A dozen be's for boys

Preface

This may well be called the children's age- Never was there so much done for the young people as today. It was said of John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus and the herald of this gospel dispensation, "He shall turn the hearts of the Fathers to the children," and "the hearts of the children to their fathers" In this utterance we have prophesied the modern Sunday School and the modern religious movement among the young people in all the churches.

It is not a long time ago that childhood conversions were looked upon with suspicion and even now there is not too much encouragement given to childhood piety. There are many who have endorsed the theory of childconversion who after all, do not work it in a practical manner. They are inclined to wait a while before they urge the young to seek the Lord. They forget that the Bible urges young people to seek the Lord. It never encourages the idea of waiting until older that they may better understand what they are doing, as some advocate.

When will the church un derst and that it is better to be converted in childhood than in adult age? When will we stop saying, "0 we did not have much of a revival, only a few children." Children are the hope of the world. The church that provides for the conversion and upbuilding of the children is laying foundations for its future prosperity. The church that neglects it might as well write Ichabod on its walls, for its glory has already departed.

We think it was Spurgeon who said that of all the children he had received into his great church, not one had ever to be disciplined. This is a great testimony. When we fear lest children may disgrace the cause, we ought to remember that it has often been adults, who have done so.

This book that aims to help children to be good and true and loyal to Jesus is in a good work. We welcome such books.

The author believes that boys should be Christians, and should be so encouraged. They should be taught to be right and then the doing right will come easy. Character brings action of its own kind, good or bad.

Be Happy -------- 127

CHAPTER XIL Be Somebody 13©

A DOZEN BE'S FOR BOYS.

Chapter I. Be Eight

A great statesman once said, " It is better to be right than to be President." A queer, old fellow in the Southwest used to say, " Be sure you're right, then go ahead."

Some people seem to think it does not matter much whether boys are right, or not. They look upon them as convenient, little machines to run of errands; troublesome bothers around in the way, always about when they are not wanted, never to be found when they are needed. So they push them around, and order them about, till the poor little bundles of delicate nerves and muscles 5

6 A DOZEN BITS FOB BOYS.

are toughened and calloused; as they were never meant by the Lord to be.

I once knew an active, sensitive, little fellow, who .was always ready to do anything to oblige one ; as happy as a kitten in the sunshine if a pleasant word were spoken to him ; his heart torn all to tatters by a scolding. His father was dead. His uncle, who had taken him to bring up, was a great, stout, tough, good man, with no more idea than a Comanche Indian how much such a boy could bear. Tim could run tip a tree like a squirrel, but his pants would catch on the twigs and tear. The fun of the climb was often spoiled by a horrid hole in the knee. He knew what was sure to come. Rough words would rattle down on his head like big hail stones : worse than that, every sentence was like the stroke of a tomahawk, if Tim, you careless boy ; what makes you tear your pants so? we shall have to put leather on their knees." He would go off by himself and cry, and wish he was dead, so he could

BE RIGHT. J

not !>e scolded. In a few minutes he was back at his play, whooping and hurrahing like a young Pawnee, to hide how much he cared about the scolding. But his heart would not stop aching for half a day.

I am not going to say how sorry I am for the man who hurt himself by letting the savage part of his nature get the better of him ; but I know that such treatment was death for the boy. It made something grow over his feelings as hard as the shell on a mud-turtle's back. You might pour all manner of good, true things over it, and he would not mind what you said any more than the turtle would the patter of rain-drops. What do I think the boy ought to have done ? What every one of us ought to do. First, be sure we are right, and then never mind if things do go hard with us.

A little bright-eyed, curly-headed chap looks up at me mischievously and asks, " How can a fellow be sure that he is right ? "

There is no use in talking about doing

8 A DOZEN BE'S FOE B0T8.

right till you get right. You can't go to New York till you get started on the right road. Somebody tells a funny story about a man who was going to Newton, and as he walked along he thought it was time he came in sight of the town, but he couldn't see anything of it, so he stopped another whom he met and said, " Will you tell me how far it is to Newton ? " The answer was, " It is about twenty-five thousand miles the way you are going now; but if you will turn square around and go the other way, it won't be more than one." You can't go to any place till you set your face toward it. You can't be right, till you make up you mind to get right. Yes, I mean that every boy must give his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and let Him make it all over new before he can begin to be right.

