People are called courageous who are not afraid to fight other people. A boy is said to be very “brave” when he will do very dangerous things, but, dear children, all this is far away from true courage. Doing what we know ‘to be right in the face of opposition and contempt, that is true courage. To confess with our lips the Lord Jesus, or to pray to God before our companions, who may not love or fear Him, that is true courage.
Listen, dear boys, while I tell you a true story about a little boy who had this true courage. He was a weak, sickly boy to look at, and had a meek, quiet, little face that great, big, strong, rude boys laughed at, and called a baby face. He had, up to the time that I am going to tell you about, in consequence of ill health, been kept much at home, and had rarely been absent many hours together from his mother’s side, and had mixed very with other boys. He was timid and awkward at most of the games boys play at, for which they laughed at him a good deal; he would not fight when ill-treated, or resent in any way the unkindness of others, so that he was thought to be a coward, by boys who don’t know what true courage is.
After the death of his father, who up to his death had taught him at home, he was sent to a large public boarding school. Most of you can think what sort of a place a large boarding school would be for a weak, timid, little boy, with no kind mother or friend to watch over him. Well, it is about his first night at school that I want to tell you.
Picture to yourselves, then, a large room with over a dozen little beds in it, and as many boys laughing and talking and undressing, before getting into these little beds, and not once thinking of the God that made them, or of the Lord Jesus who died on the cross to save them. Now see them one by one getting into bed without bowing their knees in prayer; do you think you would have been able, before, them all, to kneel down by your bedside and pray to God?
Well, this little boy did. Yes, with, trembling heart, on this his first night at school, he kneeled down and prayed God as he had been accustomed to do at home in his own little room, where there was no one to see him, but the “Father who seeth in secret.”
Some of the rude boys laughed at him and threw their slippers at him, and called him names to make him stop, but he just quietly went on praying. The next morning he did the same, and continued morning and night thus on his knees to confess the Lord Jesus. Nor was this all, other little boys who once had prayed at home but had been afraid to do so before the other boys at school, encouraged by his example began again to pray. After a while there were only three boys in that large room who did not bow their knees, and lift their hearts to the Lord morning and night. The true courage of the little, weak boy had been a real blessing and help to others.
Dear children, I want you to have this true courage, and to never be afraid to own the Lord Jesus, by confessing Him or praying to Him before others, where there is a need for it, The Lord Jesus says,
ML 07/14/1940