its freshness
and beauty. The world looks just as new and beautiful as it did
thousands and thousands of years ago. Each spring it puts on youth anew.

[Illustration: Sheaf of Grain.]

But when the summer-time comes, when it gets along to the harvest time,
along in July and August, then the weather is very warm. The color of
the fields has then greatly changed, the blossoms have disappeared from
the trees, and we find that everywhere the fruit is beginning to appear.
The harvest fields are ripe and are waiting for the husbandmen.

There is just about that same difference in life. Youth is the
spring-time. It is full of hope, and full of bright prospects. But, as
we grow older, and the cares and responsibilities of life multiply, then
we begin to bear the toil and labor which comes with the later years.
Then we are like the farmer who enters into the harvest field where hard
work has to be done under a very hot and scorching sun.

A man, called a naturalist, who has devoted a large amount of time to
the study of plants, tells us that there are about one hundred thousand
different kinds of plants. Each kind of plant bears its own seed, and
when that particular seed is sown, it always bears its own kind of
fruit. Wheat never yields barley, nor do oats ever yield buckwheat. When
you plant potatoes, you expect to gather potatoes and not turnips. An
apple tree has never grown from an acorn, or a peach tree from a
chestnut. Each seed, always and everywhere, bears its own kind. It is on
this account that the Bible says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked:
for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." (Gal. vi: 7.)

There are some grown persons, as well as children, who think that they
can do very wrong things while they are young, and afterwards suffer no
bad results. People sometimes say, "Oh, well! let us sow our wild oats
while we are young." Now the Bible tells us that if we sow wild oats, we
must reap wild oats. Four or five handfuls of wild oats will produce a
whole bag full of wild oats when gathered in the harvest of after life.
Be assured, my dear friend, that "those who sow to the flesh shall of
the flesh reap corruption," and "those who sow the wind shall reap the
whirlwind." "Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap
a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny."

[Illustration: "The Harvest Fields Are Ripe and Are Waiting for the
Husbandmen."]

It may seem a long period bet