HOW pretty!” cried little Sam, as his little fat hand grasped a bunch of white lilac which grew near the gate of his father’s mansion. The next moment the child’s face grew red with terror, and he dashed the lilac to the ground, shrieking, “It stings, it stings!”
What made it sting? It was a bright, beautiful, and sweet-smelling flower. How could it hurt the child’s hand? I will tell you.
A fine little bee, in search of a dinner, had just pushed his nose in among the lilac-blossoms, and was sucking the nectar from it most heartily, when Sammy’s fat hand disturbed him. So, being vexed with the child, he stung him. That’s how Sammy’s hand came to be stung.
Sammy’s mother washed the wound with hartshorn, and when the pain was gone she said: “Sammy, my dear, let this teach you that many pretty things have very sharp stings.”
Let every child take note of this: Many pretty things have very sharp stings. It may save them from being stung if they keep this truth in mind.
Sin often makes itself appear very pretty. A boy once went to a circus because the horses were pretty and the riders gay; but he learned to swear there; and thus that pretty thing, the circus, stung him.
Another boy once thought wine a pretty thing. He drank it, and learned to be a drunkard. Thus wine stung him.
A girl once took a luscious pear from a basket and ate it.
“Have you eaten one?” asked her mother, pleasantly.
Fearing she would not get another if she said “Yes,” she replied “No,” got another pear and then felt so stung that she could not sleep.
Thus you see that sin, however pretty it looks, stings. It stings sharply, too. It stings fatally. The Bible says: “The sting of death is sin.”
If you let sin sting you, nothing can heal the wound but the blood of Jesus. If you feel the smart of the sting, go to Jesus with it, and He will cure it. After that, never forget that many pretty things have very sharp stings.
“Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” Rom. 4: 7, 8.
ML 08/18/1918