But let them come with all the sweet swiftness of these lovely,
impressionable days, and help them speedily lay their lives at Jesus'
feet.
*XX*
*SHAME*
It seems queer to call shame a fox, does it not? For a girl or boy
without sense of shame would be in a sad state.
But a lot of foxes look at first like something else. I have seen a fox
that at a distance looked like a little dog.
There is a real shame that every one should have. But there is another
kind just as bad as the vine-spoiling fox. It is the shame of the life
that is afraid to show its colours.
You know in the war how proud every loyal person was to wear a little
flag in the buttonhole; how we hung flags in our churches so every one
could see where we stood. On all our public buildings the nation's flag
was flung to the breeze, and even in our schools the girls and boys were
proud to stand up and salute, and sing the national anthem.
You will see men everywhere who wear pins or seals or rings that show
they belong to some society; and in college, the students hang on the
walls the pennants with the names of their home town or their college,
and nobody blushes because they are there.
But, oh, how many girls and boys get so different when asked to show
where they stand on questions of right and wrong. They blush, and
apologize, and look so shy, and feel so queer--with their ears red and
the goose-flesh running up and down their backs. They are out and out
for some things, and very neutral for others.
Neutral may be a rather big word, but your mother will tell you about it
when she goes to the dry-goods store. There are some ribbons whose
colour you are not sure of. They are of no outstanding tint, a sort of
dull gray with no mark to it. They call them neutral colours.
They may be all right. But girls and boys like that are a terrible
sight.--Neither this nor that--ashamed to come out; afraid to say where
they stand.
In the war, at one time, there were prominent people who were afraid to
have a conviction on Belgian and French outrages, or on the sinking of
the _Lusitania_, and it did not add to public opinion about them. It
was called spiritual neutrality; which is just a big learned way of
saying it had no character.
That spirit nobody in his heart admires. You girls and boys do not.
You love to read about the knights of old, and how they wore their
armour and rode their chargers, and carried their spears, and did not
blush to let everybody know who they were. Sir Walter Scott describes
one in these words:
"Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddle-bow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalwart knight and keen,
And had in many a battle been.
His eyebrow dark, and eye of fire,
Showed spirit proud, and prompt to ire;
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak;
His square-turned joints, and strength of limb,
Showed him no carpet-knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage."
Not a single one but threw his boast to the world of his plans and
purposes. They were not ashamed. Their hearts were brave and the world
saw the brave hearts through noble knightly deeds. They never tried to
hide them. What a splendid sight to see one who wears his colours
outside, and never lowers his flag!
A lot of soldiers won V.C.'s in the war and deserved the honour. Some
who deserved it never got it; and some deserve it in peace as well as in
war.
A disaster took place in a mine where eleven men and a boy were working.
Ten died, leaving one man and the boy. The man wrapped his overcoat
around the boy, covered his own eyes with his sleeve, turned his back on
the flames and backed through it all and brought the boy to safety,
although his skin was charred.
He was a hero equal to any V.C. He had a brave heart, and was not
ashamed to do what it told him.
Do you show your colours? Are you afraid to let people see the real
thing in your heart? You want to be kind and good and true. Does
anybody know? Do you keep your colours waving?
In the Great War, how we all shouted, "We'll never let the old flag
fall." That was fine, and we did not let it fall, and we were not
ashamed.
Will you be ashamed to do the right or speak the right? Will you fear
the face of some other girl or boy, and slink away from your duty?
If you do, that wretched fox of shame will have given you a bite that
will take a long time to cure.
*XXI*
*"A BATTERED WARSHIP"*
In the days of the Great War I was a minister in Vancouver. One day I
went to Esquimault, which was the station for the Pacific squadron of
the British Navy.
There entered the harbour one of the cruisers which had passed through a
naval battle. It was H.M.S. _Kent_. It was a touching spectacle to me.
In appearance she showed all the marks of the experience she had gone
through.
Painted in the dull gray of the navy, she stood at anchor, scarred and
marred by service. The enemy shot had set ablaze her gun cotton; enemy
shells had punctured the magazine; and through her funnels the
cartridges of hostile ships had plowed their way. Decks were soiled and
rigging torn; and her keel was covered with the sea growths that
accumulate with long voyages.
She was so different to the spick and span vessels of pre-war days, with
their fresh paint and shining spars and burnished brass fixtures and
trimmings. But as I looked at her, I will tell you what I thought.
1. I said, "There are the marks of service." And it was a long service,
for she was one of the older ships, but they were splendid marks. They
showed she was no harbour vessel or a parade ship. She had not dodged
the issue or slunk away from storm and conflict. She had watched for
the enemy and when sighted, she turned her prow in the direction of the
fight.
