Part 2

"Boys flying kites, haul in their white-winged birds; You can't do that way when you're flying words, Things that we think may sometimes fall back dead, But God Himself can't kill them when they're said."

SACRIFICE HITS

I hope that all you boys play baseball, and that many of you are on baseball teams. If you are, I suppose you know what is meant by a sacrifice hit.

It is called a "sacrifice hit" when the score is close and a player comes to the bat, and, although he would like to make a run, nevertheless, for the sake of the man on the base, he makes a "bunt," so that, while the pitcher or shortstop runs up to get the ball and put him out on first base, the man on the bases may make another base.

You see, then, that instead of making what is called a "grand-stand play" he just gives up his own glory for the sake of his team.

Did you ever think that your parents are constantly making "sacrifice hits" for you? Whenever your mother goes without a new dress in order that you may have a better suit of clothes; whenever your father gives up some pleasure to keep you in school, they are making a sacrifice hit for you.

And after all, boys and girls, that is about the only way the world has ever moved very far ahead. Socrates, an old Greek, made a sacrifice hit when he was put to death in prison with poison, because he wanted to make the young men of Athens wiser. Martin Luther made a sacrifice hit when he went to Worms, although he feared the Pope would kill him. But he was determined to get liberty for the people.

But the biggest sacrifice hit that was ever made was made by Christ when He was crucified on Calvary, in order that the world might know that God was a Father and loved His children.

And every boy and girl who would follow in the footsteps of Christ, and would be strong and noble, must be prepared to make sacrifice hits,--to forget themselves and do things for the sake of others. Jesus said, "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." And a minister is one who serves, one who makes sacrifice hits.

THE LIBERTY OF OBEDIENCE

I know it would seem strange if I told you that every boy and girl has to be tied to something in order that he may be free. And yet that is the exact truth.

The majority of you no doubt know what the multiplication-table is, and I am sure you have thought it a pretty disagreeable thing. Perhaps you have wondered why seven times eight is always fifty-six, and why your teacher insists that it shall be that every time. You don't see why it can't be fifty-five just once, or possibly fifty-seven. But, no, sir; it is _always_ fifty-six.

When you get farther along in life I believe you will be glad to know that seven times eight is _always_ fifty-six, whether you meet it in the grocery-store, or in the bank, or in New York, or in Philadelphia, or in China; for it will be a comfort to know that the multiplication-table does not change, like many other things, as you go from place to place. Whenever or wherever you meet it, it is always the same. Now, because you were tied to that table as a boy or girl, you will be free to go where you like with it in after-life.

The same is true about riding a bicycle. You know that in order to be free to ride a bicycle you must obey the rules of riding it; that is, when you are in danger of falling to the right you must turn the front wheel to the right. If you do not, you will fall off.

Here again, you see, you must be tied in order to be free.

You will find that a rule all through life. That is why your parents and teachers lay down so many rules for you. It is not because they want to hedge you in and torment you, but that you may be free men and women later.

Boys and girls who are never tied up, sooner or later find that as men and women they are not free. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, would not be tied up to any rules as a girl. She was wilful and wild, so in later life she caused the death of her husband and herself.

That same rule is even true of stars. Comets are tramp stars. They refuse to be tied up, and they ramble about all over the sky. So they never have trees and flowers on them. Our earth, on the other hand, is tied up to the sun and goes round it like a horse round a racetrack, and so it is bound by seasons and brings forth beautiful trees and flowers.

Among other disadvantages of being a comet is that comets are in danger of losing a great part of their substance every time they approach the sun. Halley's comet, which used to be such a wonderful sight, has dwindled away to a very great extent. When it came a few years ago scarcely any one saw it.

So it is always: to be really free and to grow you must be tied; and I hope that none of you children will ever be fretful when your parents and teachers make rules that you do not see the meaning of, but which are for your good.

CUTTING CORNERS

Have you boys and girls ever noticed how all the curbings at the corners of the streets in the city are worn smooth by drivers of carts and wagons trying to cut the corners as closely as possible?

But the principal thing to notice about those curbs is that you will often find on them the paint, sometimes red and sometimes black or yellow, scratched off the wheels of these carriages that are so anxious to cut corners. And the wheels that cut corners soon get to looking shabby from lack of paint.

