"Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why."
They are to take the order and carry it out and the objective is won.
Then third: After all the training, the good soldier adopts four
attitudes.
(_a_) Ready for inspection. How the boys used to hate polishing buttons
and smoothing puttees and brushing up, but it was all good and
necessary. It made the soldier who could pass muster and who showed care
for himself and the appearance of his regiment.
Are you ready for inspection? It takes place. Would you like to think
that the Great Inspector of life is looking at you, and if He does,
could you stand that look? What about your thoughts? If the full light
were turned on, would you like them to shine out just as they are? A
good soldier is never afraid of being looked at.
(_b_) "Semper paratus." When you get to the high school you will learn
that that means "always ready."
When I was a little boy I used to love to watch the parade of the Tenth
Royal Grenadiers, and when I hear yet the band play "The Grenadiers'
March," I can still feel the thrill of that wonderful regiment. Their
motto on their crests and on their flags is, "Semper paratus." Whatever
comes or goes; whatever orders are given; whatever work is to be done;
we are ready.
(_c_) "Carry on." That means, push the job through. In rain or shine,
in camp or trench, in defeat or victory, keep a-going. The war is not
yours. It belongs to your country, and winning it depends on no one
giving in.
(_d_) "Over the top." That is the end of it all. All the drill, all the
discipline, all the training, all the marching, all the weapons; even
all the rest times are to issue in the final charge.
The war is not for fun. It is desperately in earnest. It is meant to
attack the enemy and wrest victory from him.
We all have sometime or other to come out into the open; out of the
dugouts and trenches into the front firing line, and then over no man's
land into the lines of the enemy.
Girls and boys, your battle is ahead of you. Now is the time to get
ready. You are in the training camp. Home and school, and even street,
are part of it. Would you not like to be ready for it all? Do you not
think the end is worth all the toil?
Enrol to-day; listen to the orders; undergo the hard toil; be a good
soldier; take the oath and live for it!
Many years ago every youth in ancient Athens, as soon as he was old
enough, took a great oath. Here it is:
"I will not dishonour my sacred arms. I will not desert my
fellow-soldier, by whose side I may be set. I will leave my country
greater and not less than when she is committed to me. I will
reverently obey the laws which have been established, and in time to
come, shall be established by the judges. I will not forsake the
temples where my fathers worshipped. Of these things the gods are my
witnesses."
That is a fine oath for such early times, and filled with the modern
Christian spirit. If you will take it, it will make of you a good
soldier.
*XXV*
*THE SOLDIER'S OUTFIT--SHOES*
Some one says an army moves on its stomach, and I guess it does, for an
empty stomach makes a poor traveller.
But it also marches on its shoes.
A poor fellow came to my church office one day to see if I could get him
a pair of strong shoes. He was getting a job and his boots would not
stand the strain.
In the army the boots are most necessary, because of long marches, and
wet roads and soaking trenches.
One of the worst of all crimes was to make and issue bad boots to our
fighting men.
There was an army rule that demanded care of the feet. Every man had to
watch that part of his body, and the medical men were always seeing to
it that that rule was kept.
Many a soldier had to leave his post because he had trench feet.
Donald Hankey, who wrote "A Student in Arms" and who was later killed on
the Somme, gives a very tender tribute to the beloved Captain. He tells
how careful he was of his men, how thoughtful and wise, how his smile
encouraged them, how he bucked them up when tired, and always played the
game and tried to make every man do the same. Among other things he
says, "When we started route marches, and our feet were blistered and
sore, as often they were at first, you would have thought that they were
his own feet from the trouble he took. After a march there was always
inspection of feet. If any one had a sore foot he would kneel down on
the floor and look at it carefully as if he had been a doctor."
It was all because he knew the feet were so important, and you can be
sure he was greatly interested in the shoes the men wore.
Now, at home, boots are also important. Sometimes it is a problem to
know just how to get enough of them; but every parent likes to see his
girls and boys with feet well shod and comfortable.
If they are bad, they develop corns and sores, and they go to pieces,
and then what use are they?
One day I was playing in a football team, and I guess the shoemaker did
not put his best into his job, for my right boot cracked and the sole
fell in pieces, and if I had not borrowed one from another chap I would
have been out of the game.
We all feel sorry for a poor fellow who has no good shoes. Somehow or
other, even if the rest of your garments are threadbare, one does not
look quite so badly off if the feet are well shod.
