“My boy, I have only two words for you—­’Fear God, and never tell a lie.’”

The boy started off, and towards evening he saw glittering in the distance the minarets of the great city.  But between the city and himself he saw a cloud of dust.  It came nearer.  Presently he saw that it was a band of robbers.

One of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, and said: 

“Boy, what have you got?”

The boy looked him in the face said: 

“I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.”

The robber laughed and wheeled around his horse and went away back.  He would not believe the boy.

Presently another robber came and he said: 

“Boy, what have you got?”

“Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.”

The robber said:  “The boy is a fool,” and wheeled his horse and rode away back.

By and by the robber captain came and he said: 

“Boy, what have you got?”

“I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.”

The robber dismounted, and put his hand over the boy’s breast, felt something round, counted one, two, three, four, five, till he counted out the forty golden coins.  He looked the boy in the face and said: 

“Why did you tell me that?

The boy said:  “Because of God and my mother.”

The robber leaned on his spear and thought and said: 

“Wait a moment.”

He mounted his horse, rode back to the rest of the robbers, and came back in about five minutes with his dress changed.  This time he looked not like a robber, but like a merchant.  He took the boy up on his horse and said: 

“My boy, I have long wanted to do something for my God and for my mother, and I have this moment renounced my robber’s life.  I am also a merchant.  I have a large business house in the city.  I want you to come and live with me, to teach me about your God; and you will be rich, and your mother some day will come and live with us.”

And it all happened.  By seeking first the Kingdom of God, all these things were added unto him.

Boys, banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is subtraction.  It does not tell us to give things up, but rather gives us something so much better that they give themselves up.  When you see a boy on the street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, that you could not make that boy happier than by giving him a top, a whip, and half an hour to whip it.  But next birthday, when he looks back he says,

“What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a top.  What I want now is a baseball bat.”

Then when he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for a baseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper every day.  He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts with baseball bats and whipping-tops.

Now, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows out of the evil things one by one—­that is to say, if they are really evil—­which he used to set his heart upon; (of course I do not mean baseball bats, for they are not evils); and so instead of telling people to give up things, we are safer to tell them to “seek first the Kingdom of God,” and then they will get new things and better things, and