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.

It is true that to be a Christian does take some of the fight out of a
person, but it is the quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither
beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of one. But when you come
to read history you will find that some of our bravest soldiers were
Christians. John Havelock, a British general who fought in India for the
sake of his country, was called "The Christian Warrior." Sir Oliver
Cromwell, who had to lead an army in England against the king, who was
ill-treating the people, had a body of soldiers under him who were
Christians, and they were such good soldiers and so hard to defeat that
they were called "Cromwell's Ironsides." Sometimes just before battle
these soldiers used to sing hymns and then pray on the battlefields. And
because they were Christians it made better and braver soldiers of them.

And so the truest kind of courage that any boy or girl can have is the
kind that Christ gives. Paul tells all of us Christians to be "good
soldiers." The Bible takes the wrong kind of fight out of you and puts
the right kind of fight into you, the fight for noble things.




STEAM AND SAILS


All the vessels on the oceans can be divided into two classes: