Читать книгу The House We Live In; or, The Making of the Body - Vesta J. Farnsworth - Страница 3

HOUSES AND TEMPLES

ELEN: See this picture, mother. How pretty the house looks, with its wide windows and porches!

Mother: Yes, it is a fine picture, and such a house would make a lovely home. Men build better dwellings now than they did many years ago.

Percy: Do people build the same kind of houses in all countries?

Mother: Oh, no! If we should visit the Indians, we would find them living in rude tents called wigwams, or teepees, made of mats and the bark of trees. In some countries people live in tents. Where it is very warm they build so they may keep cool. In cold climates they make their houses warm. Can you tell me some things which are used in building houses?

Elmer: Stone, brick, iron, wood, paper, earth, and straw. The Esquimau lives in a house made of large blocks of snow and ice.

Mother: You would not think such a house very warm, but it is the best he can make. Perhaps you have noticed that some houses are large and some are small. Some have many rooms, others but few. They are made in many shapes and colors, and in some countries there are hardly two which look alike.

Amy: Here is another picture. What kind of a house is this, mother?

Mother: That is called a temple. It is built for the purpose of worship.

Helen: Is a meeting-house a temple?

Mother: It might be called by that name, for it is the house of God, where His people worship Him. But as we were looking at these pictures I have been thinking of another kind of house in which we all live, which is more wonderful than any building ever made by men. There are a great number of these houses. All are made of the same things, all have the same kind of frame, all have the same number of rooms, and, though there are thousands of them in every country, they are all lighted, heated, finished, and furnished the same way.

Percy: Oh, I know what you mean! You are thinking of our bodies.

Mother: Yes; and if you study this house God made for you to live in, you will be ready to say, with King David, “I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” The more men study this body of ours, the more they find to make them wonder at the wisdom of its Maker. If a man invents a useful machine, such as a watch or an engine, he is praised and called a great man. But how few ever praise and thank the Lord for the body He has given them, and try to learn the best way to care for it!

Helen: I should like to know how to care for mine, but I never thought of my body as a house before.

Mother: We may call it a house, because the Bible calls it so; and, more than that, it says it is a temple. Listen to this verse: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

Amy: Then this house or temple of the body does not belong to us, mother, for it says, “Ye are not your own.”

Percy: I see how it is. You know people sometimes build houses to rent, and the One who made the house we live in gives it to us for a home as long as we live, and He wants us to take good care of it.

Mother: That is right. The house is loaned or “rented” to us, as Percy says, for us to live in and care for. God cares for it too, and if it wasn’t for that it would have been destroyed long ago. Before any of us were old enough to know we had such a gift as our bodies, kind friends cared for them for us, and every moment our heavenly Father watches over us, for “in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” When we go to sleep He still keeps the heart engine pumping, and the parts which become worn out during the day are nicely mended without our thought or care.

Elmer: I want the house I live in to be like that pretty temple we saw in the picture.

Mother: Then my boy must be very careful to keep it clean, not only outside but inside as well. You know we sometimes see houses painted nicely outside, and we think what good homes they would make; but when once inside we find the rooms so dirty we want to get away. So boys and girls may be nicely dressed and look well outside, but if they do not eat good food and have good habits, their body-house is not fit to live in.

Percy: Adam and Eve must have had fine, large houses.

Helen: And they lasted a long time, too. Adam lived in his for over nine hundred years.

Mother: It is said that men keep building better houses all the time, but the first body-house God made was the best ever seen in this world.

Amy: But why are they not made good and lasting now, mother?

Mother: One reason is because we do not use them well. Many persons would do better in caring for themselves if they knew better how to do it. If I gave you a costly watch, Percy, what is the first thing you would want to know about it?

Percy: How to take care of it.

Mother: Yes, you would find out how and when to wind it, and just how to use it so it would keep good time. We should be even more careful to learn all we can about our bodies. We should learn for what each part was made, and how to keep it in good order. Men have taken bodies like ours apart, just as a watchmaker takes out all the wheels of a watch, and they have found out many things about them in this way. We should learn all we can about how to keep well and strong. If we are ill we make much trouble for others, and must suffer ourselves. If we are well we shall be a help and blessing to all around us. Not long ago I read this prayer of a little girl for her body:—

“Dear God, bless my two little eyes, and make them twinkle happy. Bless my two ears, and help me to hear mother call me. Bless my two lips, and make them speak kind and true. Bless my two hands, and make them good and not touch what they mustn’t. Bless my two feet, and make them go where they ought to. Bless my heart, and make it love God and my father and mother and everybody. Please let ugly sin never get hold of me—never, never!”

“The Lord my body did prepare

My dwelling-place to be,

And still it is a temple where

He daily meets with me.

“My head, my hands, my heart are His;

He knows my being well;

And all its many mysteries

My Lord alone can tell.

“To walk in ways of wickedness

My feet can not afford;

For all the powers I possess

Are holy to the Lord.

“I’ll pray to Him from day to day

To lead my steps aright,

That I along His heavenly way

May be a shining light.

“And He will keep my temple free

From every touch of sin;

He truly saves and cleanses me,

That He may dwell within.

“My eyes must see the good and true;

My ears must hear His voice;

My hands be ever glad to do

My heavenly Father’s choice.”

—C. M. Snow.