Once there was a noble river, sweeping downward to the sea. It turned many useful mills, it supplied with drinking water many towns, it nourished the roots of many trees, it charmed many eyes with its beauty. But at last this noble river grew very conceited. It thought that it alone was doing all this, and quite forgot the thousands of little springs hidden away up among the mountains.
One day the river heard some one talking about these same springs, and saying that the river, great as it was, would last only a short time without them. “We’ll see!” exclaimed the river, angrily. So it sent word to all the smaller rivers that flowed into it, and bade them send word up along the water courses and into the mountains telling these mountain springs to flow some other way, for the great river had no need of them. And this message was quickly delivered.
Well, you do not need to be told, children, what speedily happened. The little springs turned off other ways and did not flow into the mountain torrents, and soon these torrents dried up. Then the small rivers, which were fed by the mountain torrents and by these alone, they, too, began to shrink, and at last dried up altogether.
“What is the matter?” cried the great river, in alarm; but the empty beds of the small rivers that had poured into it could give no answer. And so the great river itself gradually grew less, as the hot sun evaporated its waters, and as its currents ran down to the sea, with no fresh water coming in from the mountains to take their place. It tried to shout to the mountain springs, but they could not hear, they were so far away. “Help Help!” it cried, but cried in vain, and soon every drop of the great river had run into the sea, and the river, that thought it had no need of the little springs, was at an end.
Boys, girls, this great river is the church, and the children are the little mountain springs. Have you ever thought what would happen to the church if the children did not love it and help it and grow up into it? Who would take the places of the older people, and carry on their work, when they fell into the great sea of death? Ah, our church, though, is not like the great river in one way. It knows how much it needs the children, and it wants them, and urges them to come and help swell its great current. You will not refuse, will you?