and grows. The
mud that covered it is like rich manure, and makes it grow very
plentifully, and yield a rich harvest. And here we see the meaning of
this passage. God makes use of this Egyptian custom to teach us the
lesson of liberality that we are now considering. He tells us that
the money which we give to the poor, or use to do good with, is like
the grain which the Egyptian farmer casts upon the water, and which
will surely yield a rich harvest by and by.

This teaches us the lesson of liberality. And when we think of all
these passages, we see very clearly that the Bible teaches the same
lesson which Jesus taught when he said to his disciples, "Give, and
it shall be given unto you." And what we learn, both from the
teaching of Christ, and from the different passages referred to,
is--that "giving is God's rule for getting."

And now, having seen some of the Bible, proofs for this lesson of
liberality, or for this rule about giving and getting, _let us go on
to speak of some of the illustrations of this rule_. These are very
numerous.

And we may draw our illustrations from three sources, viz.:--_from
the Bible; from nature; and from everyday life_.

There are two illustrations of which we may speak from the Bible. We
find one of these in the history of the prophet Elijah. You remember
that there was a great famine in the land of Israel during the
lifetime of this prophet. For more than three years there was not a
drop of rain all through the land. The fields, the vineyards, and
gardens dried up, and withered, and yielded no fruit. During the
first part of the time when this famine was prevailing, God sent
Elijah to "the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan," I. Kings xvii:
7-17. There the ravens brought him food, and he drank of the water of
the brook.

But after awhile the brook dried up. Then God told him to go to the
city of Zarephath, or Sarepta, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea,
and that he had commanded a widow woman there to sustain him. He did
not tell him the name of the woman; nor the street she lived in; nor
the number of her house. Elijah went. When he came near the place he
met a woman, picking up some sticks of wood. I suppose God told him
that this was the woman he was to stay with. Elijah spoke to her, and
asked her if she would please give him a drink of water. When she was
going to get it, he called to her again, and said he was hungry, and
asked her to bring him a piece of bread. The