ly frightened just
before battle. The frightened soldier said to the other one: "Yes, I am
afraid. And if you were half as much afraid as I am, you would run
away."

The lesson I want to draw is this, that it is not cowardly to be afraid
of things which have danger in them. It is cowardly to run away if you
ought to face them. And if you ought not to face them it is cowardly to
go headlong into them, just because of some other boy's foolish dare.

I remember a playmate who used to bite the heads off the fish he caught,
just because another boy dared him to. It used to make him terribly
sick, but he was too much of a coward not to do it. Some boys take up
smoking and drinking and swearing for the same reason. Any boy who does
that sort of thing is a coward.

ABRAHAM'S GUEST

You have all heard of Abraham, who went out from his home in Ur of the
Chaldees to find God. And you remember how he dwelt in tents, and had
hundreds of cattle. And you know how good he was to his nephew, Lot.

There is a story told about Abraham which you will not find in the
Bible. Abraham received into his tent one day an aged traveler. After he
had invited the traveler to dine with him at his sunset meal, Abraham
went out to offer up his evening sacrifice to God. But the traveler
would not join him in prayer and thanksgiving. Abraham was angry because
of the old man's lack of religion, and drove him from his tent.

Later in the evening the angel of the Lord appeared to Abraham and asked
him why he had driven out the old man. Abraham replied:

"Lord, he refused to acknowledge Thee!"

The Lord replied: "What! I have borne with this old man for eighty
years, and you could not bear with him for two days!" After that, so the
story goes, Abraham helped everyone who came along, no matter what his
religious belief might be.

That is a good story for boys and girls to remember when they feel that
they cannot forgive someone who has done them a wrong. What would become
of you if God never forgave you when _you_ did wrong? It is this spirit
of forgiveness that Christ means to teach us when He says in the Lord's
Prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." If, then, you
say that prayer and refuse to forgive anyone who has done you a wrong,
you mean that you want to have God act just as unforgiving with you as
you are with your enemies. That would be terrible,--to ask God not to
forgive you. None of us would dare pray like that.