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(a sermon to children): — All wise people like to go deeply into a thing, to go to the root of it. What is your root? Where is it? Your "heart." A little boy had a very nice watch; but it would not go right. It had a very pretty case, and face; but it sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow. He asked his mother what he should do about it. She told him to take it to the watchmaker's. He did so; and he said, " Master John, it has its hands all right, but it will not go right. Therefore leave it with me, and come again in a few days, and I will tell you what is the matter with it." John went again to him in a few days, and the watchmaker said to him, "I opened your watch, and I found there was the right number of wheels, and pins, and screws; but I found a little part called 'the spring' which was wrong; and because the main-spring was wrong, it sometimes went too fast, and sometimes too slow." Now, I think, you are all like watches. Something within you goes tick, tick, and you have hands and inside works. But how do you go? Sometimes too fast, and sometimes too slow. Does not the tongue sometimes go too fast or too slow? Are not the feet sometimes too fast or too slow? Are not the hands sometimes going wrong? How is this? Let us examine — though I am not the watchmaker — God is the watchmaker: the main-spring is the heart. Everything in you depends upon your "heart." God always looks most at the "heart." What do you think God will look at in the day of judgment? Your "heart." That is what He will want to know about. Now as it is so important to "keep the heart" right, I want to try to help you to do so, by giving you a little advice thereupon. " Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." One thing is to "keep" it as we "keep" a garden — neat. Now, then, if you would "keep" your garden, you must often look into it. And I will tell you what you will find there — every day there will grow lumps of weeds; however well you may have weeded it yesterday, you will find more weeds to-day. Pull them out! Then another thing — you must water it. This wants doing very often. Do you know what I mean? If not, look at the fourth of John, to what Jesus Christ said about water, and what it is. Bring the Holy Spirit into your heart. Pray that God will pour good thoughts — His grace — into your heart: that is water. If you want to "keep your heart," do not let there be any empty corners therein. God likes all boys and girls to be employed — sometimes at their lessons, sometimes at play; sometimes helping somebody, thinking, reading, or playing, to be always employed. I must tell you, if you do not always employ yourselves — if you are idle, and thinking about nothing, the devil is sure to come into your hearts. Another piece of advice I give you is this, be very particular whom you make your intimate friends. You must "keep your heart" from catching those evil desires that naughty boys and girls will suggest. One thing more. Have you not sometimes, when anybody has given you anything uncommonly valuable, taken it to your father, and said, " It is too precious for me to keep, I am afraid of losing it, do take care of it for me"? It is very wise for boys and girls to do this with their treasures. Oh, that you would do this with your heart! You cannot "keep" it yourself; therefore often take it to God: ask Him to keep your heart.

(J. Vaughan, M.A.)

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KJV: Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

WEB: Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.