I think we may spend an hour profitably, my dear girl friends, in contrasting the fair-seeming part of our lives with that which is real, true, and thorough.

It is good to be real in all things. True to the core. In thought, word, and deed to be the same human being as we wish our friends to think us. On this subject of reality I will tell you a story to begin with.

I dare say most of us joined in harvest thanksgiving services after we returned home last autumn; probably many of you joined in preparing for them, and in arranging the offerings sent by the congregations.

It was in autumn, but not this year, and in city and village churches the “Feast of Ingathering” was being kept. Daily songs of thanksgiving were going up to the God of harvest, in acknowledgment of the bounteous provision He had made to supply the wants of the teeming millions dependent on Him for their daily bread.

A number of young people, mostly girls, were busily engaged in decorating a church for the Harvest Festival services on the following day. Flowers, fruit, vegetables, loaves of all sizes and corn in sheaves, or shaped into miniature stacks, had been sent in abundance. The poorest members of the congregation were not the least willing givers. They could not offer hot-house grapes or fruits that were costly to mature, but they brought of their best from cottage gardens and in no stinted measure. The clean, ruddy carrots, white turnips, cauliflowers in their nest of green leaves, with other homely vegetables, the best of their kind, added much to the picturesqueness of the offerings.

The pulpit and font were bordered with green moss on which were pretty devices in scarlet berries, and below these hung a fringe of oats, dainty-looking, light and graceful as lace. There was a foot of this fringing to finish when the material ran short.

“More oats wanted,” said the worker. “Bring me some, please.”

But none were forthcoming.

“You have used them all,” was the answer.

“I cannot fill this space with anything else. The design would be spoiled. There seemed to be any quantity of oats, but this fringe takes so much. Who will give us some more?”

Nobody seemed to know and time was precious. At last a girl spoke, though in a rather shamefaced way and in a hesitating tone.

“I know who would give us a bundle of oat straw. We could pick out the best pieces and by mixing them in with the unthreshed corn, the length could be made up. There would be some undoing and working up again, but I don’t think anybody would notice the difference.”

There was a short uncomfortable silence, soon broken by the tremulous voice of the youngest helper present—a mere child.

“Oh, we must not, we must not do that. It would be horrid to pretend to give the best corn that has been grown, to try and show God how thankful we are, and then for Him to see that there is ever so much empty straw amongst it. It’s all very well to say that we could make the fringe look as if it were real corn and nobody would find out, but God would know, and——”

The child speaker could not utter another word. The trembling voice broke into a sob that was more eloquent than the simple words which had however gone home to the hearts of the elder ones present.

“You are right, Nelly darling,” said one of these as she drew her little friend to her side and kissed her tenderly. “There must be no ornamental shams amongst our thank-offerings to God. We should not like our neighbours to know that a portion of the fringe ought to be labelled ‘Only straw,’ should we?”

“No, indeed,” was the answer from all the rest, and one said, “How could we bear to look at it and think that it was a miserable counterfeit? Better no fringe than straw where corn should be.”

To this all the workers heartily assented. I do not remember how the little difficulty was got over, but I know it was not by the substitution of straw and empty husks for corn. I know, too, that all present learned a solemn lesson from the child who, out of the fulness of her heart, spoke on the side of truth.

It was indeed a question of truth or untruth, reality or pretence, which had so stirred the young speaker. The child’s words and the circumstances under which they were uttered have often recurred to my mind during intervening years, and I believe that in repeating them I shall have done good service to you, my dear girl friends.

Does not the very thought of that little scene suggest self-examination? Are we not inclined to ask ourselves how much of what we may well call “straw” is mingled with our offerings to God? When we kneel with every appearance of devotion and even our lips repeat the familiar words of praise, is our worship always what it seems to be? Do not you and I know that often, when the knee has been bent and the head bowed in apparent reverence, and when our lips have moved in prayer or response, or our voices have rung out tunefully in psalm or hymn, our hearts have had little share in our seeming worship?

It has been a poor, mechanical thing in which true reverence, penitence, faith and the spirit of love, thankfulness and praise, have been almost entirely absent. It has seemed to our neighbours like true corn, but has been mostly empty straw. I say mostly, because it would be hard to think that there was no reality in it. Even amongst the straw cast aside from the threshing machine, a few grains of corn will always be found, each of which contains the germ of a new and fruitful life.

