racks."

He stopped, he hesitated, he looked the future squarely in the face.

"I cannot afford to make any tracks I would be ashamed or sorry to
have my boy walk in," he said decidedly, and turned away.

Father, mother, neighbor, are your tracks true? Are they straight?
Can you turn to any walking behind you and say: "Follow me as I
follow Christ?" Are you leading the little ones safe to the Great
Shepherd?

_The best time to sow the good seed_ is before Satan has scattered
the tares. God has given numerous warnings and instructions to do
it. "Seek ye _first_ the Kingdom of God and his righteousness."
"Train up a child in the way he should go." "Provoke not your
children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord." If a farmer neglects to plant in the spring-time, he
can never recover the lost opportunity: no more can you, if you
neglect yours. Youth is a seed-time, and if it is allowed to pass
without good seed being sowed, weeds will spring up and choke the
soil. It will take bitter toil to uproot them.

An old divine said that when a good farmer sees a weed in his field
he has it pulled up. If it is taken early enough, the blank is soon
filled in, and the crop waves over the whole field. But if allowed
to run too late, the bald patch remains. It would have been better
if the weed had never been allowed to get root.

Young man, are you letting some secret sin get the mastery over you,
binding you hand and foot? It is growing. Every sin grows. When I
was speaking to five thousand children in Glasgow some years ago, I
took a spool of thread and said to one of the largest boys:

"Do you believe I can bind you with that thread?"

He laughed at the idea. I wound the thread around him a few times,
and he broke it with a single jerk. Then I wound the thread around
and around, and by and by I said:

"Now get free if you can."

He couldn't move hand or foot. If you are slave to some vile habit,
you must either slay that habit or it will slay you.

My friend, _what kind of seed are you sowing?_ Let your mind sweep
over your record for the past year. Have you been living a double
life? Have you been making a profession without possessing what you
profess? If there is anything you detest it is hypocrisy. Do you
tell me God doesn't detest it also? If it is a right eye that
offends, make up your mind that you will pluck it out; or if it is a
right hand or a right foot, cut it off. Whatever