Part 3 (1/2)

You must be on the lookout for boys like that. Don't be afraid to be called a coward by them. Don't let them ”dare” you to do things which your conscience tells you are foolish or wrong. You will be a bigger coward if you do these things because you are ashamed not to take the dare.

”s.h.i.+NE INSIDE”

As I was pa.s.sing along the street the other day I saw on the window of a bootblack's parlour the words, ”s.h.i.+ne Inside.”

I want to turn these words around and make a motto of them for you boys and girls. For I think that if every boy and girl would s.h.i.+ne inside, our homes, and the world in general, would be a much happier place.

Of course there are some boys and girls who s.h.i.+ne only on the _outside_.

A little while ago I read a story about Byron, a great poet, of whom you will learn later in school. A man said to Sir Walter Scott that he wished he might have seen Byron when he was alive. He said he had only seen a photograph of him. Scott said, ”Yes, the l.u.s.ter is there [in the photograph], but it is not lighted up.” Now, there are some boys' and girls' faces that have a l.u.s.ter, but it is not lighted up.

Or their faces are like a mirror that s.h.i.+nes brightly only when there is sunlight or some other light falling upon it. The mirror only s.h.i.+nes outside. The l.u.s.ter is not always lighted up. I know boys and girls who s.h.i.+ne outside only when other boys and girls play the game which they want them to play, or when they get the clothes they want to wear or the food they want to eat, or when they are out in pleasant company. But when they don't have their own way, then their faces are very cloudy.

But the boy or girl who s.h.i.+nes _inside_ is one who ”irons out his wrinkles with a smile” even though things do not exactly please him, and he thinks of other people instead of himself.

Now, how can boys and girls s.h.i.+ne inside so that they will always s.h.i.+ne outside whether they have their own way or not? Well, you remember that the Bible says that when Moses came down from the mountain his face shone, because he had been talking with G.o.d. That is the secret, boys and girls. When a man or a woman or a boy or a girl talks often enough with G.o.d in prayer and asks to be made like Christ, then a light is lighted within him which causes his face to s.h.i.+ne. You remember Christ said, ”I am the Light.” Let Him into your heart, and you will s.h.i.+ne inside.

”The man worth while is the man with a smile When everything goes dead wrong.”

THE STORM-KING EAGLE

If you have been up the Hudson River from New York to Albany by the day-boat, you will probably have noticed a high mountain on the right-hand side of the river by the name of Storm King.

I want to tell you about an eagle that used to live there. He could be seen there almost any day soaring high above the mountain-peak. And many a hunter had tried to shoot him. But he avoided them all. And how do you think he did it? Did he hide from them? No. Just by flying so high that the bullets could not reach him, or, if some chance bullet did reach him, he was so far away that it just kissed his plumage and fell back to earth without doing him any harm.

I wish that every boy and girl were as wise as that old eagle. That is always the way to avoid being wounded by sins: just keep high up above them. I mean by that, when you are tempted to do anything that is wrong, not to stop and argue with yourself whether you will get caught if you do it, or whether you will be happier if you do not do it, or any of these things by which you lose time. But just get right away from it: put it out of your mind.

I suppose you will wonder how you can do that. I will tell you. You have often heard about ”wis.h.i.+ng-caps,” and how the people in fairy-stories put them on and just wish themselves wherever they want to be, and quick as a flash they are there. Well, there is a wis.h.i.+ng-cap that every boy and girl can put on when he is tempted; it is this prayer, ”O G.o.d, help me not to do this thing which is wrong!” And if you say that prayer, and believe G.o.d will help you, it will take you high out of reach of the sin, just as that old eagle flew high above reach of the bullets. For G.o.d says that they who ask Him for help shall ”mount up on wings as eagles.”

A DOG WHICH ATE THE BIBLE

I heard an amusing story sometime ago about a savage in Africa who came to a missionary very much excited and told him that his dog had been completely spoiled as a watch-dog because he had chewed up and eaten a small New Testament he had happened to get hold of. He said that the dog would never be of any more use because the New Testament which he had swallowed would take all the fight out of him, and he could no longer keep wild animals away from the sheep.

That seems a strange notion for a grown-up man to get into his head, doesn't it? And yet, boys and girls, I run across some young people even here in America that think if they let Christ into their hearts it will make them sort of ”wishy-washy” and ”goody-goody,” and not strong and rugged people.

It is true that to be a Christian does take some of the fight out of a person, but it is the quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of one. But when you come to read history you will find that some of our bravest soldiers were Christians. John Havelock, a British general who fought in India for the sake of his country, was called ”The Christian Warrior.” Sir Oliver Cromwell, who had to lead an army in England against the king, who was ill-treating the people, had a body of soldiers under him who were Christians, and they were such good soldiers and so hard to defeat that they were called ”Cromwell's Ironsides.” Sometimes just before battle these soldiers used to sing hymns and then pray on the battlefields. And because they were Christians it made better and braver soldiers of them.

And so the truest kind of courage that any boy or girl can have is the kind that Christ gives. Paul tells all of us Christians to be ”good soldiers.” The Bible takes the wrong kind of fight out of you and puts the right kind of fight into you, the fight for n.o.ble things.

STEAM AND SAILS