There is an interesting Bible story in Joshua of some of the people in
Palestine who heard of the great deeds at Jericho and got afraid of
Joshua and his army; and so they fixed themselves up like far-off
strangers and took old sacks and old bound-up Eastern wine bottles and
old garments and musty bread, and put old shoes on their feet.
The whole show worked on Joshua's heart, and he made a covenant with
them, and when the surrounding people were conquered, these sly ones
with the bad shoes were spared because Joshua, like the rest of us, felt
sorry for people who looked so worn out.
What a splendid service is rendered by a good shoemaker, a real
consecrated cobbler; and what a social wretch he is that makes boots
just for pay, and passes out the kind that look all right, but are no
use, and spoil the feet.
"If I were a cobbler, 'twould be my pride
The best of all cobblers to be.
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
Should mend an old kettle like me."
Now, sometimes shoes are worn out without any good cause, like the
copper toes a boy uses up, just by kicking, or the soles that go because
he slides or slips along without lifting his feet square off the ground
when he walks.
Parents get impatient at having to buy so many boots for children who
wear them out so easily, and often can't show anything done.
But when a shoe is worn out by hard service, that old boot is quite an
honourable object.
The worn-out shoes of the dear boys who fought over no man's land, or
marched through the enemy's barrage, or stood for us in the blood and
water stained trenches, are relics of honour.
A Spanish lullaby sings about the angels so busy that they wore out
their shoes, but when the little tattered angels got to the doorway of
heaven they were given new ones.
"Little shoes are sold at the doorway of heaven,
And to all the tattered little angels are given.
Slumber, my darling baby."
That is the strange lullaby sung by some Spanish mothers to put their
babies to sleep.
There was a man named Bunyan, who once had a wonderful dream. It was
about a sinner who became a Christian and who travelled from earth to
heaven. He was shown many wonderful places and saw wonderful things,
and had wonderful experiences.
Among the places he visited was the House Beautiful, and in it he was
shown a great many things, and among them his guides showed him, "all
manner of furniture which their Lord had provided for pilgrims, as
sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, all-prayer, and _shoes that would
not wear out_."
Was that not a wonderful thing to have? How pleased your dad would be
if he could buy you everlasting shoes. Well, there are such, and I will
tell you what they are.
(1) An old legend tells of a maiden whose footsteps left flowers
blooming. Wherever she went, things were a little brighter because she
went there.
I knew a little girl who was called Little Sunshine, because she was
like a ray of light. She tripped around like a dancing sunbeam.
To clothe one's feet in merry sunshine is to get a covering that can't
fade. There is no wear to sunshine. It is always fresh and bright and
welcome. That is the kind of shoes your mother wears!
"She sings a snatch of a merry song
As she toils in her home from morn till night.
Her work is hard and the hours are long
But the little woman's heart is light."
No one ever has sore feet who wears shoes of sunshine.
(2) The Bible says it is a good thing to wear shoes that are called "the
preparation of the gospel of peace."
I wonder what that means? It is not easy to say, but I fancy it means
we should be always ready to preach the love gospel of Jesus.
"What!" you say. "I preach!"--Why sure! a preacher is not only a man in
a pulpit on Sunday. He is one who delivers a message, and he does not
have to always use his voice. Deeds talk too!
A young fellow was converted, so he said, by his mother's preaching--but
she never said anything. She just lived so that when people saw her
they thought of Jesus. He called it his mother's "translation of the
Bible."
Our Bibles are changed from Greek and Hebrew into English. He said hers
was changed from print into practice.
And those shoes that cover the feet with a Christ love message will
never wear out.
There is a beautiful hymn we all love to sing. You can hear it on a
victrola from a trained quartette and it sounds wonderful:
"I love to tell the story,
More wonderful it seems,
Than all the golden fancies
Of all our golden dreams.
And when in scenes of glory
I sing the new, new song,
Twill be the old, old story,
That I have loved so long."
You see it does not wear out. It is the new song and the old story. It
is like the love of a mother that stays fresh and strong right up to
heaven's gate.
And even a child can sing it, by just being like Him whose song it is.
The girl or boy who lives the sweet, loving Christlike life and is like
a little candle shining in the night,
"You in your small corner and I in mine,"
has gospel shoes on.
There is a song we used to sing:
"Brighten the corner where you are."
