“Come on, if you dare,” said Price, shaking his fist at him. All the boys gathered round and urged Wilson to “go on, and give it to him.”
“No, I don’t think it right to fight,” said Wilson, “and I won’t do it.”
“Coward! coward! he’s afraid,” cried the boys. “I am not a coward,” said Wilson; “I dare do anything that’s right. But this is not right, and I won’t do it.”
“Go home, coward! go home, coward!” shouted the boys after him, as he turned to go home.
He had not gone far before there was a sound of a heavy splash. “He’s in! He’ll drown!—he can’t swim! Price is drowning,” cried the boys as they stood on the edge of the bank.
Joe Wilson heard these shouts and ran to the bank of the river. He saw Price struggling in the stream. The other boys were running about and shouting, but they were afraid to go in. In a moment Joe Wilson threw off his jacket, stepped back a few paces—ran—and jumped into the river. He swam out to Price—caught him by the hair of his head, and managed, though with great difficulty and at the risk of his own life, to bring him safely to the shore. Wilson walked quietly home, not only to change his wet clothes, but also to avoid the praise of those who but a moment ago were calling him a coward.
An old gentleman was standing there who had witnessed this whole scene. As soon as Wilson was gone, he called the boys to him and said: “Boys! learn a lesson from what has just taken place. Don’t mistake a hero for a coward next time. The boy who is afraid to do what he knows to be wrong in God’s sight, is the true hero. He is not afraid of anything else; not afraid of man—of danger—or of death.”
The point of greatest glory in Joe Wilson’s conduct that day was not when he bravely plunged into the river. No; but it was when he nobly stood his ground among his companions, and said “I think it wrong to fight; and I won’t do it.”
And so, even amidst the sorrowful scenes of our Saviour’s trials, we see his glory shining out in the way in which he did and suffered what was according to the will of God.