Do you ask how old a boy must be to give his heart to the Saviour ? Not nearly so old as most people think. You have heard of the equator. What is it ? Up go the hands of all the Geography scholars. " An imaginary line drawn around the earth at an equal distance from the poles." If you were in a ship sailing southward, do you think there would be a bump when you sailed over the equator? No; you would go right on, nobody noticing. Some day you would " cross the line," as the sailors say. An hour before you were in the northern hemisphere, the next in the southern. There is a line in every child's life. Wise people call it " the line of accountable action." They mean that before children pass that line, God doesn't keep account with them ; but afterwards He charges them with every sin. Babies can't be wicked because they don't know better than to do naughty things ; but I think boys and girls "know better" much sooner than we suppose. I remember one little boy only six years old, who was sitting on the doorstep with his sister two or three years older than himself. They were looking at the moon as it seemed to be running through the clouds. His sister told him that children had souls that would never die ; and if they were good, their souls would go to a good place and be happy forever, but if they were bad, they would go to a dreadful place that they could never get out of. This scared the poor child, and he asked how old they had to be to be sent to the bad place if they died. She told him, " No old at all," meaning, it did n't matter how young they were, if they knew it was bad to do wrong things. The little boy had done plenty of things that he knew were wrong, and he understood that they would keep him from going to the good place. His first thought was, as he saw a night-hawk fly by, he wished he could turn into that bird so as not to have a soul. Then he looked at old Rover, lying beside them on the step, and he wished he could turn into a dog. Then he began to cry. His mother came and took him off to bed, and he cried himself to sleep, with no one to tell him how much the Saviour loved him, and how easy it would be to give his heart to Jesus and have it made right.

I once heard an old class-leader say, " It is the easiest thing in the world for a little boy to be converted. " Why," he said, " the Lord converted my soul one night when I was a little boy sitting on the wood-pile looking at the moon."

I know a gentleman who is now a missionary in India. His mother told me that he was converted one night in a family prayer-meeting at home. He was asleep when they began to pray, but awoke ; and hearing the prayers, he thought that his heart was bad, and he wanted it made good. A friend who was visiting his father and mother, came to him while the rest were on their knees, and found out what made him cry. He told him to give up his sins and give his heart to Jesus and He would make it all right. The child prayed, " Dear Lord Jesus, forgive my sins and give me a new heart, and I will never be putchicky at my dear, little brother again as long as I live. No, never ! " And from that night he was a Christian boy.

If children do not yield to the first call of the Holy Spirit, they begin to grow hard ; then, like other sinners, they have their doubts about God and the Bible. They hear wicked men ask questions that anybody can ask, but nobody can answer until he has studied long and hard. They begin to form bad religious habits. They neglect to say their prayers, or merely say them. Satan tells them that they are only words, and there is nobody to hear or answer. They dip a little into sin. At first they are like boys learning to smoke — it makes them dreadfully sick at heart. The first time we do a thing we know to be very bad, we hardly sleep at night ; but we soon get used to it. Habits grow constantly stronger. They begin in cobwebs and end in cart-ropes.

If you have not given your heart to Christ, you are in a boat drifting out upon the tide, the distance between you and the land growing wider every minute. Every hour you wait makes it harder and harder for you to get to the Lord. Jesus wants all the children to come to Him at once, and be saved.

There were some people living on the shore of the bay near Boston. Just back of the garden gate was a stake driven into the ground, to which a boat was fastened by a rope. When the tide was out, the boat was on dry ground ; but when the tide came in, it would come up around the boat, and the children would get in and let the little waves teeter them this way and that.

