A true girl and boy is well-knit, straight up and down, like a
perpendicular line. You know where to find them. They will always win
out. They have no sloppy one-sidedness that will tip them over. And
they can carry a lot of things on their belt.
A false boy and girl double up when a burden is put on them. They are
too weak to bear up. But a true one stands so nobly, and whatever you
lay on them, you know they will carry safely.
And what is Truth?
It means being real, whole, not broken up, not a fraction, but a whole
number. It means ringing true, like a bell without a crack.
In early times, they used sometimes to make images, and when they got
cracked and old, they would patch them up with wax and putty and then
paint them over till they looked lovely; and sold them for real things.
By-and-by the weather and time wore off the paint and dug out the wax,
and then they stood in their shameful cracky look, and people said, do
not be waxy, but genuine right through.
The word "sincere" is from two Latin words, sine--without, and
cera--wax.
The true girl and boy is unwaxed. There is no paint covering up nasty
cracks. They ring true.
I went into a store once in Toronto and had an awful experience. I
bought some article and sent in an American cart-wheel. That, you know,
is a silver dollar. It shot up the wind tubes to the office, and in a
jiffy it was shot back down again, with an acid stain on it.
It was a false piece! What do you think of that? I was so confused,
for I feared they might think I was trying to pass bad money. And me a
minister too!
When it struck the testing table, it did not ring right, and the acid
soon told the story, and I got the old fraud back again.
Any life like that has not got on the girdle of truth. It is like a
glittering object on the ground that looks like a diamond, but proves to
be glass. It is like a piece of timber that looks all right and is put
in the ship, but it had a worm inside, and became rotten, and the ship
sank.
Gird yourselves up, girls and boys. Fasten up your life, strong and
firm, and be true, and you will have a great help in being a good
soldier of Jesus Christ.
*XXVIII*
*THE SOLDIER'S OUTFIT--THE KIT BAG*
When you go on a journey you carry a suitcase, or you take a trunk, in
which you place your belongings that you will need while away from home.
When the soldier goes off to the war he has a bag in which he puts some
of the things he cannot do without--things that are absolutely
necessary.
First. It is wonderful when you come down to bed rock, how few things
we need, after all. Most of us are overburdened.
There is hardly a girl or boy that has not a whole lot of unused baggage
lying around--old toys and books, old ribbons and hats. They fill the
bureau drawer and lie around the room and take up space in cupboards
until your mother simply gives them away or burns them up.
When I left Vancouver to come to Toronto, I had a bonfire in my back
yard for a lot of stuff that I used to think I had to save up.
Houses are like that, too. I roomed once in a very beautiful home, but
the drawing-room was so full of furniture that you could not turn around
without getting a bump somewhere.
There are a lot of things in our homes and a lot of material in our
lives, and a lot of stuff in our minds that is just like piles of old
lumber in the fence corner, doing no good; or like a lot of old clothes
in a cupboard, only gathering moths.
The soldier knows that, and he just carries around what he can use, and
the kit bag is where he keeps them. It is a very fine thing to be able
to carry useful things around with us.
A useless girl or boy is usually in the road.
What is the good of a lot of clothes if you can't wear them?
I saw a man on the vessel on which I once sailed to Australia who had
seventeen suits of clothes, and their chief use was in keeping busy his
cabin boy, who brushed them.
And what's the use of a lot of information in your mind if you can't use
it?
I do not know which is the worse, having too many things or having
nothing useful.
I have read of a beehive in California, away out on the face of a cliff.
It is stored full, but all day long hundreds of bees swarm around the
cave; and while men have put on leather suits, very little has ever been
secured from that nest of useless sweetness.
But second: The kit bag has in it not merely things the soldier has to
daily use--socks to keep his feet warm and dry; brushes to keep the
snarl out of his hair; razors to keep his face smooth; soap to keep him
clean--but he also stores away in it precious things, and they are
useful too: Letters from home--what would he do without their messages
of love?
They say the saddest sight in a camp was the disappointed face of a boy
when the mail came and there was nothing for him.
If you are a young person, away from home and forget the old folks,
that's the way your mother looks when you neglect to write.
"The tender words unspoken,
The letters never sent,
The long-forgotten messages,
The wealth of love unspent.
For these some hearts are breaking,
For these some loved ones wait;
So show them that you care for them,
Before it is too late."
There are books and photographs of those beloved, looked at first thing
in the morning and last at night; and when the kit and all belongings
are left in store when the battle is on, those precious photos are taken
out and hidden next the heart, under the tunic.
There, too, is the Testament, placed by loving hands when the outfit was
packed--perhaps the mother gave her own to her boy when he left; and
there is a smudge mark yet on the cover, where a tear dropped, that she
tried very hard not to let fall, but could not help it.
