"If you will give me the courage to stand it, I'll be glad, Lord, to suffer this much for You."
And that last was the reason why, in the midst of this real persecution, he never lost his cheerfulness. More than that, he never missed a chance to do Paul and his friends a good turn. He said:
"When men were treating our Lord worst, even killing Him, that was when He was opening heaven for them. And I'm sure He would like me to be kind as He was kind to those who treated Him meanly."
He did what he could to avoid annoying Paul. He kept out of everybody's way when he wanted to pray. He used to wait at night till the others were asleep, for they all slept in one great room together, and then slip out of bed and on to his knees. Sometimes his cousins, thinking it a great joke, would pretend to stumble over him in the half-dark, and kick him as hard as they could.
And this went on for two years. He could have stopped the whole matter with no trouble at all, by simply writing to his father. But he never so much as hinted to any one at home of the way Paul and Bilinski and his cousins treated him. He was as plucky as he was gentle and forgiving. Although, for good reasons, he would not quarrel, he had the tenacity of a bull-dog, he held on to the hard purpose he had formed and nothing could beat him off.
And that is the very highest sort of courage, the courage that endures, that has no show or heroics about it. Again I say, if he had done all this, put up with all this, to gain riches, to make a name for himself, the world would understand and would praise him tremendously. It is his motive that leaves the world cold, it is the source and reason of his courage that the world cannot understand.
Yet he was not obstinate and pig-headed, bound to do as he wished just because he wished it. No, he was very sensible and did everything with reason. He would not stop saying his prayers when Bilinski and Paul objected, he would not join in gay dinners and drinking-bouts and gambling, he would not sit and smile at shady stories or smutty wit. He would no? do anything his conscience forbade. But he was most ready to do anything else they wanted.
For instance, he had been used to give his rich clothes away to the poor, and dress very simply. Bilinski and Paul insisted on his dressing as became his rank, and he yielded readily. Bilinski wanted him to take dancing lessons, and he took them, and learned to dance very well. He was not keen about any of these things, because he reckoned they would not count for much in eternity. But neither was he foolish, nor a fanatic, nor one who saw evil where no evil was. He was simply a level-headed boy, who figured out the business of life clearly and convincingly, and who had the courage of a hero in living up to his convictions.