James 1

Mirrors

A mirror. James 1:23.

The text today is one you all know. Perhaps the girls know it better than the boys, but I think the boys may have seen something like it occasionally. The girls use it to help them to tie up their curls and put their hats on straight, the boys to flash light in somebody's face on a sunny day. Well, now, I have almost told you the name of it. Yes, it is a mirror.

You will find the text in the first chapter of the Epistle of James, the twenty-third verse. The mirrors St. James knew were not very like ours. In those days they had no glass mirrors such as we have. Instead they used thin plates of polished metal. Generally these were of bronze, but some of the finest were of silver. You may imagine it was not quite so easy to get a clear reflection of yourself in one of these as in the nice glass mirrors you have at home.

Now, we all carry a mirror about with us you, and I, and everybody else. It is called the mirror of the soul; and in that mirror we receive the reflection of the things and the people and the happenings with which we are surrounded. We may not realize that we are carrying these reflections, but other people see them in us. If you are very much in a friend's company you begin to adopt his way of speaking, his little tricks of manner, his habits and thoughts and ideas. Very likely you are not aware of it, but other people notice it.

Once the errand boys in a certain part of London began to whistle out of tune. At last somebody discovered that the bells of Westminster were slightly out of tune. Something had gone wrong with the chimes and there was discord in them. The boys did not know there was anything the matter with the peals, and quite unconsciously they had copied them. And so you will copy the people you are most with, and you will borrow your thoughts very much from the books you read almost without knowing it.

So you see it matters very much what kind of company we keep, and what kind of books we read, and what kind of games we play. And the strange thing about these magic mirrors of ours is that the younger we are the brighter they are, and the clearer and stronger are the reflections. Therefore where we take our mirrors matters much more when we are young than when we are older. Let us try to carry them always where they will reflect the things that are beautiful and true. For the things they once reflect they go on reflecting to the last.

But when we are thinking about our own mirrors we must remember that other people are carrying mirrors too, and as we cannot help receiving reflections in our mirrors, so we cannot help casting reflections in theirs. We cannot help influencing other people any more than they can help influencing us. Your younger brothers and sisters, your companions at school, even your fathers and mothers are carrying your reflections every day. Do you know the sad story of the small boy who lost the naughty word? Here it is as told by himself:

I lost a very little word Only the other day;

A very naughty little word

I had not meant to say.

If only it were really lost,

I should not mind a bit;

I think I should deserve a prize

For really losing it.

But then it wasn't really lost

When from my lips it flew;

My little brother picked it up,

And now he says it too.

Mamma said that the worst would be

I could not get it back;

But the worst of it now seems to me

I'm always on its track.

Mamma is sad; papa looks grieved:

Johnnie has said it twice:

Of course it is no use for me

To tell him it's not nice.

When you lose other things, they're lost;

But lose a naughty word,

And for every time 'twas heard before

Now twenty times 'tis heard.

If it were only really lost,

Oh, then I should he glad;

I let it fall so carelessly

The day that I got mad.

Lose other things, you never seem

To come upon their track;

But lose a naughty little word,

It's always coming back.

Whether we like it or not, other people pick up our words and our ways and copy them. What kind of reflection are you casting?

Most boys and girls have heard of radium, and some of them may have seen it. Radium is a marvelous element that has been discovered within very recent years. It produces heat and light, and its rays of light are so strong that they can penetrate quite easily through steel or other metals. One of the most wonderful things about the light of radium is that it is reflective. If you shut up a small quantity of radium in a cardboard box for a short time and then take it out, the box will continue to give forth rays of radium for some weeks.

Now, there is one place we must not forget to take our mirrors and that is into the presence of Jesus, the Light of the World. If we take them to Him, He will shine upon them with a perfect radiance. Then we shall reflect that light and help to bring brightness and gladness into the world.