Don't keep it to yourself. Say so! Pass it on! Tell some one you are
glad they did something for you!
Everybody dislikes a girl or boy who is like a sponge, always soaking
in!
I saw a lovely flower once. At first it was only a dirty-looking bulb.
But it was put in nice clean water, in a glass, and soon beautiful white
rootlets began to fill up the bottle; and one day the bulb was so glad
that it was no longer a nasty earthy-looking brown bulb, but had
graceful white roots, and a bud shooting out that it burst in a splendid
poem of thanks; only the poem was called a flower, and its name was
Hyacinth!
We all love to see a thankful life--At home it makes the atmosphere so
soft and helpful--At school it straightens wrinkles off the teacher and
fills the room with light--With one another it acts like good oil in an
automobile. It makes things run smoother.
And girls and boys, God likes it too!
There is a fable of a lion that lay hot and tired, trying to sleep, when
some field mice ran over his body and made him so mad he clapped down
his paw and was going to tear it when the little mouse pled for mercy in
such a way that the lion set him free.
Sometime later he heard a great roaring and found it was the lion caught
by hunters in a great net. He remembered the mercy of the lion, and
telling him not to fear, he set to work with his little sharp teeth and
gnawed away at the cords and knots of the trap and set the lion free.
It is fine to be thankful.
It is even finer to prove it by doing things that make others thankful.
Be thankful for home, and school, for church and gospel.
Be thankful you are not children in a heathen land.
Be thankful for your happy girl and boy life.
Be thankful God cares for you.
A minister once told a bishop of a wonderful escape he had from a
burning ship. He called it a "great providence of God."
"Yes," said the bishop, "but I know a greater. I know a ship where
nothing happened and it arrived safely." That was God's providence too,
for which he was thankful.
And all your life God is working over you.
Are you thankful?
And do you show it by helping others and being kind to those who are
kind to you?
There is a legend from Norway, that wonderful sea-washed land in Europe,
so full of tales that girls and boys like. It is called the legend of
the "Gertrude Bird."
It is a woodpecker that is said to have been a woman once, who was
making bread, when two men passed by who happened to be Christ and His
disciple Peter, although she did not know.
They asked for some of the dough, for they had had a long walk and fast;
and she pinched a piece off when lo, it grew till it filled the bake
box. So she said, "No, that is too much," and pinched a piece off it,
when the same thing happened! Three times it happened, and each time she
got more selfish and hard and stingy. At last, as she saw how much
dough she was getting, she said to the two strangers, "I cannot give you
any. Go on, you can't stop here!"
They passed on and then she knew them; and oh, she got humble and sorry,
and fell down asking for pardon, and the Christ said, "I gave you much,
but you had no thanks. Now I'll try poverty. After this you must get
your food between the bark and the tree. But because you are sorry,
when your clothing is all black with your sorrow, it will stop, because
then you will have learnt to be thankful!"
And so she was punished for a while by becoming a woodpecker, picking
her food between the bark and the tree, until as she grew older her back
and wings all got black; and then God turned them all white again!
Dear girls and boys, God loves you and me to be thankful!
*XV*
*CRUELTY*
There are two ways you can get a bad bite from the fox called Cruelty.
(1) By being cruel to people. Of course, most normal girls and boys
would hardly like to be called cruel; and yet how often you can be
without just knowing its name.
A boy that is a bully is a cruel boy. At school he likes to lord it
over other boys, especially if they are smaller than he is.
I knew a boy once in a school in Toronto, who at recess was knocked down
by a bigger boy who pushed his face into a snow bank and sat on him
until he was in an agony of suffocation. I don't suppose the boy
realized what he was doing, but he was a bully just the same.
He is the fellow who likes to see smaller fellows afraid of him, and
likes to strut around with the feeling that he is cock of the walk!
I was going to a funeral one day, and saw a large boy on the street,
seated on a small boy who was lying helpless on his back and enduring
all kinds of nasty actions by the young bully. If I had not been at the
head of the funeral, I would have stopped and gone and spanked him!
How boys hate a bully. He is a coward, you know, at heart. A real
brave boy will never take advantage of some one weaker and smaller than
himself. A real brave hero protects others. The boy who hurts some one
who can't defend himself is a mean coward. It does not matter how big
his breast is or how far it sticks out, his inside heart is small, and
narrow and hard. Now, don't you be like that!
(2) You can be cruel to animals--torturing them--loving to hurt them,
just for the fun of killing. It is so strange the way some people think
they are having no sport unless something is suffering.
"It's a fine day," some one is reported as saying, "let us go out and
kill something."
We live in a day when Children's Aid Societies and Humane Societies are
telling us of the beauty of a kind life, and that even animals are God's
creatures and should be treated with reverence, or at least with the
gentleness that will not cause unnecessary pain.
The cruel spirit hardens us. It takes away what learned men call
sensitiveness; _i.e._, it makes us so we do not feel. It makes our
hearts like our hands sometimes get when not cared for--it makes callous
marks; and when fine feeling is lost, we are less than we ought to be.
A little Indian girl, the educated daughter of a chief, said she could
never forget the first time she ever heard God's name.
In her play she found a wounded bird by her tent and picked it up and
said, "This is mine." One of the men who saw her said, "What have you?"
"A bird," she said, "it's mine."
He looked at it and said, "No, it's not yours. You must not hurt it."
