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The Seven Sticks

The following story is from the McGuffey Readers, used in American school systems in the 19th and 20th century. We can easily see the application drawn from the story — there is power in numbers:

A man had seven sons who were always quarreling. They left their studies and work to quarrel among themselves. Some bad men were looking forward to the death of their father, to cheat them out of their property by making them quarrel about it.

One day, the good old man called his sons around him. He laid before them seven sticks, which were bound together. He said, “I will pay a hundred dollars to the one who can break this bundle.”

Each one strained every nerve to break the bundle. After a long but vain trial, they all said that it could not be done.

“And yet, my boys,” said the father, “nothing is easier to do.” He then untied the bundle, and broke the sticks, one by one, with perfect ease.

“Ah!” said his sons, “it is easy enough to do it so; anybody could do it that way.”

Their father replied, “As it is with these sticks, so is it with you, my sons. So long as you hold fast together and aid each other, you will prosper, and none can injure you, but if the bond of union be broken, it will happen to you just as it has to these sticks, which lie here broken on the ground.”

The above illustration makes it clear that “a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT).

Let’s think about it!