irit of Christmas. Some one has said that true Christmas
_giving_ is true Christmas _living_--living not merely at Christmas
time in fellowship with all, but throughout the year, with no
difference in days excepting that with their succession we may grow
more and more humble and faithful--more like Him."

SEEDTIME AND HARVEST
--Sowing
--Reaping

"Whatsoever a Man Soweth, That Shall He Also Reap."

THE LESSON--That the happiness or the unhappiness of middle life
and old age are the result of the thoughts and deeds of early
life.

The teacher who can help the little children to avoid the
entertainment of wrong thoughts and the teacher who can eliminate from
the minds of the youth the belief that the "sowing of wild oats" is a
harmless--perhaps necessary--touch of life, may feel that he has
accomplished much. The teaching carries with it the necessity of
supplanting wrong thoughts with right ones.

~~The Talk.~~

"Some of the great declarations of the Scriptures have become so
familiar to us that we speak the words and lose much of their
significance. One great truth which seems to have lost its power with
many is that verse in the letter of Paul to the Galatians, in which he
says, 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap.'

"What does Paul mean? He means simply this, that your life and mine,
like the life of the world of nature about us, has its seedtime and
its time of harvest--that if the seedtime of our early life finds us
planting good thoughts, kindly deeds and loving words, the harvest of
the later life will be peace and blessedness; if the seedtime of life
finds us sowing evil thoughts, bad deeds and ungodly words, the
harvest will be remorse, bitterness and the suffering which must come
from such a sowing.

"Everybody who lives fifty years or more has two looks at life; first,
a forward look, and, last, a backward look. It is wise to plan in
advance for the backward look by living so that the retrospect will be
gratifying and satisfying and comforting, and not of a kind to bring
mourning over wasted years and lost opportunities for doing good.

[Illustration: Fig. 25]

"Let us consider the lesson of nature for a moment. In the springtime
the farmer plants the kernels of corn shelled from ears like this.
[Draw the ear of corn, making first a solid yellow background for the
ear and then putting in the fine lines with brown or black.] He ha