You see in all our cities and towns the scarred veterans with their
wounds and disabled bodies. And when you see them, take your hat off,
for you are in the presence of the servants of liberty.
There are some marks that are always a disgrace.
A life marked by sin; a face that shows the sway of selfishness that
cannot be hid; a body that carries the signs of living for mere
pleasure--these have no honour with them.
The marks of evil always come, until if it continues, the forehead shows
the mark of the beast.
But, thank God, marks of goodness are just as sure; and they are seen in
the eye, on the face, in the walk, in one's carriage, the way one
conducts oneself; and if it goes on, by-and-by the forehead will show
the marks of God.
One of the very finest marks is the scar of service.
That grand old ship brought me a lesson to live not to be served, but to
serve, so that the world is a little larger, better, stronger place
because I have been in it.
2. I thought of the glory of being a defender of one's country. Some
people think a patriot is one who shoots firecrackers and sends up
rockets, and pitches up his hat and hurrahs for things, and has a
glorious time on a public holiday.
But a real patriot is a man who loves his country so much that he does
all he can to ward off dangers from her. That was the glorious,
wonderful, immortal work of the British Navy, not only for the Empire,
but for the world.
She kept the sea paths open; she convoyed troop ships; she sank
submarines; she blockaded enemy ports; she joined the allied navies in
protecting the world's freedom.
And the old battle-worn vessel spoke to me and said, "What are you doing
for your country? Are you defending her from her enemies? Do you know
what her enemies are? Or do you care?"
Some poet speaks of,
"The inextinguishable spark which fires
The soul of patriots."
And Shakespeare said:
"I do love
My country's good, with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound than mine own life."
That is a patriot, and when we are loyal to that spirit we win a true
place on the honour list.
The man of highest honour is the one who serves his country for his love
of her, and stands up against every foe that threatens her.
And you girls and boys can have a name on the honour list of your city.
You do not need to die in battle to be an honour to your country.
Sometimes it is as much an honour just to live for her.
In your private life, as a girl or boy, be and do your best; and in your
outward life, stand always for the right and the true, and you, too,
will be a defender of your country.
3. Then finally, I thought of the unassuming way in which it was all
done. That is the case with all our best men.
A wounded soldier once after an operation, suffering agonies, told me it
made him sick to have people come and slobber over him their sympathy.
He did not want that. There is hardly a veteran who can be got to tell
what he did. He just did it and let it go at that.
When one of the ships in a battle was so sorely battered that it was
seen she must sink and be lost, the noble captain said, "Keep cool, men.
Be British!"
Just doing your duty, without noise or parade; whether applauded or not;
whether known or not; whether in public or obscure places--that is all.
When I left the harbour and turned my back on the old warrior vessel,
the setting sun, that shines in such glorious colourings on the Pacific,
bathed the gray ironclad in an outline of glory, and I saw the H.M.S. in
new meanings, which I give to you.
Humility--Manhood--Service.
*XXII*
*BOUCHER, THE FRENCH-CANADIAN VOYAGEUR*
I want to tell the girls and boys a really true story, not taken from
books, but told me from life by the man whose name is at the head of
this tale. And I am going to let you draw your own lesson about the
spirit that made possible his act.
You know the voyageur was a man used by the fur traders to bring the
furs from the Indian lands to the settled parts of civilization. They
ran the rivers and shot the rapids and travelled the woods, away from
the far north Hudson Bay forts down to Montreal and Quebec. They were
brave, rough, hardy men who shot rapids in birch-bark canoes, hunted for
bear and muskrat and otter and beaver, and lived a wild, free life in
the open.
I spent three months once, far north of Winnipeg in the Keewatin
territory, among the Indians, and there I met Boucher, who told his
story in broken English, a sort of mixture of English, French and Cree.
He sat in a little wooden shack with an old pipe between his fingers, a
bed covered with mosquito netting in one corner and a table and stool in
another. His thin gray locks of hair were brushed back, and shaky
fingers passed his pipe at intervals between his teeth.
The bare rocks behind and the deep Northern river in front; the cry of
the loon one moment and the intense stillness of the loneliness the
next, gave a weird feeling as the evening twilight added its shadows to
the picture of the old man telling his strange story.
Sir John Franklin and his band of men had been lost in their quest for
the Northwest passage. Boucher was one of those who formed a search
party to try to recover the bones of the great traveller.
