain. She fell into a spring, a perfect, mossy pool, full of the purest water that ever was.

And then the drop began to fear that she would spoil this pure water, coming into it, and so she looked at herself. And lo! she found that when the sun drew her up into the cloud she had left all the mud and impurity behind, and she was as pure as the water in this other bottle. See!