[Make sets of wings out of tissue paper and take them, one by one, from a box as you talk.]
Once a soldier was about to start out on a long and very difficult journey for a great king, and the king, who was also a very wise man, gave him to help him on the way a wonderful box. This box, as the king showed him, contained a large number of little wings, each of them labeled; and whenever the soldier on his journey came to any danger that corresponded to the label on any of the wings, he had only to fasten the right set on his shoulders, and at once they would begin to fly, and would lift him above the trouble, whatever it might be, and put him down in a safe place.
One of these pair of wings was marked “For Robbers,” and the soldier clapped them on when he was attacked in a dark woods by some bandits. At once he found himself sailing above the trees, far out of their reach. One of them was marked, “For a Pit,” and the soldier, when he chanced to fall into a deep well through the treachery of his guide, had no difficulty, with the help of the marvelous wings, in getting out again. One of them was marked “For Darkness,” and the soldier, when he lost his way in a dark forest, was glad to try all the wings till he found this set, which at once carried him out to the light again. And so by the aid of these wonderful wings the soldier came safely to his journey’s end, and accomplished the errand of the great king.
Now, boys and girls, this story is true of each one of you. For the great king is God, and the wonderful box is the Bible, and the wings are God’s promises to us. There is a promise in this blessed book for every trouble you may chance to meet along the journey of life. There is a promise for sickness, and one for pain, and one for worry, and another for danger, and another for loneliness, and others for fear and failure and weariness and death. And all you have to do is to take these promises and believe them, and they will at once lift you, like wings, high above all your troubles, into peace and joy and sunshine again.
Is it not worth while to study and read a book that has so many helpful things in it?