A little girl in my congregation used to sing it:
"Right in the corner, where you are;"
and I believe if you and I can brighten the corner, right in the corner,
where we are, we will be using shoes that never wear out.
*XXVI*
*THE SOLDIER'S OUTFIT--THE RIFLE*
You all know the difference between a shotgun and a rifle. A shotgun
scatters the shot; a rifle centres the shot. A shotgun will splash the
target; a rifle can make a bull's eye.
I had a medical friend who gave me what he called a shotgun prescription
for rheumatism. It was made up of a lot of different prescriptions mixed
together with the hope that if one did not hit the spot some other
might. That is what a shotgun is like--it hits all round.
But a rifle puts its bullet just at one spot.
One represents concentration--the other scatteration.
When you examine the part of a rifle you see how it is made just for its
work. There is the butt, by which you hold it steady; there is the
sight, which helps you to aim; there is the long barrel, that makes the
aim sure and that puts power into it; and there is the trigger, very
small, but hitting the one spot where the charge is exploded.
That rifle is an object filled full of suggestions for us.
We, too, need to hold steady. A wobbler is a failure.
A piece of glue was asked how to succeed, and said, "Select some proper
task, and then stick to it." That is the way a postage stamp carries
your letter.
"I have noted with pride that through thick and through thin
You cling to a thing till you do it.
And whatever your aim, you are certain to win,
Because you seem bound to stick to it.
Then I turn to whatever my hands are about,
And with fortified purpose renew it
And the end soon encompass for which I set out
If only like you I stick to it."
I do not know who the author of that is, but he was right. He is a
rifle.
We too need to take aim.--Did you ever see the small boy the first time
he was allowed to hold a gun?
He held it up, shut his eyes, and bang! it went off, but he had not the
first idea where the shot went to.
Take aim, my boy. Look along the sight and see where you are shooting.
See if there is anything to shoot.
They say there is a tombstone in one of Europe's royal cemeteries with
these words on it:
"_Here lies a monarch who with the_
_best of intentions, never_
_carried out a single plan._"
And to make the aim sure, and put power behind it, there is need of a
long barrel. That barrel keeps the shot in. You could have a lot of
gunpowder lying around loose and put a match to it and have a regular
Fourth of July blaze, but it would not do much. But put a little bit of
powder behind a rifle ball and hedge that ball in with a barrel, and
bang! it goes with terrific power--a force strong enough to go through a
sheet of iron.
That is why you go to school and why you are taught to obey, and why you
have to follow rules, and why they drill you and put you under
discipline. It gives you power.
The free girl and boy is not the one who can do anything he or she wants
to do. That is not liberty, that is license. The free girl and boy is
the trained one, and that means hard work and effort and holding in, and
ruling.
I knew a girl who used to sit at a piano four hours a day, just lifting
her fingers. It was dreadfully tiring, but you should have heard her
play after she got the power.
Don't you go growling about being made to do this, that and the other
thing. If you were not so made, you would never do anything by-and-by.
Lots of young people would like to be well known, and called a genius,
and a wonder, and shine out so that people would look at them as they
passed by. Well, genius is just sweating over things. Genius means
hard work. It means being intense--that is a word that suggests elastic
pulled out. We call it tense. It is the pulled out elastic that, when
let go, makes the power of your catapult.
Columbus was a great sailor and a great man. In his journal is found
this sentence: "That day we sailed westward, which was our course."
Think of those last four words. He set himself to do a thing--made a
course and did it, followed it, and he got there. That is what a rifle
does.
And all the great world people were like that.
Jesus "set His face" to go to Jerusalem.
One of my University class was the champion mile runner of America. I
guess he would not mind if I told you his name. It was George Orton.
At the University games a lot of us students were sitting in the
bleachers watching the contests. One of them was the mile race and Orton
was in it. As they settled down for the mile jog, you could see them
watching one another, and trying to keep as close together as possible
until the last lap.
Then some one said, "Look at Orton!" And as we looked, we saw the great
runner coming down the track with his face as though turned into
granite, his eyes set, his teeth together, and every muscle hard as
steel. He did not seem to be the same person. "His face was set" and
in a second his breast had touched the tape line at the winning post.
Paul said, "This one thing I do," and it was because he put all his
passion and force behind one great object that he became a rifle in the
hands of the Christ.