Boys and girls usually like holidays better than examination days. Our story today is about an examination day in a school over in Scoand, many years ago. The exams weren’t held as we have them today, but rather the boys and girls were gathered in their classes, and a special visitor stood at the front of the class arid asked a number of questions. The answers were usually put down on paper, and often prizes were given for the best answers turned in.
In the senior class, the young folk were all sitting quietly waiting for the questions to start. The teacher was sitting at the desk, and quite a number of visitors and parents were on special chairs facing the pupils. At last there arose a quiet, happy looking man and he began to speak.
“Now, boys and girls, are you ready? I know your teacher has been faithful in teaching you arithmetic, and so I hope you will be ready for this question. It is a problem in profit and loss.”
The pencils were all ready, and the children listened carefully.
“What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
There was silence. No one wrote a word, and no one spoke a word. Instead, the children looked at each other, then at their teachers, then at the visitors, and finally at the speaker, whose name was Mr. Duncan Matheson. No such sum had ever been given them before, and they didn’t know how to work it out.
After several moments of silence, Mr. Matheson went on to speak of the value of a soul in the sight of God, and of how He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to redeem our souls. He spoke of the attractions of the world, and of the danger that is ever present, that boys and girls grow up with some idea of the value of the things offered by this world, but not thinking at all of their souls. He told of how his own soul had been cleansed and redeemed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, and he urged all those who heard him that day, to remember the value of their souls.
Can you guess the result of this little talk? Two things happened. Many of the visitors were quite angry with Mr. Matheson and hoped he would never come to that school again. But two of the boys, named John and Alec, were very thankful for those faithful words, and went home talking seriously of what they had heard. In a few days, both John and Alec confessed the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. Their souls were saved for eternity, and they told the other boys and girls about it too.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
ML 04/29/1956