Many a boy valued that Testament, and after some of them were found,
there lay in the pocket, with the pages glued together by the blood, and
sometimes torn with a bullet mark, the gift of pious love.
Oh, how grand it is to have a life filled with precious values--the
values that make us richer, and help to adorn us and cheer us and
brighten us.
A little child on the seashore saw a bright spangle. Picking it up, she
found it was attached to a gold thread, and drawing the thread, she
found other spangles, which she wound round her neck and body, covering
it with brightness. And as we go through life, it is very lovely to
pick up the precious sparkling things filled with love value, and wind
them around our hearts.
Dear girls and boys, have you anything of value in your lives--of a real
worth while--real costly things?
Marbles and toys and air balloons, and wrist watches and spats and
gorgeous neckties are all right; but you will need more if you are going
to amount to anything, and I suggest you store up your kit bag with
precious things of noble thoughts and full minds and sweet memories and
useful deeds, for it is not what you have or how much you weigh that
counts, but what you are and what you can do.
Did you ever hear people discussing somebody, and did you overhear some
one say, "Oh, there's nothing in him." There may be feet in his boots,
and arms in his coat sleeves and legs in his pants, and a head in his
hat, but his real self is empty--"To Let" is seen written over his face.
Be something in this toiling age
Of busy hands and feet.
A light upon some darkened page,
A shelter from the heat.
Be found upon the workmen's roll,
Go sow or plant or plough.
Bend to the task with willing soul.
Be something, somewhere, now.
Third: Each soldier has to have a kit bag, and he puts his name on it in
white paint, so that everybody knows it is his.
You and I have to carry our belongings with us too, good or bad, and
nobody can steal them, as sometimes happened with the boys' kit bags.
Ours always go along with us.
It seems so foolish not to gather good belongings that you won't want to
bury or throw away. Life is a queer sort of thing, and the strange thing
is that while you carry your belongings with you, you are also sending
them on ahead of you, and they build your future home.
A woman once dreamed that she died and went up to heaven. Angel guides
took her through the lovely city and showed her its wonderful streets
and homes.
One was a magnificent palace with a beautiful situation, and great
towers and windows. She asked who it was for and was surprised to hear
it was for her footman who did the dirty work around the stable and
house.
In another street was a little bungalow--beautiful too, for everything
was fair and lovely, but still very small and humble. She asked who
that was for, and was told it was to be her future home. In disgust she
said, "What! Do you know who I am, and how much wealth I have? You
give my ignorant footman a great palace, and me this little bit of a
place!" And the angel quietly said, "Well, madam, we are doing our best
with what's sent up."
So you see your kit bag possessions are with you now, but the real
possessions of your life, your thoughts and words and deeds are helping
to form the home you will some day live in forever.
I think it would be a good idea to see that we have only the best, and
send on only those things that will help build a beautiful home of the
soul.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, a great American writer, once wrote these words:
"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll;
Leave thy low vaulted past;
Let each new temple nobler than the last
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."
*XXIX*
*THE SOLDIER'S OUTFIT--THE UNIFORM*
The uniform helps to change a variegated mass of men into an army. A
regiment would not look anything like what it does were it not for the
uniform.
It is the kilts that not only have a history but that give the
Highlanders their glorious influence. The Scotchman thinks the kilties
are the only soldiers, and one can respect his enthusiasm, for great
deeds have been done by the troops from the land of the heather.
The uniform puts the finishing touch on a soldier.
I have seen the boys take the oath, but it was after they visited the
storehouse and came out in the glory of the khaki, with their swagger
stick, that you saw written all over them, "I'm a soldier of the king."
That uniform is the badge of service. Every one who wears it is a
marked man. His uniform proclaims him. He does not need a tag.
A girl was once converted at some church meetings, and she went up to an
old member and with shining face, said, "Oh, Mr. Blank, I am a
Christian, and I wish you were one too." The old man flushed and said,
"My dear little girl, I have been a Christian for forty years." "Oh,
I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sorry I spoke. I never knew."
He was a Christian but nobody knew. He lacked the marks.
But a soldier, once he dons the uniform, is at once known.
More than that, a uniform is like a flag. It represents the empire.
Each nation has its own flag and its own uniform, and wherever its
soldiers go, they carry, so to speak, their country with them.
If they are bad, they dishonour their flag and bring disgrace on their
colours and the uniform.
One of the greatest motives behind the men in the war was "the honour of
the company or the regiment or the battalion or the brigade."
One company lost a trench and were heartsick with depression, and when
the time came, half dead with weariness and hunger and thirst, they
retook it and were happy because they had saved the honour of the
company. The uniform means that.
