miimmmimmhmmmimmiummmmmiimm III] I P ill [ilLyiililiiliiii lHim(«if<llHl!liiKiiiai!l!!i>li'!J.'jli!:;i;ii ITIZEN, JR CLARA EWJNG ESPEY m ^mi lit 4 m !i!f ill I • •.■»* • - • • %• • • * o" * • . *• - * * J' * J J J Wbt Sihing^on J^tliQXoui €bucatton Wtxtsi 3iabtb &. 3Bo\mtp, (General Cbttor GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Editor WEEK-DAY SCHOOL SERIES CITIZEN, JR. By CLARA EWING ESPEY THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI f 7E7 Copyright, 1922, by CLARA EWING ESPEY All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America The Bible text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by pennission. CONTENTS group page Introduction 7 I. YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN Lesson i. Diamonds and Citizens 10 Lesson 2. Choosing 14 II. VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY Lesson 3. Following the Star 20 Lesson 4. Pirates and Policemen 25 III. A SQUARE DEAL Lesson 5. "See Saw, Margery Daw**. . . 31 Lesson 6. Paying Your Way 36 IV. FINDING WISDOM Lesson 7. The Game 42 Lessons. The Wise Owl 50 V. NEIGHBORS Lesson 9. Touchstone Tests 58 Lesson 10. The Street of the Golden Mile 66 VI. PATRIOTIC HORIZONS Lesson ii. A Real American 76 Lesson 12. Loving Your Country 84 489 'i i 'i 4 CONTENTS GROUP PAGE VII. AEROPLANE SERVICE Lesson 13. Bird*s-Eye Views 92 Lesson 14. Into All the World 97 VIII. SUNLIGHT LIVING Lesson 15. "Old Faithful." 104 Lesson 16. The Coming of the Sun 108 IX. THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING Lesson 17. Dunce-Cap Talk 116 Lesson 18. Masks 120 X. BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS Lesson 19. Down in the Mouth 126 Lesson 20. Grit Going to Waste 130 XL TESTS OF COURAGE Lesson 21. Everyday Adventures 138 Lesson 22. When the Crowd Laughs. . 145 XII. TWO PUZZLES Lesson 23. A Rebus 150 Lesson 24. Wardrobe Puzzles 154 XIII. COUNTING UP Lesson 25. Monkey Living. 160 Lesson 26. Citizen Treasures 163 XIV. THE KEEPER OF THE GATE Lesson 27. Your Money's Worth. .... 168 Lesson 28. Goblins and Genii. 173 CONTENTS S PAGE XV. TELLING TIME Lesson 29. The Time Bank 180 Lesson 30. A Mouse in the Clock 187 XVI. IN HIS NAME Lesson 31. "Our Father" 194 Lesson 32. In Remembrance 197 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/citizenjrOOesperich INTRODUCTION You will notice that the lessons in this book are grouped in pairs and that at the beginning of each of these groups there is a small picture. These pictures are different from the usual illustrations. They are for symbols, or guide signs, to mark the lesson groups and to remind you of the big, important thought that you work out there. If you would like to use these little symbol pictures to help you to make a notebook picture-record of your citizen progress and practice, your teacher can get them for you, printed separately, ready for you to use. Then you can earn them as you go along. Your teacher and you can work out the plan that you wish to follow in this way of using the pictures. Here are some ideas as suggestions. The symbol for Group I can be a special one to be awarded by your teacher when she notices some special citizen-progress or gain. It might be given when a mem- ber of the class reports some fine point observed in some- one else's citizenship, or it might be received by the per- son whose citizen effort or conduct is reported in this way. It might also be gained by a good piece of work in the notebook record, or something special thought out or done. The other symbols you might earn by making a special note of something that you do to practice a lesson, or by your bringing to class some of the work suggested, or by memorizing the work that is assigned, etc. Each time you will ask yourself before claiming the point: "Have I truly earned the right to this? Would I feel that 7 f r t r r r ' r, f f ft '' '■ h''- ''■W':'-^ : ; -VINTRODUCTION it should be awarded to someone else who claimed it for the same reason?" Since no two boys or girls are exactly alike, and since the things that happen to them and those that they need to learn and gain are not the same, you will want to answer for yourself these two questions, too: 1. Need I try to "beat" anybody by the number of points I gain, or shall I try to improve my own record as I know it myself? 2. Shall I compare myself with others in my efforts, or shall I keep my eyes on the perfect pattern — the citizen ideal "till we all attain unto . . . the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we may be no longer children, . . . but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things unto him who is the head, even Christ"? GROUP I Lessons i and 2 YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN When you read the words "Citizen, Jr." you can imagine that your own name is printed beside them, for you are really a Junior Citizen. This means that you are no longer just a child, though you are not yet grown up. You are "sort of in be- tween," getting ready to be all that a citizen can be. In order to work out the different things that you will want to know, it may help you to have a kind of manual, a little book such as you have for your Boy Scout, Girl Scout, Camp Fire, or Woodcraft training. That is what these lessons in this book really are — a manual for Junior Citizens. The little pictures that you find with each group of lessons are like the symbols in the other manuals. Each one of them stands for a special thing in citizen training. This one of the boy and girl looking out of a window is to represent all the Junior Citizens wanting to see what citizenship means. It goes with the lessons of this group "Diamonds and Citizens" and "Choosing," which will tell you more about what being a Junior Citizen means. Here are three words for you to think about as you study these lessons in this group. You know the words 9 CITIZENS' to . , CITIZEN, JR. already, of course, but perhaps you can find