Jean came of a peasant family, so he had to take his place in the field and earn his bread “by the sweat of his brow.”  On Sundays the fields were forsaken and the family went to the village church where the father was the leader of the choir.  After church friends and relatives sometimes came home to spend the afternoon with the family.  One Sunday, soon after the return from church, the bent figure of an aged peasant slowly made his way along the road.  There was something about the figure that struck the boy Jean.  He took a piece of charcoal and hurriedly drew a sketch upon the wall.  Every movement and attitude was so perfectly depicted that everybody laughed—­everybody but the father.  He sensed the gift possessed by his boy, whose growing talent he had been watching.  “My Jean,” he said, “I will no longer hinder you from learning that which you are so anxious to know.”

Jean Francis Millet, for such is his full name, became the artist of peasantry.  He never made any other boast.  His character was of the highest.  He had a firm faith in God.  He believed in the Bible as the Word of God.  He looked upon his use of the brush as preaching upon canvas the purity and truth he believed.

“The Angelus” is the name of the best known picture that he painted.  It shows two workers in a potato field, a man and a woman, who hear from the near-by village the faint tones of the Angelus bell calling them to prayer.  They pause, stand erect, bow their heads and worship.  It is a beautiful picture.  I hope you have a copy framed in your room.

MEMORY VERSE, Luke 11:  1

    “Lord, teach us to pray.”

MEMORY HYMN [495]

    "From every stormy wind that blows."

GOD’S CLOCK

Do you own a watch?  If you do not now you will some day.  I have a friend whose watch came to him in this wise.  His father said to him, “When you graduate from High School I will give you a watch.”

Is there a “town clock” where you live?  Is it dependable?  Do men set their watches by it?  Do people, passing it, glance up to see if they are late?  In the village where I began my ministry the Baptist tower held the town clock.  I lived but a few doors away.  I went to bed by it.  I studied by it.  I was wakened by it.  Even now, and many years have passed since then, I can hear its clear bell strike the hours.

The strangest clock I ever saw was in China.  I went up the West River to the city of Canton.  I was carried through the narrow, smelly, crowded streets to the top of a little hill at the city’s edge.  There, on the very tip-top I saw the “Water Clock.”  I read, “This water clock is a most ancient, authentic, celebrated and sacred relic of Kwong Tung Province, over 1,300 years old.  It was erected on the top story of the north Worshiping Tower which was built by Chin To, King of the South of China.”