That is the way it nearly always happens with people who try to cut corners. I know boys and girls who try it in school.

They try to skim through by doing just as little work as possible. They cut the corners as closely as possible with their lessons, so that they can have time for play. They do that with the work in subtraction, and then, when they get into multiplication or division, they have all sorts of trouble. And soon their arithmetic looks very shabby indeed.

Other boys and girls try to cut corners with the truth. They see just how near a lie they can come, and yet keep within the bounds of truth. Something inside tells them it is not quite fair. And again, when that happens, they have rubbed some of the bright, beautiful paint, so to speak, off their consciences. And before long their consciences get to be quite shabby, and not at all new, and people begin to say that they don't quite trust that boy or girl.

And so I say to you, boys and girls, it does not pay to cut corners. Give yourselves plenty of room. Be open and fair and industrious. For one who cuts close corners as a boy or girl, usually grows up into a very small sort of man or woman.

HABITS

I wonder if I can make plain to you what a habit is. Have you ever seen men laying concrete sidewalks here in the city, and they put boards across to keep people from walking on the pavements before they were thoroughly dry? I am sure you have. These men keep people off the walk while it is soft because, if any one steps on it, then his footprints harden into the walk as it dries, and will always remain there.

Now, boys' and girls' minds are just like those cement walks when they are wet and soft; and if you do a thing over and over again as a boy or girl, you will make such a deep mark in your brains that when you grow up you cannot get the mark out, and you just keep on doing it, whether you want to or not.

When once you do a thing, it is easier to do it again. Even cloth and paper find it easier to do a thing a second time than the first. The sleeves of your dresses and coats fall into the same wrinkles and creases every time you put them on. That is what we call the "hang" of a dress or coat. And if you fold a piece of paper once, it quickly gets the habit of folding along the same crease again.

And so you see that it is very important for you to get good habits as boys and girls, for first you make the habits, and then the habits make you.

You have often seen a little brook running along between its banks and over its pebbly bed. Well, once there was no brook-bed there, but gradually, years ago, a little stream began to trickle through, and finally it wore out a bed for itself. Now it cannot leave the bed if it wishes to. That is just what you do when you make a habit: you make a course which you will follow later in life.

First you take the train, then the train takes you. First the stream makes the bed, then the bed guides the stream.

They tell us that after we are thirty years of age we are little more than a bundle of habits. I suppose thirty years seems a long way off for you boys and girls, but you will reach it if you live. And there will be men living somewhere who will hear the name that you boys now have, and you are deciding now by the habits you make what sort of man he is going to be. If you want him to be a good, honorable, strong man, be sure you form good habits now.

A LESSON IN COURTESY

I read a story recently of how a young man got his start in life through being courteous. This young man was an assistant doorkeeper in the capitol at Washington. His work was to direct people where they wanted to go in that great building.

One day he overheard a stranger ask one of the other doorkeepers for help in finding one of the senators from California. The doorkeeper answered in a very discourteous way that it was none of his business where the senators were.

"But can't you help me?" the stranger said. "I was sent over here because he was seen to come this way."

"No, I can't," the doorkeeper answered. "I have trouble enough looking after the representatives."

The stranger was about to turn away when an assistant, who had overheard the conversation, said: "If you are from California, you have come a long way, I will try to help you." Then he asked him to take a seat, and hurried off in search of the senator.

He soon brought him to the stranger, who then gave his card to the doorkeeper and asked him to call at his hotel that evening.

That stranger was Collis P. Huntington, who was a great railroad official in those days.

When the doorkeeper called upon him that night, Mr. Huntington offered him a position at nearly twice the salary he was then receiving. He accepted the new position and was rapidly promoted from that time on.

The lesson I would have you learn from this is that you never know when a good deed is going to return to you. I don't mean that you should be courteous, expecting that you are going to be paid for it each time, for the greatest pay for kindness is just the feeling that you have helped someone. As the old saying goes, "Civility costs nothing," and on the other hand, you never gain anything by getting the ill-will of anybody or anything, even of a dog. Be courteous: it is the mark of a gentleman, of a lady, and it is often the passport to success.

