BE BRAVE, BOYS.
To be brave is to be willing to suffer rather than do wrong, or in order to do good. The Bible has a great deal to say about bravery. All the great and good men in the Bible were brave men. Abraham was a brave man; he dared to leave his home, and friends, and native country, and go out, into a strange land, in order to worship God. Joseph was a brave man, and kept up good heart in slavery, and in prison in Egypt, and dared to do right and confess God to be his God when he was brought out of his dungeon into the court of Pharaoh. Moses was a brave man, and was not afraid to obey God, and lead the children of Israel out though the wilderness to a land he knew nothing about. David was a brave boy, and was not afraid to attack the lion and the bear when he was left to defend his father's sheep. So all through the Bible; all its great and good men were brave men. They dared to do right. They were willing to suffer for the sake of doing right.
The boy or man, or girl or woman, who is not willing to suffer for the sake of doing good, is a coward.
In stories the boys and girls who are brave are very apt not to suffer, after all. Their bravery saves them. It is sometimes so in real life. Daniel was brave, and God saved him from the lions.
The three Hebrew children were brave, and were willing to be cast into a fiery furnace rather than worship an idol; God saved them, and they were not burned. George Washington was brave, and he was not killed in battle; Luther was brave, and dared to do right and speak the truth, but he was not burned or tortured. But a great many men and boys have suffered, although they were brave; yes, because they were, brave. They might have escaped the suffering, but they chose to suffer, and even die, rather than do wrong. And they did suffer and die. Henry Maag was a factory boy in Cincinnati.
The factory caught fire. ' Instead of running out to save himself, he ran upstairs to tell the girls on the fourth floor. - The stairways were filled with smoke, and in going down, after giving the alarm to the girls, he lost his way. Instead of leaving the main floor, he went down into the cellar.
Thence there was no escape. There his dead body was found the following day. It was in a kneeling posture. He was a brave boy.
A train on the Pennsylvania railroad was running thirty and forty miles an hour. The fireman threw open the door of the furnace to put in coal, and the flames burst out with a tremendous blaze and roar. They caught on the woodwork and enveloped the engineer. He could have jumped from the engine and. saved his life; but if he had, the train would have rushed on, and the flames would have rushed back and burned the passengers. He would not desert his post. He seized the lever, reversed the engine, and stood still amid the flames until the train stopped. The lives of all the passengers were saved, but he was so badly burned that he died in a few hours. He was a martyr to his duty. He was a brave man.
At the time of the gold fever in California, a man went from England to the diggings, and after awhile sent money for his wife and child to follow him. While on the voyage, a fire broke but in the ship. With their utmost efforts the sailors could not extinguish it. The boats were got out;
the strong pushed into them, the weak were left to their fate. As the last boat was moving off, the mother pleaded for her boy. The sailors said there was not room for both, they would take one.
The mother kissed her son, handed him over the side of the vessel, and gave him this message to his father: "Tell him," she said, "if you live to see him, that I died to save you." He escaped—she died. She was willing to die to save another. She was a brave woman.
This was the very spirit of Jesus Christ, who suffered that he might make others happy, and died that he might make others live. Be brave, boys! You cannot be like Christ unless you are willing to suffer for the sake of others.
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