One day they stayed out at their play longer than usual. Their mother missed them and began to look for them. She went to her neighbor's house, and asked, " Have you seen anything of my children ? M kk Yes," said the neighbor; " I saw them playing in the boat after the tide came up around it." Then the mother ran down the garden walk and looked for the boat, but it

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was gone. Then she knew that the children, playing in the boat, had loosed the rope from the stake, and when the tide went out it had carried them out upon the bay. She looked over the water, but could see nothing of them. Then she began to cry and wring her hands, and all the neighbors came running together, and everybody was in great excitement about those three little children that had been carried out to sea by the tide. They telegraphed to Boston, and men with row-boats came, and pulled out upon the water as far as they could go, and looked in every direction ; and the tug-boats came steaming down, going out this way and that ; but nobody could find the children. At last it began to grow dark, and the people built a great fire on the beach and stayed there all night. The mother was on her knees with her hands clasped, and her pale face lifted up toward the skies, while her heart prayed in agony that God would take care of her little children in that boat away out upon the lone, dark sea. Early in the morning the people were looking off over the water, when an old sailor, whose eyes were sharper than those of the other people, saw a large ship coming in. He thought perhaps the crew had seen the little boat in the night, and had picked it up ; so he waited till the ship came near. It was weather-beaten, and looked as if it had met storms in coming all that long way from India. He put his hands together and made a speaking trumpet of them, so that his voice would go farther ; then he sung out to the sailors on board the great ship, " Any — children — on — board ? " Everyone was as still as death, and he could almost hear his heart beat while he waited for the answer. It came presently, over the water, faint but clear, " Children — all — safe." Sure enough, in the night the great ship had picked up the little boat, and the children were all safe. You can hardly think how glad everybody was when they were brought home after their dangerous night out upon the sea. God means the old ship, His Church, to have all the little children safe on board. And I think our Saviour, as He sees the ship come in, will call to us to know if we have the children on board; and we mean to be able to say, " Yes, dear Lord, the children are all safe."

You ask, How can you be converted? Make up your mind to give Christ your heart ; ask Him to forgive your sins ; promise Him to be His child and serve Him as long as you live. You have a right to believe that He does make you His child that very moment. Shut up the book, please, and kneel down just where you are, and give your heart to Christ, so that you may begin to be right.

I remember a little boy who was awakened by the Holy Spirit to see himself a sinner. He was twelve or thirteen years old ; he had always prayed beside his bed before going to sleep at night. That time he saw that his praying had been little more than saying over good words; he had not really asked God to give him a new heart. After getting into bed that night he began to pray in earnest. The more he prayed the worse he felt. At last, slipping ont of bed, he went to his mother's room, and getting upon his knees by her bed, asked her to please pray for him just then, that God would make him His child. You may be sure she was glad enough to do it, and he was converted then and there.

Possibly you have no mother; she may have gone away to heaven. Christ will care for you all the more tenderly if you are alone. Don't wait another hour. Go to Him at once, and let Him make your heart right.

Chapter II. Be Faithful

Pephaps you have waited to come to the Lord till you have formed habits that are against your being the Christian you want to be. You have become used to doing things that are not quite right till they seem to do themselves. You are like the little boy in school who was called up for whistling. " Indeed," he said, half crying, " I didn't whistle, I am sure I didn't." "But," said the teacher, "I heard you." " Oh, rna'am ; it just whistled itself." Our habits become so strong that they do themselves. But there is one good thing about it ; if you get the habit of doing right things, it makes easy work of being a Christian.

Mr. Moody once asked a gentleman whom he met if he were a Christian. The man said 18 he was. Then Mr. Moody asked, " Are you an O. and O.? " The gentleman didn't quite understand what he meant by that. He meant an " Out-and-Outer." If you want to be an Out and- Outer you must begin by forming right habits.

You need to pray by yourself at least three times a day. No matter how good family prayer they may have at your house, nor how many meetings you may attend, nor how much Christian work you may find to do, nothing can take the place of private prayer.

Perhaps you have a great admiration for your mother. It is beautiful to see a young fellow in love with his mother. If you have such an admiration, you need to spend time alone with her, when she can say things to you that she doesn't say to the rest. You may be obedient and kind to her ; you may enjoy the nice things she says at the table ; you may go to her for help in your lessons when the rest are around, but nothing will take the place of those sweet, confidential,

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little talks that you may have all by yourselves.

