closer, I saw he was wearing a kilt; when he came a little nearer still, I saw that he was drest exactly like a Highland soldier. When he came quite near, I said to him, "What are you doing here?" "Why should I not be here?" he said. "Don't you know this is British soil? When you cross the river you come into Canada." This soldier was thousands of miles from England, and yet he was in the kingdom of England.
Wherever there is an English heart
beating loyal to the ruler of Britain,
there is England. Wherever there is a
man whose heart is loyal to the King of
the kingdom of God, the kingdom of
God is within him.—Henry Drummond.
(1932)
A young girl came to headquarters faint and exhausted, her body covered with marks of cruel beatings administered by her father and brother. It was their way of convincing her that she must accept the offer of her former employer to give her more than twice the wages that she had received before the shirt-waist strike in New York, 1909, and to send an automobile to take her to and from work if she would return to her former position. That she could decline an offer of such magnificence was conclusive proof to them that a girl is too stupid to make her own decisions; so they proceeded to decide for her and to communicate their decision in their own vigorous fashion.
"Will you go?" asked the little group surrounding her.
"Never till I die," was the unfaltering response, "unless the other girls be taken back, and unless we may stay by the union. To that did not we all pledge our word?" "But," she added wearily, "I think they will kill me. See! Here it is that yesterday they pulled out so much of my hair. To-day, again, they beat me. To-morrow, surely, they will kill me. I can not bear more."
When offered a place of safety and protection, she hesitated for a little time, then said, "My mother, she is away at work. Not to find me when she comes home at evening—that would trouble her. I must go home to her."
The will which could not be conquered by force was coupled with loyalty, with love, no less unconquerable. The friend who had offered her protection understood, for she, too, was a woman.
Shall the stone and mortar and machinery of factories or the bank accounts of their owners be ranked as assets of greater value to the nation than the life, the health, the welfare, of such womanhood?—The World To-day.
(1933)
LOYALTY, SPIRIT OF
The spirit that leads to lying for the
sake of a member of the clique or gang has
been contemptuously called "honor among
thieves." Honor it is rightly styled. Many
tests have shown that it is indeed the spirit
of loyalty that occasions it. Such a lie is
the lie heroic. Many a boy will persist in
it and take a punishment cheerfully rather
than betray his chum. The lie, of course, is
wrong; but the spirit which prompts it is
right—indeed, is at the very core of moral
character. Instead of asking boy or girl
to tell of the misdeeds of another, the one
who has glimpsed God's plan for the shaping
of a character will ask the culprit to confess
and save his comrades from suspicion. The
boy who will lie and take a thrashing to save
his friend will confess and take the penalty
just as quickly, if the spirit of honor is fostered.
The spirit of hero worship is strong in both sexes at this time. Each one has his concrete ideal. Among the boys it may be the pugilist, the border outlaw, the soldier, or the statesman, but he is surely of the virile and aggressive type. Unconsciously the youth is selecting during these crucial years the models after whom his life is to be shaped.—E. P. St. John, Sunday-school Times.
(1934)
LOYALTY TO CHRIST
In "Gloria Christi" we read this statement concerning some early martyrs of Madagascar:
In 1849 nineteen Christians, four of them
from the highest nobility and all of good
birth, were condemned to die. Fifteen were
ordered to be hurled to death over the cliffs
of Ampamarinana, a wall of rock one hundred
and fifty feet high, with a rocky ravine
below. The queen looked at the sight from
her palace windows. Idols were placed before
the Christians as they hung suspended
by a rope in mid-air over the cliff, and each
was asked in turn, "Will you worship this
god?" As they refused, the rope was cut,
and the victim fell into the abyss.
(1935)
Loyalty to Race—See Race Loyalty.