something new in them as you study: ''Thy Kingdom ComeJ^ LESSON 1 DIAMONDS AND CITIZENS Have you ever looked closely at a diamond? Is it smooth and round like a pearl? Do you know whether all diamonds are the same shape, and why? When they are found in the diamond fields do they look the way they do when they are set in a ring or in a pin? Even though you can answer most of these questions, it will help you with this lesson if you can examine a diamond carefully to see its shape and watch the colors. Perhaps your mother, or your big sister, or your teacher, or somebody else that you know, will let you examine one. It will be interesting and a help, besides, if you will go and look up about diamonds in the encyclopedia, or in your "Book of World Knowledge." Perhaps you know of a jewelry store where you can stop and look at the diamonds in the window. Or maybe your teacher or someone you know will take your class to the store and ask the jeweler to explain about diamonds and show them to you. Perhaps you might even get him to come to your meeting or send somebody from his store to tell you about diamonds. As soon as you have a good idea of a diamond and of what it looks like when it is found, you will be ready to hunt for the answer to the conundrum, "Why is a diamond like a Junior Citizen?" Here are some clues to help you to find the answer: I. The jeweler does something to the diamond before it is ready to be sold. Must anything like it take place with boys and girls if they are to become the finest kind of grown-up citizens? How is this thing done? YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN ii 2. Why has a diamond several facets? Would the colors be the same if it were curved like an opal? Be- giiming at home, in how many places and ways can boys and girls show their citizenship? Now that you are beginning to see how Junior Citizens are like diamonds, perhaps it will be well to talk things over some more. If the sort of living you do is of good quality, then what people see in you is as fine as the beautiful colors of the diamond. Just as far as this quality of yours in life and action is good you will be worth something; you will have high value like the more perfect and valuable diamonds. Think out and discuss in class how this is true. What are you worth in your home, at school, to the Sunday school, to the church, to your community or town, to our country and to the world? Say to yourself: "I must be " and "I will do ," naming things that you feel will make a genuinely valuable citizen in these different ways. Though a diamond has many facets, it is a single stone. You can be a Junior Citizen in several ways and yet there is one kind of citizenship that includes them all. It is not easy to find an everyday name for it, but you can dis- cover more about it if you will study these references from the Bible: Thine, O Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Jehovah, and thou art ex- alted as head above all* — i Chronicles 29: ii. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; A scepter of equity is the scepter of thy kingdom. Psalm 45 : 6. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. — ^Matthew 6: io» 12 CITIZEN, JR. You see the word "kingdom" in every one of these. Those who live in a kingdom are citizens there. These verses speak of God's kingdom, so it must be that who- ever belongs to God is a citizen of his kingdom. So how would it do if we called the big kind of citizenship that takes in every kind the "Citizenship of the Good"? Don't you think that the word "good" describes the quality of citizenship that you want to show at home, in school, and elsewhere? Next, suppose you look at something Jesus said about God's kingdom. It is in verses 20 and 21 of the seven- teenth chapter of Luke. This is what it says: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you." The marginal reference says "In the midst of you." "Within" and "in the midst of you" — how can this be true of God's kingdom? If it is "within" you, it must be the way you think and feel and are; and if it is "in the midst of you" it is in the spirit of the actions that you and other citizens show toward each other. Perhaps this will help you to think it out: One reason that you know that you are an American citizen is the way you feel about our country. You like its customs and what it stands for. People from other nations coming here, many of them, decide to become Americans because of the way they feel about our country. They like it too. And so people who belong to the Citizenship of the Good are those who care about being good. They want godlike lives such as Jesus lived. When you were a child you learned the Lord's Prayer, but maybe you never have happened to think that every time we pray, "Thy kingdom come," we are really asking that we and everyone else shall have the godlike lives YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN 13 that should be lived by people who belong to the Citizen- ship of the Good, the kingdom of God. Jesus tells us about this kingdom conduct in Luke 6: 27-33: But I say unto you that hear, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you. To him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and from him that taketh away thy cloak with- hold not thy coat also. Give to every one that asketh thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. And if ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for even sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same. And in verse 35: But love your enemies, and do them good. Think out and be ready to discuss in class how you as a Junior Citizen of God's kingdom can prove it by con- duct of this sort at home, in school, in church, and in other places. As you think these things over decide whether you will be willing after this to hurry over the words of the prayer "Thy kingdom come." Special Work Look up Matthew 5 : 3-1 1 and see what additional help you can find for deciding about real citizenship conduct. If you have already memorized the Beatitudes, the verses from Matthew, you might take for your memory work on this lesson the verses from Luke that are printed out in the lesson text. Write in your notebook some ways that you decide to try to improve your citizenship. 