Next we have some nails still larger.  The magnet will lift up only one or two of these.  They stand for men and women in mature life.  Oh, if one has not responded to Christ’s call in childhood or youth, it becomes increasingly difficult as the years pass.  How seldom, how very seldom, does an aged one answer the divine call and give his heart to the Lord!

Here is a very large nail, and it is rusty.  Indeed it is literally coated with rust.  This represents the life that is deep in sin.  For long years this life has been persisting in his evil ways.  As the magnet must be very strong to penetrate the rust and grip the nail, so Christ’s call must be strong and loving to reach the sinful soul.  Christ can save “from the uttermost,” but how much better it is to say in early youth, “I hear thy voice, my Lord.  Gladly I come.”

MEMORY VERSE, Matthew 11:  28

    “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
    give you rest.”

MEMORY HYMN [462]

    "In heavenly rest abiding."

LOVE AND LOYALTY

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a man who had a wife and two sons.  There was a famine in the land where he lived, so he said to his wife and sons, “We will journey down to another country where the crops have not failed.  There shall we find plenty to eat, and there will we make our home.”

So the family moved to the strange land where they prospered and were happy.  In time the boys grew to young manhood and married young women of the new land where they dwelt.  Then sorrow entered their homes, as sorrow comes sooner or later to every home.  The father and the two sons died, and the mother and her two daughters-in-law were left alone.  The mother, whose name was Naomi, said, “I am going back to the land where I lived in former days, back to the people of my girlhood.”  The young women said, “We shall go with you also.”  “No,” replied Naomi, “you must not do that.  Go back to your homes, there you shall be cared for, and may the Lord deal gently with you.”

The names of these two daughters-in-law were Ruth and Orpah.  It was Ruth who then spoke up and said in words that are not surpassed in all the English language: 

“Intreat me not to leave thee, Or to return from following after thee; For whither thou goest I will go; And where thou lodgest I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people, And thy God my God; Where thou diest will I die, And there will I be buried; The Lord do so to me, and even more, If ought but death part thee and me.”

Great words are these, words of love and loyalty.

MEMORY VERSE, Exodus 20:  12

    “Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon
    the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

MEMORY HYMN [668]

    "O perfect love, all human thought transcending."