Now that is a little like private prayer. Spurgeon said that when he went away to school, and the boys hazed and tormented him, as they are very apt to do in English schools, he used to get fearfully homesick, but he found that the Lord Jesus was a friend to whom he could go for comfort always. He says, " He never was too busy to attend to me ; He never made fun of me, and He never told." Jesus ought to be your confidential friend; you ought to talk with Him alone at least three times a day.

The more simply and directly you talk to Him the better. The Tartar turns the crank of his praying mill, and grinds out a prayer every time the machine goes round. The Romanist rattles over his Ave Marias and Pater Nosters, letting a bead slip through his fingers with every prayer, so as to keep account of their number. It is quite a different thing to go to Jesus and tell Him out of your heart all the troubles that annoy you, and ask Him to give you grace to do just as He wants you to do in them all.

It is a good thing to waken so early in the morning that you can talk with Him about all you expect to do during the day, and ask strength and wisdom to do just right every time. Then you ought to find a place somewhere in the middle of the day to break in upon the study and fun for a few minutes to ask Him to keep you right. You certainly will not trust yourself to sleep without asking Him to forgive all your sins and make everything right between you and Him.

Some people think it answers to cry out to the Lord, now and then, without set times of going by yourself to pray, but I do not think so. That would be very much like living on " pieces " all the time. You might buy ginger-cakes and peanuts and eat them as you walked. It would keep you from starving, but would be very apt to give you the dyspepsia. To keep oar bodies well we

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have to sit down to a table three times a day and eat enough good, solid food to give us strength. We need to feed our souls by going -to the Lord at least as. often as we take our meals.

There may be days when you are having a hard time of temptation. Then you will have to pray the oftener. I remember hearing a young man say shortly after his conversion, that some days he was tempted to do wrong from morning till night, and ever so many times a day he would go into the room back of the store, drop on his knees, and ask the Lord for help. He found out afterward that those days when lie had to fight temptation so hard, were the very ones in which he grew most rapidly in grace.

You must study the Bible every day. I remember a boy who was with us one summer vacation. Always after breakfast and prayers he would take his Bible and go away by himself into the woods to pray and study alone. And I think I never knew a more conscientious, good boy than he was.

You cannot understand all that is in the Bible till you have studied many years; but you can understand enough to do you a great deal of good. When you sit down to eat at a restaurant table you do not think that you must take everything that is on the bill of fare. You pick out the few things that you enjoy eating, and that are good for you, and leave the rest for those who are able to digest them and who enjoy eating them. So in reading the Bible, it is easy to find a great deal that is good for your soul. And it will not be many years till you will grow strong enough to be helped by parts that are now quite beyond your reach. If you come to anything that troubles you because it seems strange and difficult, go to your father, mother, pastor, or some Christian who seems to know a great deal about the Word of God, and ask for an explanation.

It is a good plan to commit to memory whole chapters of the Bible. For myself, I never seem to get right down to the marrow and fatness of a text of Scripture until I have learned it by heart. I usually lay more stress on my love for the Bible than any other sign of the love of Christ in my soul. If I can say with David, " Thy words are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb," I am pretty sure I am growing in grace. If I cannot, I drop everything and pray till Jesus gives me back the love for His own dear Book.

Did you ever read of that young English king, Edward IV., who showed his love for the Bible when one of his courtiers carelessly put it upon a bench and stepped upon it to raise himself to reach something ? When he stepped down, the king, not wishing to rebuke a man so much older than himself, took the Bible and laid it back upon the table, reverently kissing it as he did so.

It is said that the Hebrews would not allow a piece of paper to be destroyed for fear the name of God might be found upon it, so great was their reverence for that name. We, certainly, who find in the Bible our promises of salvation, all our happiness here and hereafter, ought to be as careful of our Holy Boofe.