The journey tried their strength and heroism; provisions were used up
and their safety became a matter of anxious concern. Their boots were
torn off and their moccasins torn into rags. He told me how for hours
he travelled the river, where blistering sands were varied by floating
ice, and where the eyes were blinded by the shadeless heat of the sun
and the reflection of ice and water.
They became mere skeletons, until at last the leader said some would
have to go and hunt for food. Boucher volunteered, but in his search he
lost his way.
With bleeding feet he climbed the rocks to peer out into the distance,
looking for his companions. No one can know what it feels like to be
lost, except those who have had that dreadful experience. Lost in the
wilderness, with no grub, no companion, nothing but what seemed a
pitiless heaven above and a heartless nature all around, he shouted into
an unheeding air, and only heard the sound of his own voice.
After hours of weary pain, he saw tracks which proved to be traces of
his companions who had also left camp to hunt for grub. Following them
in the hope of reaching camp, he was looking away over the horizon when
he saw something dark. "Was it man or beast, dead or alive?" Soon he
saw it move, and raise itself, and to his horror he saw it was a man,
who turned out to be one of his own companions who had fallen exhausted
and been left to die on the lonely trail.
What was he to do?
He could not leave him to perish; he could not stay long, for death was
staring him in the face. To leave meant dark inhumanity; to help meant
fearful suffering! But he was a hero, and took but a few moments to
make his choice. He would stay with him and help him through, or perish
in the effort.
The exhausted man said, "Leave me; we will both die if you stay." "No,"
said the brave hero, "I'll help you. Ah! I know how. My back is still
left."
It took a lot of persuading, but at last, bending low, with all his
wretchedness and hunger, with his bleeding feet and staggering body, he
pulled the man upon his back and started to trudge over that awful road.
Miles he travelled until the very flesh peeled off his feet--but he
never stopped until the tracks led him back to camp, where he laid
tenderly down his burden and fell in exhaustion that nearly proved his
end.
It was all told me in the plainest and most simple way, with no
boasts--just the quiet eloquence of a story of a deed done, because
there was nothing else to do.
As I heard it I fancied I could hear the Indians up the hill in the
little mission chapel singing, and this is what they seemed to sing:
"Then scatter seeds of kindness
For the reaping by-and-by."
For he who scatters help and service may suffer, but the glory of the
crowning will more than make up for all the pains of heroism.
*XXIII*
*"ONE BY ONE"*
The first thing we all do is to learn to count one by one.
At school when I began as a very little boy, they had an object called
an "abacus." I hardly know where they got the name, but it was made of
wires with beads strung on them, and it is found away back in the time
of Greece and Rome.
These beads could be moved along the wires and so we learned to count,
moving one bead after the other, one by one. I suppose girls and boys
are not taught that way now, but we still have to learn to count one by
one.
You can't multiply or divide or do any other of those lessons you all so
dearly love in arithmetic until you can count.
All girls and boys love to count and add--stamps and pennies, birthdays
and holidays; and nearly every little child loves to look at a calendar
and number off the days. You just watch a boy with a bag of marbles or
a purse of pennies, and see how often he counts them.
The love of a home is a love one by one. Your parents count their
children that way. They never mix people up.
I read in some book lately the story of a man in New York State taking
the census; that is, making a list of the people who live in the
country. "How many children have you?" he asked. "Well, let me see," she
answered, "there's Tom and Bessie and Billy and Jean and----" "Oh!" he
said, impatiently, "just give me the number." "Number!" the woman said
with indignation. "We've not got to numbering yet. Do you think we have
run out of names?"
The dear mother knew her girls and boys one by one, name by name. One
will not do for another. Each one is loved, no matter how many there
are.
It is always one by one. _You_ count for something at home. You would
be missed, even if there were a crowd. You have your place. The only
thing is, are you filling it?
Often I have been visiting in a home where at a sick bed a mother has
said, "It does not matter how many you have. You could not care to give
up any one."
The names given to people nowadays are only tags, to keep them apart so
we can distinguish them. They do not always really tell what a child is
like. Bible names were supposed to do so. To-day, because a girl is
called "Dora," which means a gift, she may not always act as though she
were a precious gift to her parents. She may act like a boss instead.
But the idea of a name at first was to let that child stand by himself
alone.
They are not like policemen or even car conductors, marked by a number,
but are known by name.
It is each by each and one by one.
So all the work of the world is done.
"One thing at a time, and that done well,
Is a very good rule, as many can tell."
If you let the one thing at your hand go, you will not get very far
ahead.
"One step and then another,
And the longest walk is ended;
One stitch and then another,
And the longest rent is mended;
One brick upon another,
And the highest wall is made;
One flake upon another,
And the deepest snow is laid.
