ve the
children a talk upon the conditions existing in
heathen lands like China and Japan, and the
changes which are being wrought through the
introduction of Christianity and the work of the
missionaries.

[Illustration: Old Lantern.]

I DO not believe that there is a boy or girl here to-day who could tell
me what this thing is, that I hold in my hand. It is a lantern, a very
different lantern possibly, from those which any of you have ever seen.
This is the kind of lantern that your grandfather and my grandfather
used many years ago, in the days when they did not have lamps, and gas,
and electric lights, and such things as we enjoy to-day. When I was a
small boy in the country we used to have only candles. Later on in life,
I remember when they first had fluid lamps, and then kerosene oil, and
then gas, and then, as we have it now, electric lights.

In the second congregation to which I ministered, there was an old
gentleman who had one of these lanterns. He lived some distance from the
church, and very dark nights you could always see him coming across the
hill, carrying this strange lantern. After the candle was lighted and
placed inside, the light shone out through these small holes, and if the
wind blew very hard, the light was liable to be blown out.

Now, here is a better lantern. David says of God's Word, "Thy word is a
lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." On a dark night in the
country, you could not go out of doors and move about without running up
against a tree, or the fence, or falling into the ditch, or soon finding
yourself involved in serious difficulties; and on this account people in
the country carry a lantern at night. In the Eastern countries where
Jesus lived, where they did not have gas and electric lamps to light the
streets, when people went out at night they always carried a lantern.
And so David said, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my
path." (Ps. cxix: 105.)

[Illustration: "Coming Across the Hill Carrying this Strange Lantern."]

When people go out of doors into the darkness with a lantern they do not
hold it way up high, but hold it down near their feet, so that they can
see the path, and it enables them to walk with security and safety.
Sometimes there are men who have gone to college, and have learned Latin
and Greek, have studied the sciences and philosophy, and they think they
have learned a very gre