If, in looking into our own hearts, we find out the poverty of our worship, the barrenness of our life service, the vast proportion of coldness and indifference when compared with the little spark of genuine love to God and man which finds a place there, we cannot help acknowledging that only a grain of true corn is to be found here and there, amid the poor straw of our daily lives.

Let us, nevertheless, take courage. A single grain of true wheat may be the fruitful parent of grand harvests to come—of a handful of grain at first, each corn of which, fructifying in turn, will yield more and more until, as the years pass on, whole fields of waving gold will mark their increase.

Look carefully, dear ones, for the little grains of true corn in your natures. The little grain of love to God will grow if you let your hearts dwell on the thought of His great love for you. If we do not think about it we cannot realise it, but when we do, we are so filled with a sense of its vastness, that the living grains of love, gratitude, thankfulness, praise, joy and longing to prove our love by service, all fructify and become the parents of glorious harvests in our future lives.

God’s love is such a generous love. He gives everything to His children. In Christ, God has given to you and me the very best that even He could give. “Shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?” “No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

Seeing then that God has given us the best gift of all, and that all good things are promised us on the one condition that we walk uprightly, does it not become us to expel all that is false from our worship and our lives? To be true to the core? To let words and actions be the harvest springing from the living grain of holy love in our hearts, watched, watered, cherished, guarded assiduously, lest it should die and our worship become a mere outward thing—straw, in place of true corn, the poor sham which human eyes could not detect, but the worthlessness of which is known to Him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil or to “look upon iniquity”?

When we think of it, does it not seem strange that “feigned lips,” wandering thoughts, outward reverence without any real adoration, can be permitted to pass current in our minds? We know that, in God’s sight, one little act of kindness done for His sake, one spark of love fanned into a flame which illumines the life of a fellow creature who is sitting in darkness and the very shadow of death; one honest effort after righteousness; one sentence of true prayer uttered with a sense of need by longing lips; one note of true, spontaneous praise and thanksgiving from a grateful heart; one cry for strength, light and needed grace, spoken in the fewest words that can express desire; each and all of these, though small in a sense, are precious and will not be forgotten. Mere grains they may be, but they are living grains—the seeds whence come grand harvests to God’s glory and our own good.

I have taken the higher and more important part of our subject first, but we will come down to a lower level and speak a little about carrying the same spirit of truth and thoroughness into our everyday work.

I hope we all feel that we ought to render of our very best to God, and to do this with full sincerity of purpose and of heart. Surely the same spirit should enter into all our dealings and intercourse with our neighbour. Whatever work may be entrusted to us, do not let us think how little will pass muster, but what is the best we can do, and then resolve on doing this.

We must never forget that whoever truly loves God will love his neighbour also, and will prove this in daily life and intercourse.

I want you, my dear girl friends, to be animated by this spirit in the home, whether you are a daughter or one who, in serving, serves also the Lord Christ. In the work-room too, where so much of the character and success of the employer depends on the thoroughness and conscientiousness of the workers.

Do not give the mother, the mistress, or the outside employer cause to complain that you put no heart into your work, or that, if you can do it without immediate loss to yourself, you will bestow less pains upon the portion which is below the surface and not likely to be so carefully examined as the rest. To act in such a manner is to render the merest eye-service. It is giving straw from which nearly all the golden grain has been taken away. It is fair-seeming, but unreal and untrue.

Little things sometimes illustrate important lessons. Some time ago, two girls undertook to dress a couple of dolls which were exactly alike and intended as presents for twin sisters, seven years old. Both were equally anxious to give pleasure to the little people, but they set about it in different ways. Each had the same amount to spend on clothes, which was not to be exceeded, but the details were left to themselves.

The one chose her materials less for show than for real fitness, and said to her friend, who was lost in choice amongst remnants of rich silks, “My doll is going to be just a little girl, not a fine lady.”

“My fine lady will be the more attractive,” said the other. “Both the children will want it, and that will be the worst of it all.”

The other did not answer, but set diligently to work, and gave time, pains, and patience in no stinted measure. She made complete sets of beautifully finished little garments, both for day and night wear. Every string and button was in the right place, and every article could be taken off and put on as easily as a real child’s. All would bear washing and be none the worse for it.

