Chapter 11—Lessons of Life
“Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.”
The Great Teacher brought His hearers in contact with nature, that
they might listen to the voice which speaks in all created things; and as
their hearts became tender and their minds receptive, He helped them
to interpret the spiritual teaching of the scenes upon which their eyes
rested. The parables, by means of which He loved to teach lessons of
truth, show how open His spirit was to the influences of nature and how
He delighted to gather the spiritual teaching from the surroundings of
daily life.
The birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the sower and the seed, the
shepherd and the sheep—with these Christ illustrated immortal truth.
He drew illustrations also from the events of life, facts of experience
familiar to the hearers—the leaven, the hid treasure, the pearl, the
fishing net, the lost coin, the prodigal son, the houses on the rock and
the sand. In His lessons there was something to interest every mind,
to appeal to every heart. Thus the daily task, instead of being a mere
round of toil, bereft of higher thoughts, was brightened and uplifted
by constant reminders of the spiritual and the unseen.
So we should teach. Let the children learn to see in nature an
expression of the love and the wisdom of God; let the thought of Him
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be linked with bird and flower and tree; let all things seen become
to them the interpreters of the unseen, and all the events of life be a
means of divine teaching.
As they learn thus to study the lessons in all created things, and
in all life’s experiences, show that the same laws which govern the
things of nature and the events of life are to control us; that they are
given for our good; and that only in obedience to them can we find
true happiness and success.
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