LITTLE FOXES

In far-off Syria, a country lying northeast of Palestine, the land in which Jesus was born, the farmers who keep vineyards are very much troubled with foxes and bears, which destroy their crops at night. And so, to protect their vineyards, they build high stone-walls about them, and put broken bottles on the top to keep these animals out, much as some people in this country who have orchards do, in order to keep out small boys.

These fences keep out the bears, because they cut themselves on the glass in trying to climb over, and they also keep out some of the foxes. But after all, when the grapes are nearly ripe, the owners of the vineyards and their men are obliged to build platforms up above the trellises, and stay there all night, in order to guard their crops. These watchers manage very well with all the other wild animals excepting the little foxes. They can see the big foxes and drive them off, but the little ones they cannot see, and so these destroy the vines. I suppose that it was an experience something like that which led one of the Bible-writers to say that the little foxes destroy the vines.

It seems to me that this is very true with sins, too; it is the little sins that destroy us. When a big sin like stealing, lying or cheating comes along we can see that easily enough, and we will not let it over the fence into our lives. We drive it away, and are soon rid of it. But when the little sins come, like little foxes, we do not see them, and so they get in and destroy our character.

What are some of these little foxes? I think one is pride, which makes you so conceited, because you live in a big house or have an automobile or fine clothes, that you will not speak to or play with other boys and girls who have not quite such fine things, although they may be just as bright and just as good as you. Pride is a little fox that kills the vine of brotherliness which Christ planted in our hearts.

Then another little fox is sulkiness. Sulkiness makes you frown and go away in a corner. It sucks up all the sunlight there is, and makes the world very gray and dull, like a day in November. This fox kills the vine called "peace" which Christ planted.

One more little fox is jealousy. This makes boys and girls dislike others who get higher marks than they in school, or who have more friends, or better toys. It is one of the most destructive little foxes there is, for it kills the best vine of all that Christ planted: that is, love.

Be careful, then, boys and girls, of these little foxes, for they are worse than bears and big foxes, because they look so small and harmless, and slip by when you are not paying attention, but which destroy your character as readily as the others.

A TRICKY OX

I want to tell you to-day about a tricky ox I once read about. I suppose you will at once think that this ox was in a circus. But he wasn't. Far from it! It would have been better for some other cattle if he had been.

This ox is kept in the stockyards at Chicago. In those stockyards they kill thousands of cattle every year to give us beef to eat. When the cattle come to these stockyards they are not tame cattle like the cows we see out in our pastures, but they are cattle that have pastured out on the great broad prairies, and they have seen very few people. And for that reason they are very timid and hard to get close to. So it is difficult to get them near the pens where they want them.

Here is where the tricky ox comes in. In one of those yards they keep a black, short-tailed ox known as "Bob," and he just walks along in an unconcerned way toward the pens, and he looks so calm and unafraid that the other cattle just take confidence and follow along after him. And then, before they know it, they are in a trap and can never get out. But in the meanwhile Bob has slipped away, to play the same trick on other cattle.

There are some boys and girls just like that ox. They are always urging other boys and girls on to do wrong things, telling them that they are cowards if they don't take the "dare" and do it, and showing how brave they are. But when they have got you into a scrape, and the real business of punishment begins, they can't be found anywhere: they have slipped out like old Bob.

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.

"SHINE INSIDE"

As I was passing along the street the other day I saw on the window of a bootblack's parlour the words, "Shine 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 shine inside, our homes, and the world in general, would be a much happier place.

Of course there are some boys and girls who shine 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 luster is there [in the photograph], but it is not lighted up." Now, there are some boys' and girls' faces that have a luster, but it is not lighted up.

Or their faces are like a mirror that shines brightly only when there is sunlight or some other light falling upon it. The mirror only shines outside. The luster is not always lighted up. I know boys and girls who shine 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 shines _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 shine inside so that they will always shine 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 God. That is the secret, boys and girls. When a man or a woman or a boy or a girl talks often enough with God in prayer and asks to be made like Christ, then a light is lighted within him which causes his face to shine. You remember Christ said, "I am the Light." Let Him into your heart, and you will shine 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 "wishing-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 wishing-cap that every boy and girl can put on when he is tempted; it is this prayer, "O God, help me not to do this thing which is wrong!" And if you say that prayer, and believe God 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 God 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.