o. Just by flying so high that
the bullets could not reach him, or, if some chance bullet did reach
him, he was so far away that it just kissed his plumage and fell back to
earth without doing him any harm.

I wish that every boy and girl were as wise as that old eagle. That is
always the way to avoid being wounded by sins: just keep high up above
them. I mean by that, when you are tempted to do anything that is
wrong, not to stop and argue with yourself whether you will get caught
if you do it, or whether you will be happier if you do not do it, or any
of these things by which you lose time. But just get right away from it:
put it out of your mind.

I suppose you will wonder how you can do that. I will tell you. You have
often heard about "wishing-caps," and how the people in fairy-stories
put them on and just wish themselves wherever they want to be, and quick
as a flash they are there. Well, there is a wishing-cap that every boy
and girl can put on when he is tempted; it is this prayer, "O God, help
me not to do this thing which is wrong!" And if you say that prayer, and
believe God will help you, it will take you high out of reach of the
sin, just as that old eagle flew high above reach of the bullets. For
God says that they who ask Him for help shall "mount up on wings as
eagles."

A DOG WHICH ATE THE BIBLE

I heard an amusing story sometime ago about a savage in Africa who came
to a missionary very much excited and told him that his dog had been
completely spoiled as a watch-dog because he had chewed up and eaten a
small New Testament he had happened to get hold of. He said that the dog
would never be of any more use because the New Testament which he had
swallowed would take all the fight out of him, and he could no longer
keep wild animals away from the sheep.

That seems a strange notion for a grown-up man to get into his head,
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