14 CITIZEN, JR. LESSON 2 CHOOSING When you have some money to spend and want to buy an apple or an orange, you know how to choose. You try to find the very best one you can, the largest and the nicest. You want one as perfect as possible. If an apple has a bad spot or an orange has a spoiled place in it, you do not choose it. You do not want it. Though the other part is good, the fruit is not good enough in quality to suit you. You know how to choose. If mother sends you to the store to buy a box of straw- berries, or a head of lettuce, or some tomatoes, you try to pick out the best basket of berries, the nicest lettuce, or the most perfect tomatoes. You want the very best when you choose — something as fine as you can get. And when you go to buy a new dress or a suit you would not think it fair if the storekeeper charged the same price for one with a torn place in it, or one with some of the buttons off, as he would for one that was all right. You would be very quick to choose another one that was perfect. You would want the very best for your money. Nothing but the best would be good enough. Although you are sure that you know about choosing in these ways, are you certain that you do the same sort of choosing in other things? Many boys and girls do not. They work at a lesson or at a job very carelessly, and then say that what they have done is ^'good enough,'' and want to let it go at that. ''Good-enough" boys and girls, the principal of one school used to call them. Do you know any of them? Do you ever do such things yourself at school or at home? What sort of choosing is that? Do you think other people want your low-grade goods? And how do you act when they show they dis- YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN 15 approve? What do you suppose is wrong with your citizenship when you do these things? A baby wants to please itself. It wants to have what- ever it wants, whenever it wants it, and doesn't think about other people or what is best, or any time but right now. It hasn't learned to live in any bigger way. Do you see how a "good-enough" boy or girl is still somewhat in the baby stage? A grown person who has truly grown up knows what he wants and tries to have it, but he always has to count in something else — the way things ought to be; and if what he wants is different from what ought to be, the best citizen chooses "what ought to be." Junior Citizens are at the between stage. They really want to be good. They know and feel what ought to be. And yet they are often pulled more toward what they want to do than what they know they should do. But they have come to the practice time for growing up. Some grown people seem never to have grown up in this way at all. You do not want to be one of them. Unless you Juniors make better citizens than many people are now, how can the world improve? It is up to you. This learning to choose is a very big thing. Just stop a minute and think things over. Think what difference it would make if everybody always chose the best way of living. Next, just for fun, remember one of the days when you did not choose right. Think back and see what happened. If you had chosen differently, how would it have changed your day? Do you wish now that you had chosen better? Why? Perhaps you will agree with the man who says that being good is doing what we would wish we had done, after the action gets "ripe." Baby living, doing just what we please, because we want to do it, feel like it, or don't i6 CITIZEN, JR. want to do something else that we should do — couldn't we call that a sort of "green" living? It never really tastes very good except for the time, and it makes a lot of trouble all around. How do savages act when somebody displeases them? When you think of the ugly feelings you had that time when somebody showed you how "green" your way of living was, do you think the man was right who said that being good is acting like civilized people instead of like savages? Which would you really rather be? If you can get the habit of choosing every time to do what you'd wish you had done when the thing was ripe, do you see that you will have learned a lot about citizenship and will graduate from the baby class? Then you can say what Paul did in i Corinthians 13: n: '^When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things." On Decision Day, or at some other time, you probably, decided that you would choose to live as God wants you to. You made the big choice that you would try to live as a Christian should. But as you go on Uving you find it hard. Things do not seem settled entirely by that one big decision. This is not surprising, for they cannot be unless you keep repeating and practicing it day after day in your many little decisions for your problems of conduct. In a way you can have a decision day at any minute. That is what will help. Then you will build a habit of right choosing. When the times of deciding come — those little minutes when you choose which way you will let yourself act — stop and ask yourself, "Do I want 'baby' living, 'green' living, 'savage' living, or the kind that is grown up and ripe and civilized?" If you are really fair YOU, A JUNIOR CITIZEN 17 about it, you will find yourself deciding, ''Of course I would rather have God's life show in me as it did in Jesus than to do this thing that seemed easier and that I thought I wanted to do/' You will find out that you want only what is best. If you find it hard to be fair and to think straight, open your heart to God as you pray, "Thy kingdom come in me just now." Then the choice will be easier. The