A bad man or a coward not only hurts himself, but he brings disgrace on
the company. Every deed of evil or cowardice comes back on the flag and
the country to which the man belongs who wears its uniform.
The uniform speaks to the soldier of duty--it makes duty easier. In New
York the street sweepers were clad in a white uniform and they say every
man felt a little bigger and better and more anxious to do better work
because of the uniform.
A boy in the Trail Rangers or the Boy Scouts can't help feeling the
influence of his uniform.
A mother told me about her daughter, a Girl Guide, doing something wrong
in school one day when she had on the uniform. The mother said, "Oh,
daughter, you did not do it with the uniform on, did you?" And it
nearly broke the child's heart.
You can't do things in uniform you might do in plain clothes. It makes
you a member of a league of honour, in spite of yourself. It bucks a
fellow up and sort of puts him on his honour. It says, "Here, you are
not your own now. You belong as you never did before to your country,
and your country is counting on you." A chap can hardly go back on
that!
The uniform proclaims loyalty too.
To don the khaki meant that the boy heard the call. The S.O.S. sounded
his country's need, and up he sprang because he was a loyal subject. Of
course, some loyal subjects could not and did not have to join the army.
But every one who could did, unless he was a shirker and a slacker.
Loyalty means doing your duty. It means ready to do your bit whether at
home or on the firing-line. It does not matter which, if it is your
bit.
More than that, the uniform puts responsibility on the wearer. You know
how big even a boy can feel when he joins the Boys' Brigade or the Boy
Scouts and gets a uniform on. It makes him feel inches taller, and his
chest gets thicker, which is perfectly right. He will do things in
uniform and under the spell of what it all means that before he would
hardly dare believe to be possible.
The uniform is full of history, just as the flag is, and somehow when it
is donned, all the great history presses on the wearer and makes a
bigger man of him, if he has anything in him, and makes him able for big
things.
"Britain be proud of such a son!--
Deathless the fame which he has won.
Only a boy--but such a one;
Standing forever by his gun;
There was his duty to be done--
And he did it."
If your dad had a boy or if you had a brother who heard the world's
call, and signed up and was measured and had his muscles and heart and
lungs and eyes all tested, and then in one big moment, while his dad's
throat was choking, stood up erect before the officer and swore in for
service; and if later that boy or brother came up home all shining in
buttons, with his boots black and his puttees neat and strong, and his
belt tightening up his loins--you know just how a new passion of loyalty
would surge through you.
If you were a girl you would be sorry, and decide to try to go as a
nurse, or perhaps drive a car; if you were a young boy, you would hit
your toy drum harder and step out more briskly and tell all the other
boys you thought you could get the job of a drummer.
Oh, the uniform does help to deepen our sense of loyalty.
Now, girls and boys, I am telling you all this for a purpose. You know
there is another army all over the world called the Salvation Army, made
up of people who wear uniforms and play bands and go to war against the
worst of all enemies, the one called Sin. And they do a wonderful lot
of good in the world and deserve our respect and support. They have won
by their loyalty even homage from kings.
But did you know your father and mother, who are members of the church,
belong to an army too, and wear a uniform too? It is the great army of
Jesus Christ, those who have sworn to be His servants and to do His
work, and the uniform is just their Christian life.
I know some church members do not look or act any different from those
who are not. But the real member tries to and when he joins he puts on
the uniform of a Christlike life which works for Christlike ends.
When the Christians first began to live it all out, the world used to
say, "See how these Christians love one another." Their Christian
membership was like a badge. Everybody knew where they belonged.
I want to ask you to join up there and put on the uniform of church
membership. I will tell you why.
It helps to make you a better Christian. It is taking your stand on His
side, and you can't do that, if you mean it, without being made deeper
and stronger.
I do not think any one can be as good outside the church as in it, and I
am sure we should be better inside than out of it. Those who are good
without going to church are good because the church has made it
possible. Just as all who were not in the army were safe because the
great army and navy were protecting them. But it is not fair to borrow
other people's money to live on. You should have your own. And it is
not fair to get the good the church brings us without coming in and
helping her. It is not fair to give no return for service received.
So I ask you to join God's church because it helps you, and it helps the
church and it tells everybody where you stand.
Then it expresses your loyalty. Jesus gives us His church and if
everybody refused to come in, it would die, and His work would perish.
Announce your loyalty now! Fight the fight now!
"He is counting on you!
On a love that will share
In His burden of prayer,
For the souls He has bought
With His life blood and sought,
Through His sorrow and pain
To win 'home' yet again.
He is counting on you;
If you fail Him--what then?"
It is very hard to be a citizen-at-large, that is, a citizen of the
world. You have to be a citizen of some country.
