STONES AND PEOPLE—AN OBJECT LESSON ON A PURE HEART

I’ve brought you a stone, a beautiful piece of quartz, but O, how dirty! See, I will brush off some of the dirt, and show you the loveliness inside. How bright it is, and how it flashes in the sunlight! But the stone, beautiful as it is, cannot keep itself clean, can it? And so it cannot keep itself beautiful. I will sprinkle some dust upon it, and you must watch and see whether it will clean itself. No; the beautiful stone is all ugly now, and will remain so until some one comes along to wash it off again.

But people are not like that, are they? When dirt gets on your hands or your faces, you do not wait for some one to come and wash it off; you wash it off yourself. That is because you are alive, and the stone is dead. Think of it: the only things in all the world that keep themselves clean are alive. Dead things, like stones, and wood, and iron, have to take all the dirt that comes on them, and keep it.

But there’s a dirt that is worse than all the dirt I have been talking about, and that is the dirt that gets on our hearts, the mean thoughts, and the evil words, and crossness, and lying, and disobedience, and laziness. How are we going to keep clean from these things?

Well, it’s just like this stone, with some people. They may be very beautiful and smart, and all that, but their hearts are dead,—almost as dead as this lovely bit of quartz. And whatever dirt falls on their hearts stays there; they do not wash it off. If some one throws at them an unclean word, it sticks. And if they get into foul company, all the dirt is rubbed on their hearts, and remains there. They have not life enough to keep their hearts clean.

We know, do we not? who can give us life in our hearts. It is the same one who gives us life in our bodies, and makes us strong enough to keep our bodies clean. It is Christ, the pure one. Let us all pray to him to keep our hearts from growing dull and senseless and unclean.