They often tell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of God, everything
else is going to be SUBTRACTED from them. They tell them that they
are going to become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything
that makes a boy's life worth living--that they will have to stop
baseball and story-books, and become little old men, and spend all
their time in going to meetings and in singing hymns.
Now, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that.
Christ said we are to "Seek first the Kingdom of God," and
Everything else worth having
is to be ADDED unto us. If there is anything I would like you to
remember, it is these two arithmetic words--"first" and "added."
I do not mean by "added" that if you become religious you are all
going to become RICH. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the
shop tomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well,
nobody has missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to
burn a hole there. by breakfast time he wishes that money were
in his master's pocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He
says (to HIMSELF, and not to his master), "I was at the Boys' Brigade
yesterday and I was told to seek FIRST that which was right." Then
he says to his master:
"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor.
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