r. Wherever a boy is trying to do that, in the house
or on the street, in the workshop or on the baseball field, there is
the Kingdom of God. And every boy, however small or obscure or poor,
who is seeking that, is a member of it. You see now, I hope, what the
Kingdom is.

II.

I pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? Arithmetic. Are
there any arithmetic words in this text? "Added." What other
arithmetic words? "First."

Now, don't you think you could not have anything better to seek
"first" than the things I have named to do what is right, to live at
peace, and be always making those about you happy? You see at once why
Christ tells us to seek these things first--because they are

THE BEST WORTH SEEKING.

Do you know anything better than these three things, anything happier,
purer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you do not, seek
first the Kingdom of God. I do not tell you to be religious. You know
that. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom of God. I tell you to seek
the Kingdom of God _first_. _First._ Not many people do that. They put
a little religion into their life--once a week, perhaps. They might
just as well let it alone. It is not worth seeking the Kingdom of God
unless we seek it _first_.

Suppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bow, and
send that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side? Certainly
not. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its place, and it
will take you straight through life and straight to your Father in
heaven when life is over. But if you do not put it in its place, you
may just as well have nothing to do with it. Religion out of its place
in a human life is the most miserable thing in the world. There is
nothing that requires so much to be kept in its place as religion, and
its place is what? second? third? "First." Boys, _first_ the Kingdom
of God; make it so that it will be natural to you to think about that
the very first thing.

There was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made
telegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself.) One day this boy was
up on the top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing up a
telegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was getting late, and
the men said they were going away home, and the boy was to nip off the
ends of the wire himself. Before going down they told him to be sure
to go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with his master's
tools.