Little ones, take lesson from him,
Be not overbold;
Stop and think that glittering things
Are not always gold. (Text.)
—Elizabeth Hill.
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The Venus fly trap is small and shaped as if you placed your two open palms side by side. Its surface is plastered with honey and the other palm has sharp needles pointing outward. The "silly fly" yields to the attraction of the sweets and is immediately shut in as the two palms close upon him. He is instantly stung to death by the needles.
How alluring evil can appear at times.
Satan himself can pose as an angel
of light. Evil often presents its most
subtle attraction to the young. But
sin in any guise is the soul's death-*trap.
(Text.)
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Allurement to Evil—See Sin, Fascination of.
Allurement to Good—See Fishers of
Men.
ALMSGIVING
That is no true alms which the hand can hold;
He gives only worthless gold
Who gives from a sense of duty;
But he who gives but a slender mite
And gives to that which is out of sight,
The hand can not clasp the whole of his alms. (Text.)
—Lowell.
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ALTAR, THE
In the old days a father built a home
for his family. It was complete in every
part, but the altar around which they gathered
in prayer was not yet set in place. The
mother wished it in the kitchen; there she
was perplexed with her many cares. The
father wished it in his study: God seemed
nearer to him among his books. The son
wished it in the room where guests were received,
that the stranger entering might see
that they worshiped God. At last they
agreed to leave the matter to the youngest,
who was a little child. Now the altar was
a shaft of polished wood, very fragrant, and
the child, who loved most of all to sit before
the great fire and see beautiful forms
in the flames, said, "See, the fire-log is gone;
put the altar there." So, because one would
not yield to the other, they obeyed, and the
altar was consumed, while its sweet odors
filled the whole house—the kitchen, the
study, and the guest hall—and the child saw
beautiful forms in the flames.—David Starr
Jordan, "The Religion of a Sensible American."
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ALTRUISM
There is in Cambridge, Mass., an elm-tree
of moderate size, which has, according
to the estimates of Professor Gray, a
leaf surface of 200,000 square feet. This
tree exhales seven and three-quarter tons
of water every twelve hours. A forest of
500 such trees would return to the atmosphere
nearly 4,000 tons in the same time.
Our lives should be like this tree,
shedding their refreshment continually.
(Text.)
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Good men are not meant to be simply like trees planted by rivers of waters, flourishing in their own pride and for their own sake. They ought to be like the eucalyptus trees which have been set out in the marshes of the Campagna, from which a healthful, tonic influence is said to be diffused to countervail the malaria. They ought to be like the Tree of Paradise, "whose leaves are for the healing of nations."—Henry Van Dyke.
(70)
The flower blooms not for itself at all,
Its joy is the joy that diffuses:
Of beauty and balm it is prodigal,
And it lives in the life it freely loses;
No choice for the rose but glory or doom,
To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom.
To deny
Is to die.
(71)
See Vicariousness.
ALTRUISM AMONG BIRDS
An old gentleman in New England
told me of a case he once observed. Noticing
a little flock of chewinks or towhee
buntings who came about the house for
food that was thrown out, he saw that one
was larger than the others and that they
fed him. To satisfy his curiosity, he threw
a stone with such accuracy that his victim
fell, and on picking him up he was surprized
to see that the bird's mandibles
were crossed so that he could not possibly
feed himself. The inference was obvious;
his comrades had fed him, and so well that