"Not mine," she said, "then whose is it?" "It's God's," he said. "He
can care for it. Give it back to Him." She felt scared and awed. "Who
is God? Where is God? How will I give it back?" "Go and lay it down
near its nest," he said, "and tell God there is His bird."
She went very softly back and laid it down and said, "God, there is your
bird."--And she never forgot!
Be kind to all things, girls and boys.
"There's nothing so kingly as kindness
And nothing so royal as truth."
And watch carefully that you may not be a cruel girl or boy to any
person or to any of God's creatures.
*XVI*
*COWARDLINESS*
If there is any one in the world that a boy or a girl admires, it is a
hero. You are all hero-worshippers.
You know how big you feel if you ever get a chance to shake hands with a
great man who had made a name for himself, and if he is a great national
hero and he speaks to you, why you never forget it; and you blow about
it to all your chums!
When the Prince of Wales was in Vancouver, a little girl presented a
bouquet to him, and I fancy she felt so big that her dress-waist grew
very tight as she swelled up.
When I was a little boy, I had a very learned and eloquent minister; and
I used to watch him, and made up my mind to be just like him, and to
wear a gray silk hat some day. He was my hero.
It is a fine thing to be a hero and to love a hero; and one of the
things we all believe our heroes possess is bravery.
No girl or boy would ever knowingly worship a coward.
The very fact that we have heroes that always stand to us for big,
brave, noble people, should make us anxious to be big, brave and noble
ourselves.
Everybody admires Scott who died in the search for the South Pole; and
Shackleton who died on his way to explore that part of the earth.
Everybody has learned to think highly of the fearless John Knox, who was
not afraid to talk back to the Queen when she did wrong; or Luther, who
defied the Emperor and the whole Empire because he knew he was right.
It was one of the greatest moments in history when the little monk stood
straight up and looked his enemies in the eye, and said, "I will not
retract. I can do no other. Here I stand!"
When you think of people like that, how it makes us ashamed of ourselves
when fear grips our heart.
And yet, cowardice is not quite the same as fear.
Wellington, England's great general, once in a battle ordered a young
officer to a dangerous spot. The young fellow turned deadly pale, but
put spurs to his horse and went straight to duty. And General
Wellington said, "There goes a courageous man. He is afraid, but he
only thinks of duty!"
Nor is physical courage the highest kind. That is a matter of physical
nerve and sometimes of health. But moral courage is still higher--the
very highest kind.
A poet once wrote:
"One dared to die, a swift moment's pace
Fell in war's forefront, laughter on his face,
Bronze tells the tale in many a market-place.
"One dared to live the whole day through,
Felt his life blood ooze like morning dew,
And smiled for duty's sake, and no one knew."
Neither were cowards, but I think the second was the braver, don't you?
Now, there are different ways of being cowards and of being brave. If
you can't stand sneers when you are right, but give in because of
laughs, you are a coward at heart. If you are afraid to do right, you
are a coward, but if you can do it even when you are afraid, you are a
brave hero.
If you can stand against a crowd when the crowd is wrong, and stand
there even if you are the only one, you are brave and will never have
the coward heart!
The coward spirit, especially the spirit of a moral coward, eats the
power out of your life, and the only way to avoid it is to dare to do
right, and dare to be true.
Sometimes it takes a lot out of you, but it is worth while.
The boys who stood the trenches and braved bullets and shells and mud
stains and never faltered, were courageous. Those who funked were
always despised cowards; and the girl or boy who stands strong wherever
duty calls is a brave life, and will never be bitten by the fox called
Coward.
*XVII*
*DISHONESTY*
Did you ever really hear in your heart and believe in your very soul
that "An honest man's the noblest work of God"?
What is honesty?
It is the quality of your character that always rings true.
You can always tell when a bell has a crack in it. It does not ring
true.
And you can tell when a girl or boy has a crack somewhere in his
character. He or she does not give a clear ringing sound. One of the
worst kind of cracks is dishonesty.
You can't trust that kind of person. He always has to be watched.
What a horrid kind of child that is, from whom you dare never take your
eyes!
But when you see a real honest girl or boy, how you admire the sight.
They will not cheat. They play fair. They are true sports. They won't
take advantage of you when your back is turned.
You know how even in school games you like a real sport, who plays the
game and obeys the rules of the game.
You can't have a game with any other kind. He spoils everything and you
can't have real life with a cheat. He spoils the school and disgraces a
house.
More than that, an honest person will not take what does not belong to
them. A lot of girls and boys forget the difference between "mine" and
"thine."
Then when they grow up they spoil society, and if they go far enough,
they become that awful thing, "a thief."
An honest girl and boy is one with honour bright.
A looking-glass always shines when it is polished bright.
A pool of water is very beautiful when you can look right down into it
and see clear through it--
And so is a boy and girl who has no mud in the eye or in the soul.
It is simply great to be a life on the square, aboveboard, with nothing
to conceal; what is called transparent, so that the light shines
throughout, with no pretending to be what it is not; no scamping work
and trying to get things without paying for them. You can't anyhow!
You always get in the end what you pay for.
Did you ever hear some one described as "four square"--standing true,
upright, facing everywhere with a clear eye and an undimmed soul?
It is a fine thing to have a life with no spots in it, and one of the
very worst spots is to be false and dishonest--