The Chocolate Soldier Or, Heroism-The Lost Chord of Christianity

Excerpt

H is the lost chord; the mission note of present-day

Every true is a hero! Who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a Chocolate Soldier! In peace true soldiers are captive lions, fretting in their cages. War gives them their liberty and sends them, like boys bounding out of school, to obtain their heart's desire or perish in the attempt. Battle is the soldier's vital breath! Peace turns him into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again, and gives him the heart, strength, and vigor of a hero.

--of Christ--a hero "par excellence"! Braver than the bravest--scorning the soft seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, and death, whom he counts among his bosom friends.

Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. "Sweeties" they are! Bonbons, lollipops! Living their lives on a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little delicate constitution.

Here are some taken by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

"He said, 'I go, sir,' and went not"; he he would go to the , but stuck fast to Christendom instead.

"They say and do not"--they tell others to go, and yet do not go themselves. "Never," said General Gordon to a corporal, as he himself jumped upon the parapet of a trench before Sebastopol to fix a gabion which the corporal had ordered a private to fix, and wouldn't fix himself, "Never tell another man to do what you are afraid to do yourself."

To the the very thought of war brings a violent attack of ague, while the call to battle always finds him with the palsy. "I really cannot move," he says. "I only wish I could, but I can sing, and here are some of my favorite lines:

"I must be carried to the skies
  On a flowery bed of ease,
Let fight to win the prize,
  Or sail thro' bloody seas.

Mark time, Christian heroes,
  Never go to war;
Stop and mind the babies
  Playing on the floor.

Wash and dress and feed them
  Forty times a week.
Till they're roly poly--
  Puddings so to speak.


Round and round the nursery
  Let us ambulate
Sugar and spice and all that's nice
  Must be on slate."

"Thank the good Lord," said a very fragile, white-haired lady, "God never meant me to be a jelly-fish!" She wasn't!

walked with God, he didn't only preach righteousness, he acted it. He went through water and didn't melt. He breasted the current of the popular opinion of his day, scorning alike the hatred and ridicule of the scoffers who mocked at the thought of there being but one way of salvation....