"Is wars very wicked?" questioned Elsie eagerly.
"There's one battle we must all fight, lassie," said the old nurse, speaking half to herself and half to the child.
"No, I can't, 'cause I'm too little—Hugh says so."
"No one is too little, my dear, to be a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ."
"What does that mean?" questioned Elsie, with wide-opened eyes. She had often heard from her mother's lips of Him who is the friend of little children, but the idea of being Christ's little soldier was an entirely new one.
"It means," said Rachel reverently, in answer to the child's question, "that we all must fight in the battle against sin, under our great Captain."
Much of this was unintelligible to Elsie, but grasping as much as her childish mind could understand, she said thoughtfully, "I should like to be His soldier. Are you 'quite' sure I'm big enough."
"Yes, my dear, there's only one way of enlisting in His army; you must ask Him on your knees to make you His faithful soldier unto your life's end."
"A faithful soldier!" repeated Elsie. "I'll ask Him to-night when I say my prayers. Good-bye, nurse—my cat's got two kittens," she added as a sudden thought struck her, "I must go in now and give pussy her milk."
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