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.