If we pray in secret three times a day, till our hearts feel warm toward Christ ; if we love to study the Bible, and do study it every day, we can hardly fail of getting along well in our religious life. I know a man in New Mexico who was a general in the Mexican army. He had been a Roman Catholic, but had lost faith in his church and in all Christian doctrines. One day he began to read the Bible, and he found it a wonderful book as a literary production. He immediately bought copies of it and gave them to his soldiers to read, merely to make them more thoughtful. He kept that up for three years till he was convinced of its truth. Then one evening when he was reading those words of our Lord Jesus Christ, " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and T will give you rest," his heart went to Christ, and he found rest from his sins : he was converted. I suppose thousands and thousands of people have been converted to God through reading the Bible.

After you have given your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ you will want to join the Church. It will be a help to you, if you have not been baptized in your infancy, to acknowledge Him publicly in baptism. Then you will have the members of the Church to look after you, and pray for you ; and you will have the care of a pastor. Joining the Church is like going into a family to live, where there are a father and a mother, brothers and sisters. You could keep soul and body together in a room by yourself, eating crackers and cheese when you were hungry, but there would not be much comfort in that way of living. You would get along much better to have a home, and people with whom you could talk and laugh while you sat at the table.

When Christ instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, He told us to do that in remembrance of Him ; and the very best thing for us is to obey Him in this matter. If you do not belong to the Church the evil spirit will tell you that you have no right at the table of the Lord, and so will lead you to neglect that duty.

It is a good thing to form a habit of going to the class and prayer-meetings, and to take part in them. Your little prayer, and the few words you say in " testimony," may not seem of much account to anybody but yourself. They will help you by making you firm in your trust in the Saviour. If there are boys' or children's meetings, it will be easy, but if you have only grown people's services it may bother you somewhat to take part in them. If you talk in your simple boy fashion, it may not seem at all like what the rest say. But never mind ; don't try to be like the others. They may smile at what you say, but don't let that worry you.

I remember a little girl who was always fresh and simple in what she said. One day she went to a neighbor's on an errand, and the ladies of the house asked her some questions just to hear what she would say. Then they exchanged glances and smiled. She caught this by-play, and went away, and cried, and had a very sad time over it, though afterwards they told her mother that it was because what she said seemed so old and odd for such a little midget ; and instead of thinking her foolish, as she supposed, they thought her specially bright.

You must go to the meetings, whether any other boys do or not. Take your little part in them when you have a chance, whether it is expected of you or not. The tempter may try to make you think it is hard sometimes ; and older people -have a careless way of making it all the harder by passing boys by. But never mind that. When you look at it fairly, it cannot be a cross to say a little word each time for Him who bore that dreadful cross for you. You will have to do it if you are to be an " O. and O." Christian. I am sorry that older people don't knowhow to make it easy for boys to be Christians^ I remember reading of a man who became very noted as a preacher. When he was a little fellow his father was holding a revival service one bright spring day. The child had kept asking himself why boys could not be converted as well as grown people. Nobody said anything to him about it, and finally he went off into the meadow by himself and knelt down and asked the Lord if He could not convert a boy's soul as well as anybody's. The Saviour came and forgave his sins, and he was so happy about it he thought he would run up to the meeting and tell them all, because they would surely be glad to find out that the Lord Jesus Christ could convert boys. He went into the meeting and they were all sitting around as still and solemn as could be, and speaking in such a measured and careful way, that he was afraid to speak right out what was in his heart, as he meant to do. Presently his father beckoned him to come to him. He got up with his heart beating very fast, for he was sure that his father was going to give him a chance to tell what the Saviour had done for him. To his surprise and grief the minister only said, " Henry, what under the sun did you come to church barefooted for ? " His poor little heart went down to the soles of his bare feet, and he began to cry ; and Satan said to him, " There ! there is nothing of it ; you are mistaken, after all. If Jesus had forgiven your sins, your father, who knows so much, would not have said that to you ; he would have given you a chance to tell the people." He began to doubt immediately, and he grew very hard and wicked, and almost broke their hearts before they could get him to put away his doubts and be a real Christian again.