oftener you practice this the easier it will be. If you keep up the practice, it will become as natural as it is for you to breathe. Suppose you try it for a week. Do the very best you can, all day long, to choose what you know you would wish afterward that you had done. Perhaps it will help you here in this work if you count up at the end of the day and see what choices you have made. Keep a record of how many there are. If sometimes you make the wrong choice because you do not look at things fairly, or because you don't feel like it, do not be discouraged. Don't say that it is no use to try, or that it is too much work. Making a person is not easy. Don't act like a baby learning to walk, who has tumbled down and lies there squalling. Pick yourself up again, pray, know that God forgives you, forgive yourself, and go on. That is how we all learn; that is how we build up our spiritual habits, habits that let us walk with God. Never mind if you do not understand all about choos- ing yet. There will be more about it in later lessons to help you. Practice in it will go on as long as you live. Grown-ups are not perfect in their choosing. We all are growing, together, toward what Paul calls "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." i8 CITIZEN, JR. THINKING IT OVER When you were little you probably learned the Com- mandments. Suppose you think of them now, one by one, and see how they are helps to guide citizens. Look and see what Jesus said about them in Matthew 22:35-40. Does this help you to see that being a good citizen of God*s kingdom means putting God first in everything and doing the sort of choosing that will turn out to be **best for everybody"? Go over the Commandments again and think it out. See how the first ones tell the citizenship relations between ourselves and God. Then see how the things forbidden in the others are of a kind that would be * 'green" living. See whether when such choosing "gets ripe" in action it proves to be best for everybody. Think how such choosing would spoil good citizenship. Turn to your record of choices for the days you recorded them. Are there enough good ones to show that you are making progress? How many times has it helped you to pray the words **Thy kingdom come"? GROUP II Lessons 3 and 4 VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY Do you love to read about the adventures of the discoverers and explorers, the work of in- ventors, and the Ufe of pioneer people? Does it make you long to go on voyages of discovery yourself? Do you wish that you might have adventures that would be as thrilling as theirs? You may do so, in a way, and yet stay at home and go to school and do all the other cus- tomary things. In the next two lessons, "Following the Star" and "Pirates and Police- men,'' you may learn something about these adventures and discoveries. Of course the symbol for this group must be a star because of the north star and the mariners' compass that are the explorer's friends and guides. Perhaps you will want a slogan for your expeditions. Many an under- taking has been carried to success that way. "Don't give up the ship" and "Make the world safe for democracy" are two famous slogans. Here is one that you can have for yours as you study now: "Be your best boss." 19 STAR LED" 20 CITIZEN, JR. LESSON 3 FOLLOWING THE STAR You remember the story of the three Wise Men. It is in Matthew 2: i-ii. Here is part of it: Now when Jesus was bom in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Wise-men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying. Where is he that is bom King of the Jews? for we saw his star in the east, and are come to worship him. . . . And they, having heard the king, went their way; and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Had you ever thought that they were on a magnificent adventure, exploring the world for miles and miles in search of the Christ-child? People then, many of them, were expecting his coming, but most of them were not thinking about it as much as the Wise Men were. From a far country these men journeyed, following the star. Nobody told them to go. They found out about it them- selves, and went. As the star led them they followed, followed, until they had found the Christ. Like them you can explore, but in a different way. Probably you have begun already, but have not realized what it meant. Do you want to try to do different things just to see if you can, and to learn how they are done? If you do, you are wanting to explore. Do you want to find out about lots of things — what they are made of and how to use them? If so, doing that is another way of exploring. Do you hate to be bossed — to be told what to do by somebody else? Have you begun to feel that you can do big things some day? Those feelings, again, VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 21 are signs that you are longing to explore what it means to live as a citizen, as one who is no longer a child but a self- reliant person. These things do not mean that you are ready yet to be an independent individual, but they do mean that you are ready to get ready to be one. Of course you see that there is a difference, but perhaps it might be well to think it out and discuss it in class. If you will go back to Lesson 2, where we talked about choosing, you may find some clues. All of these desires of yours for voyages of discovery are the beginnings of what grown people call by the long words "initiative" and "self-reliance." If you will look up the meanings of these words in the dictionary, espe- cially in one which tells what the different pieces of the words meant when they were first used, you will find something interesting. Perhaps you will like to check yourself up and find out how much initiative and self-reliance you have already gained, what voyages of discovery you have already made. Here is a plan for testing yourself and your power. You will be able to think