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