The second girl bought rich silk for a frock, dainty boots, and tiny silk stockings, and succeeded in making a little picture hat, evening cloak and dress in suitable style. Altogether the lady doll made a distinguished appearance; but below the shining dress there were the poorest shams for garments, which, once taken off, would not be worth replacing.

Naturally, both children at first turned longing eyes on the gaily-attired doll, and seemed anxious to possess it. But the unselfish nature of one triumphed, and whilst her sister grasped the showy toy, she whispered, “I’ll have the other, please!” and lifted her rosebud mouth to kiss the giver.

We know the endless joy a child finds in playing “little mother.” She never tires of dressing and undressing her doll, of setting up a washing day for its garments, or smoothing them with a tiny iron—under supervision.

The little twin maidens soon decided that the doll, whose clothes could be treated exactly like their own, was a treasure indeed, and the curly heads bent over it, shared in maternal cares, and found delightful occupation therein for many a day.

The fine garments were, after all, but as straw in comparison with corn. They were just to be looked at and admired, then put aside. They gave the “little mother” no change. She could do nothing for a fine lady.

To the girl who had given of her best, the sight of the children’s pleasure was reward enough. As to the other, she said, “I meant well, you did well; but I have learned a lesson. Even a child soon finds out the difference between what is thorough and what has only a fair outside. I saw my gaily-dressed toy lying neglected, whilst one ‘little mother’ was hushing her sham baby to sleep and the other child was folding away its day clothes. They saw my eyes turning towards my neglected handiwork, and, fearing I should be hurt, one said, ‘She’s very nice to take out for a walk; but she’s a fine lady, you know, not a baby to nurse, and her things won’t take off, so we can’t put her to bed.’ I said to myself, ‘No more shams even in doll dressing. My work shall be real all through.’”

So the fine lady was not without use after all. As to the other doll, it did more than give pleasure. It was a mute lesson which seemed to be always saying, “If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well.” It was an example of neatness, orderliness, industry and ungrudging labour to the small people, who were taught by those about them to take care of what had cost so much painstaking to produce.

I think I hear one of you ask, “Has not straw its value also? Could it be done without? Is it not necessary for the production of the grain itself?”

Certainly it is a most valuable thing and fills a most important place. It could be ill spared from Nature’s storehouse. Its uses are manifold, and would take long to enumerate. You will remember that, at the very beginning of our talk this evening, we showed the straw in use, along with the grain it held, both as an offering and a decoration in the house of God. It was only when it was proposed to put straw in place of “the full corn in the ear,” that it was objected to as an empty sham.

There is a great deal of straw mixed with our social intercourse that might well be thrown aside, and there are other cases in which we should be sorry to part with it. The visits which are paid merely because we owe them, without the slightest wish to see the individual and only to get rid of a feeling of debt, are straw of one kind.

We have all heard the remark, “I got through such a number of calls to-day. It was so fine that nearly everybody was out, as I thought they would be.”

The calls made in the expectation and hope of finding our acquaintances out, are surely a kind of social straw that we could well dispense with. The invitation given, not because a guest is really wanted, but because it “would not do to leave her out,” is straw of the same kind.

But there are many kind words said and little thoughtful actions performed which are only straw, in a sense; but we should miss them sadly if they were omitted.

Supposing that one of you received two gifts of equal intrinsic value at the same time. A curt line or a telegram announced the one, a lovingly-worded letter, or kind expressions uttered in a tone and with a look of good will accompanied the other. In neither case would the value of the gift be affected; but—oh, what a difference there would be in the feelings of the receiver!

The prettily-worded letter or message would linger in the memory and the pleasant smile would be recalled whenever the gift was in sight. They were but the straw that enfolded it, but it was precious straw which had its right place and value.

Much that I have said to-night, dear girls, is intended to suggest thought—not to exhaust the subject, for that would be difficult. But I trust it will help us all to discriminate between the false and the true, the thorough and the fair-seeming, and strengthen our determination to give of our best to God above all, and, for His sake, to our neighbour also.

(To be continued.)

Illustration from The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1003, March 18, 1899

THE GUITARIST.