inst whatever was mean
and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold
clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to
those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm living voice
of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on us to
help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily and little by
little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the
young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it was
no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by
chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no
spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are
life and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them showed
them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by
his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood
there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band.
The true sort of captain, too, for a boy's army, one who had no
misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let who
would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy
felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his
character might take hold of and influence boys here and there, but it
was this thoroughness and undaunted courage which more than anything
else won his way to the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he
left his mark, and made them believe first in him, and then in his
Master.

[9] #Sets#: classes, social groups or cliques.

THE DOCTOR'S FIRST HOLD.

It was this quality, above all others, which moved such boys as our
hero, who had nothing whatever remarkable about him except excess of
boyishness; by which I mean animal life in its fullest measure,
good-nature and honest impulses, hatred of injustice and meanness, and
thoughtlessness enough to sink a three-decker.[10] And so, during the
next two years, in which it was more than doubtful whether he would
get good or evil from the school, and before any steady purpose or
principle grew up in him, whatever his week's sins or shortcomings
might have been, he hardly ever left the chapel on Sunday evenings
without a serious resolve to stand by and follow the Doctor, and a
feeling that it was only cowardice (the incarnation[11] of all other
sins in such a boy's mind) which hindered him from doing so with all
his heart.

[10] #Three-deck