A great Scotch poet said:
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land."
To love the world you have to know how to love your own part of it.
And so in order to tell the world of our loyalty to Christ, we need to
fasten down to the church that stands for Christ.
To have a sort of general love for God without helping to spread His
cause will soon result in the loss of your love for God.
Take away the church for ten years, and you would not want to live in
your town after.
And then it is a fine thing to put the church uniform on as early as
possible. It is not fair to live your life for yourself and your own
pleasures until you get too old for them, and then bring what is left
and offer it to God.
In the Old Testament days it was the unblemished lamb that was asked
for; and, dear girls and boys, God wants you now, in the days of your
youth. The church needs your fresh, bright young lives. The future so
big with promise needs strength and vigour, and you have it. Therefore,
do not stand off, but line up soon, and then you will have a long life
of service, and not a poor little meagre piece at the end.
The sooner you become an out-and-out worker for Jesus, the more you will
be able to help Him. There is no life sadder than to have to go out at
the end with no record of service.
A young man, dying, had given himself to God but seemed sad and
troubled, and they asked him what was the matter, had he lost his trust?
"Oh, no," he said, "not that, but I have to go and meet Jesus with empty
hands!"
And some one wrote a hymn which says:
"Must I go and empty handed,
Thus my dear Redeemer meet,
Not one day of service give Him,
Lay no trophies at His feet?"
You, girls and boys, put the Christian uniform on now; join up soon.
Then think of the long and splendid record of service that will be yours
if you stand loyal to the army of Jesus Christ.
*XXX*
*"Q" AND "S" GROCERY*
Did you ever hear of that sort of a store? When I first saw the sign I
wondered what it meant. I had heard of college societies with letters
that describe them, and I had seen letters like that on music sheets;
but whatever could it stand for over a grocery store?
Perhaps it meant "Quick and Sure" or perhaps it was the name of the men
who owned it, only I could not see why they should be ashamed of their
name, for most merchants want their name known.
At last some one told me it stood for "Quality" and "Service." Then I
saw what a splendid sign it was.
It made people curious. It was so mysterious-looking that everybody
would ask about it and talk about it, and that would advertise it; while
the meaning, once found out, made you feel confident. A store that
serves out quality is worth going to.
Any one who can show that he has quality and that he is anxious to serve
is worth getting acquainted with.
Think of those two things.
(_a_) Quality.
So many hunt after quantity. When I was a very small boy my grandfather
used to offer me my choice between a nickel and a big copper penny, and
I took the penny every time. It was more to hold. I could feel it
better.
Every child would rather have a big apple than a little one, and they
all hunt the plate for the biggest piece of cake or pie. Some big
people are no better, for they do not always look for quality, either.
Big things do appeal to us.--Big mountains and big seas, and big trees
and big houses, and big horses and big automobiles, and big men, and I
suppose it has a place.
It is wonderful to stand in the mountains and just feel their great
size; it is an inspiration to go out to British Columbia and stand in
some forest corridor and look up at those great Douglas firs, that tower
up above your heads and spread their branches over a field.
In Vancouver, at Stanley Park, there is one so big that autos back into
it and have a photograph taken.
But after all, the chief thing is not size, but meaning and character.
There are some big vegetables that are so big they are no use. They are
soft and overgrown.
Soul is more important than bulk.
"For tho' the giant ages heave the hill
And break the shore and ever more
Make and break and work their will
Though world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us each with different powers
And other forms of life than ours
What know we greater than the soul."
Have you ever gone out on a frosty night and looked up at the sky and
thought of the great spaces above you, and the sun millions of miles
off? Did you know that if a train travelling one mile every minute
could fall off the earth and keep going, it would take forty millions of
years to reach the nearest fixed star? And yet your soul is more
important than it all!
"Knowest thou the value of a soul immortal?
Behold the midnight glory, worlds on worlds
Amazing pomp. Redouble this amaze;
Ten thousand add, add twice ten thousand more
Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them all,
And calls the astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation poor."
There is a wonderful instrument used by men of science, called a
microscope, and it shows us that the smallest things are more wonderful
even than the big things you can see with your eye. The little insect
that makes the coral, that is so graceful, is an object of wondrous
beauty under the microscope.
When you buy a flower, it is not the biggest you want, it is the richest
and loveliest, the one of quality.
What is it makes a man? Not size. That may make a prize-fighter, but
who wants to be a prize-fighter? He is muscle and bone and beef, but
that is not manhood.
A real man is a gentleman, even if he is not much to boast of in size.
The real signs are not those of bigness, but something inside of
him--the peculiar quality that makes you honour and love him.
Here is what Margaret Sangster says of it: