Howard J. Chidley

“ In the Christian army there are old and young, rich and poor, wise and simple, all under the one flag,—the banner of the Cross; all under the one Captain,—even Jesus Christ. And the best thing about our Captain is, He has never lost a battle yet, and never will. All those who enlist under His flag are sure to win, and to hear God's "Well done." ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when at last the other did ride off, the older boy's eyes danced with delight, and he clapped his hands to encourage the younger boy. That is one of the best forms of generosity.
Another illustration of it is when you are on a baseball or football team, or in a contest of any sort, to be able to say when you are honestly beaten that you were beaten by a better team. When you can say that, it takes half the sting out of defeat and makes those who win admire you more than ever.
Don't be stingy with your thoughts about people. ”

“ It is the one which each one of us carries about in his own soul. In that gallery even things we think, whether we say them or not, are heard by God, our Creator. No thought escapes Him. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." If we "take the wings of the morning, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth," even there God is still. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For just like Samson, every time you come to the place where you have overcome a temptation,—it may be to say unkind things, or to be quick-tempered, or to be hateful,—you will find that you will be stronger to overcome it next time. And the remembrance of how you were able to overcome your feelings will be sweet, just as that honey was to Samson. God says that if we trust Him, "the young lion shall ye trample under foot." ”

“ A teacher said the other day that ninety boys out of every hundred who fail in grammar schools and high-schools smoke tobacco. He says also that boys who smoke are nearly all unruly and disobedient in school. And he says again, that boys who get their lessons well and stand high in grammar-schools take lower marks in high-school if they begin to smoke in high-school. This ought to be enough to make any boy stop and think before he begins to smoke, for it shows that it not only hurts a boy's mind, but his morals also. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For then we should be like the man who, when he was young, ill-treated his old father and mother. When he grew up, this young man became very wealthy, and he used to carry candy in his pocket as he walked in the parks to give to the children, because he wanted their love. But the children would take his candy, then scamper away like frightened squirrels, because something inside seemed to tell them that the man was not really kind at heart. ”

“ You may ask me too, how old one should be before he can join the Christian army, known as the Church of God. I answer, there is no set age. Some boys and girls are ready to join before others. One little girl who was going to join the Church was told by some of the members of her Sunday-school class that she wasn't old enough. She replied, "Anyone who is old enough to know right from wrong is old enough to join the Church." If you are trying honestly day by day to be like Christ and to do His will, and you wish to be a better soldier of the cross, then you are ready to join the Church. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 way that last coachman felt about the precipice is the way for boys and girls to feel about temptation. Some things that are wrong are like thin ice: they tempt you to see how far you can go, and the first thing you know you are in. A boy, especially, is tempted to be what is known as a "daredevil;" that is, one who is not afraid of anything. ”

“ That is a good story for boys and girls to remember when they feel that they cannot forgive someone who has done them a wrong. What would become of you if God never forgave you when you did wrong? It is this spirit of forgiveness that Christ means to teach us when He says in the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." If, then, you say that prayer and refuse to forgive anyone who has done you a wrong, you mean that you want to have God act just as unforgiving with you as you are with your enemies. ”

“ The two opportunities that you boys and girls ought to take "by the forelock," as we say, are, first: in getting all the schooling you can while you have the chance. You will never have such a good opportunity again, and if you let it slip you may never, never catch up. And second: in making as fine a start as you can in your Christian life by learning all you can about the Bible and by getting Christ's example into your hearts. ”

“ And wherever those girls carried their bags, the lies walked along with them, and said to everyone who looked at them, "Our owners have been to Europe."
Of course, no self-respecting boy or girl would do such a thing. But you must also be careful not to act falsehoods by pretending things in school, or acting at home as if you don't know about things when you do. Don't try to fool yourselves, then you will not try to fool other people. ”

“ On our pulpy little minds our parents carve their opinions, and the mass slowly hardens, and all those deep, narrow, up-and-down strokes harden with it, and the first thing the best of us have to do on growing up is to waste precious time beating at the things, to try to get them out. Surely the child of the most admirable and wise parents is richer with his own faulty but original point of view than he would be fitted out with the choicest selections of maxims and conclusions that he did not have to think out for himself. ”

“ He is for that reason ready also to admire men of action, and is wide open for the influences of hero-worship. And while he cannot be argued into being a Christian, for he is not sufficiently awake to logic; and while he cannot be coerced, for he possesses the dynamic of a locomotive combined with the resistance of a mule, he can be magnetized into being a Christian if there is set as his teacher and example a virile, magnetic man. The boy will open his soul to him as he does his windows to welcome the breath of May. Such considerations as these have determined the content of these sermons. ”

“ When we know this, then to die is not so terrible as it was to the Persians and Greeks. It is like going to sleep in our home, and waking up in a place much more beautiful than we had ever dreamed of, and being with Christ, the Friend of little children, forever. ”

“ There is a verse in the Old Testament which says that the race is not always to the swift, which means that it is not always the strongest who win. It is the one who keeps at it. Many a bright boy fails in school because the lessons come so easily he does not work. Many a dull boy wins because he sticks to it and plods away. ”

“ When they send you to school to get an education, so that in later life you may enjoy good books, you are catching fish over their shoulders. When they give you money to travel, so that you may know what a big, beautiful place the world is, you are fishing over their shoulders. When they give you beautiful homes, so that you shall have good friends and grow up thoughtful, well-mannered men and women, you are fishing over their shoulders.
In fact, it seems to me that we should not catch many fish at all if it were not for our loving, painstaking, unselfish parents. ”

“ When I was a boy I belonged to a baseball team in the village where I lived, and when we played games with a team from another village we had a scorer who not only kept tally of the runs, but also told us who was to be the next at the bat. He would say, "So-and-so is at the bat, So-and-so is on deck." And when he told a boy he was "on deck," that boy knew he was to be the next one at the bat.
Boys and girls are always on deck, whether they are playing ball or not, for a boy or girl never knows when he is going to be called upon to play some part in the game called Life. ”

“ How selfish is the parent who stamps his religious ideas into a child's receptive nature, as a moulder stamps the hot iron with his model! I shall prejudice my children neither for Christianity nor for Buddhism, nor for Atheism, but allow them to wait for their mature years. ”

“ Shakespeare once said:
"I dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more is none."
The really brave boy is not the one that blusters and brags: the brave boy is usually quiet, but, as we say, "all there" when the pinch really comes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are girls who do not seem to talk about much else but what this boy or that boy has said, and these girls I call "he-said" girls.
Now, of course it is all right for girls to think about the boys. We could not stop that if we would, and we would not stop it if we could. The danger comes when a girl thinks of little else. The girl who begins by devoting all her thought to boys is apt to end by being a very unattractive and unpopular sort of woman. Every girl ought to get along well with the girls of her own age as well as with the boys. ”

“ Every word you speak shall be a pearl or a rose." The girl hastened home. Her mother met her with scolding words, asking her why she had been so long. And when her daughter explained to her, lo! every word she spoke was a pearl or a rose. The greedy old woman snatched up the pearls and left the roses.
Then she called her other daughter,—the ugly one,—told her what had happened, and said: "Hasten, daughter! Take the silver pitcher and run to the fountain. If the fairy has given these for a drink from a jug, what will she give for a drink from a silver pitcher!" ”