HERE is a picture of the largest land animal we have. Some elephants weigh ten thousand pounds or as much as fifty large men. They can easily crush a man to death by stepping on him.
But while the elephant is so large and powerful, he is a kind creature, and we can learn a lesson from his ways.
Many years ago some sick people were lying on the fields of Lucknow. They had been placed there to get the benefit of the pure air and warm sunshine.
Some noblemen wanted to ride through these fields on their elephants, and were looking forward with wicked delight to seeing the poor sick people tramped down by the elephants.
When the first elephant reached the people lying on the ground he stopped. The driver cruelly ran a spear into his ear, but still he did not move. When he found that the sick people were unable to get out of his way, he gently lifted them one by one with his strong trunk, placing part of them on one side and part on the other. In this way he made a path through the field and none of the elephants tramped on the people.
The elephants showed a great deal more kindness than the wicked men who rode on them.
But while the elephant is so kind to those who do not harm or tease him, he remembers and resents any cruelty shown to him.
Once when an elephant was passing a tailor’s shop, the tailor stuck him with a needle. The elephant did not forget this injury and when he was passing the shop again he threw upon the tailor a lot of dirty water with which he had filled his trunk from a gutter.
In both these incidents we have examples of man’s cruelty and of the wickedness of his heart.
“The heart is deceitful above all’ things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
We all know that God hates sin and must punish it. How then. can we expect to escape punishment? Another beautiful verse says, “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Jesus shed His own precious blood and thus bore the punishment instead of us. Now, if we believe, our sins are all washed away in that atoning blood.
Do not think, dear reader, that you are better than others. “All have sinned.” “There is none righteous.” Turn to Jesus. Acknowledge your lost condition before it is too late. Do not let your wicked heart deceive you any longer.
ML 08/09/1903