"Then do not look disheartened
At the work you have to do,
And say that such a mighty task
You never can get through;
But just endeavour, day by day,
Another point to gain,
And soon the mountain which you feared
Will prove to be a plain."
When I first went to college and looked over the four years' work I was
nearly paralyzed. And when I began my ministry and thought of all the
years of making two and three new talks every week, and going to scores
and hundreds of homes every year, I almost got into a panic until a
sensible thought came into my head, and I said, "Now, old boy, do not be
silly. Just read one book at a time and go to one lecture at a time,
and pass one year at a time, and make one sermon at a time, and visit
one home at a time,"--and I have done that ever since, and the years
have just gone by with the speed of a streak of lightning.
Girls and boys often look far ahead and picture what wonderful things
they will do when they grow up, and they wish they were women and men to
do a great world's work.
Well, the way it all comes is one at a time. Each day's task and each
day's duty brings you to the next, and so it goes, and life moves on
grandly and surely--one by one.
"Would'st shape a noble life?
What each day needs that shalt thou ask.
Each day will set its proper task."
And finally, God's love is a love for each of us--one by one. He says
not a sparrow can fall without His will and the very hairs of your head
are numbered.
Do you not love the little hymn which says:
"God sees the little sparrow fall,
It meets His tender view;
If God so loves the little birds,
I know He loves me too.
"He paints the lily of the field,
Perfumes each lily bell;
If He so loves the little flowers,
I know He loves me well."
The same great power that makes the sun and planets roll round on their
path also controls a little child's toy.
The smallest atom is as much under God's rule as the mightiest world in
the universe.
God knows you by name--just _you_. You, out of all the world!
The telescope shows us one hundred million stars, and telescope
photographs add millions more. And when we say millions, it is hard to
just grasp it all. But every single one is the object of God's eternal
care and is not lost in the many. Neither are you nor I.
Some child story-teller has a beautiful message of an African chief who
had a lot of oxen. Some one said, "How many have you?" "I do not
know," was his answer. You see he could not count.
"How, then, do you know if one is missing?" he was asked, and with a
shining eye he replied, "By the faces I would miss."
Is that not beautiful? The old chief knew the face and probably had a
name for every animal.
Dear girls and boys, God knows you and cares for you, and has you all
down by name and will miss your face if you are not near Him!
That is a wonderful love, and being a love for each of us one by one, we
may well pray:
"Lord, for to-morrow and its needs,
I do not pray;
Keep me, my God, from stain of sin,
Just for to-day."
*XXIV*
*WHAT MAKES A GOOD SOLDIER?*
Please note the word "good." There are soldiers and soldiers, but the
best kind is the good kind who never brings shame to his regiment.
A story is told of a "parson in arms" who enlisted as a private because
he loved the boys. He lived a fine clean-cut life of inspiration,
became a captain and went over the top.
When the roll call took place after the battle there was no answer to
his name, but later he was found with his forehead pierced by a bullet.
Just before the charge he said, "Boys, we are about to charge. Commit
yourselves to your Saviour. If you die it will be well; if you live it
will be well."
He hated war, but did his duty, and told the men "there is no fitter
place for a man to die than when he dies for men."
He was a good soldier and a good man.
First. He remembers the honour of the regiment is in his care. Some
people call that "esprit de corps," which is the French way of
describing the spirit that enters into and fills a body of men.
It is that spirit that makes the character of any collection of people.
In your home, in your school, in your church, in your club, in your
class, in your country, there is a hidden spirit, just as your soul is
hidden in your body.
To keep that spirit strong and noble is the ambition of every loyal
person, and to do anything that spoils it hurts the school or the club
or the home.
Now, a good soldier wants to keep the spirit of his company high. His
question should be what kind of a company will this be if everybody was
like me? And after all, it is what all are like that makes the real
character of the whole.
Then second: A good soldier listens to the commands.
There are three leading commands.
(_a_) "Attention." That means keep yourself ready; put your heart and
head into your work. It is the same thought that is often written on the
corner of the streets where the cars cross. "Stop, look, listen." Get
your mind on the job, and make it thorough!
(_b_) "Eyes front." Why does the soldier keep his eyes looking straight
forward? Simply because side glances spoil attention. To keep looking
around distracts, a word that means "draws apart." Instead of looking
at one place, the eyes look everywhere and see nothing distinctly.
(_c_) "Obedience." Just think of a company with no discipline, where
every man does as he pleases, and where orders may be followed or may
not. Do you suppose the glorious Canadian army could have followed the
barrage at Vimy if they had not been trained to obey orders?