of other plans yourself, and in that way too you will be developing still more initiative. Ask yourself: How many tools do I know how to use correctly and weU? How many machines can I run and keep in order? Do I know how to fit window shades when they pull off the roller, and can I stop a dripping water faucet? Can I "make a bed" scientifically? Can I make good bread — all by myself? Manage the oven, too? Do I know why faults come? When I pass a show window, how many things can I name that I have seen in one good look? 22 CITIZEN, JR. What can I do to help entertain guests? What ''kind turns'' can I do? Can I keep sweet tempered and courteous when things go wrong? How many psalms and other Scripture verses have I memorized? These are only a few test questions. We could easily make the list very much longer. You now see what a variety of voyages of discovery are waiting for you. Let the boys try things that girls usually do. There is no telling when you may need such knowledge either for yourself or to help out as a good citizen does in a dif- ficulty. Now you are ready to think a little more about the thing that will guide you in your voyages of discovery just as the star guided the Wise Men. It depends on the way you choose to use your initiative and self-reliance whether you make of yourself a good citizen or a poor one. If you use them just to prove how smart you are and to get your own way, or to have people praise you, are you star-led? For example: When you play basket ball, do you care more about making showy plays or about helping your team to win? Would you like to learn how to practice for the better way, the way that shines like a star? Ever since you were little you have known that God made you and that your life comes from him. Perhaps you know what Paul said in two different places. Look them up, anyway, in Acts 17: 24 and 28. Notice especially these lines — he himself giveth to all life^ and breath, and all thingSi and for in him we live and move and have our being. VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 27^ Every bit of initiative and self-reliance you have must be a part of God's life power shining out from you, if your being is in him, must it not? Whether you are a good citizen or a poor one depends on the way you choose to use this precious and holy thing. Jesus said that he came in order that we might have life, and have it abundantly. He showed us how to use God's life, which we had scarcely dared to think we might do. Your voyages of discovery are adventures that you long to make in the Land of Abundant Living. What you need is to learn how to use more and more of the life and power of God as you follow them. This is your star. In Lesson 2 you began to understand how a citizen chooses; and now, since you know that the power with which you live is God's life in you, you will want to be especially careful to watch whether the voyages of dis- covery that you undertake are things that you will be glad to have God's life u^ed for. Think of one of the adventures in abundant living that you would like to undertake. Let us suppose it is learn- ing to play a musical instrument. As you study and practice and think about your work remember that your power to do it comes from God. Know that as you use it, more and more of this power will come, so that you will make a greater progress than you could if you did not think of him and ask his help. And so you will find it true in things of other kinds. Maybe it is wanting to be independent that is your adventure. You can find your way in this region that you have never explored by following your star and remem- bering what you do will use God-given power and must be worthy of it. As you go on, learning to do things well, you will want to find ways to use in citizen fashion what you have 24 CITIZEN, JR. learned, and to share it with other people. If you are learning to play, it will make it more fun to practice if you do it partly for the sake of being able to give pleasure to the family and to guests by playing nicely for them. Think of some of your own desires and try to find ways of citizen-sharing for them. Ask God to show you how. As you pray and plan you will cultivate more initiative and self-reliance and you will find new adventures and discoveries. You will learn more about being your own best boss. And by learning to live this way — in the strength of God — in many kinds of undertakings you can have lots of fun in achieving them. Try to think how this can be true in such adventures as the following: learning lessons for school, the use of tools, driving a horse, telling funny stories, remembering jokes to tell, making folks happy by special things you do, being good-natured, working out puzzling thoughts in what you have read, earning money for something you want for yourself, for a surprise, to do something for somebody less fortunate, or to give to missions. Some things will take longer than others because there is more to learn about them. But you will find it easier and easier to work if you will do it in this way. And so the star will go on guiding you all your life long in new explorations. Test Work How many points for initiative and self-reliance have you scored this week ? Write out on paper in your own words the things you need to remember in practicing the habit of following your star. You can put it in your notebook if you choose. Look back over the week and see whether you have been combining what you learned about **choosing" with your initiative. VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 25 Choose some new thing in which you can try for self- reliance, something that you never have tried before. Then watch yourself and see whether you put it through successfully. This will help your initiative as well. Look up Revelation 22 : 16 and see if it helps you any to discover the star of your best self. This may take some thinking, but you have initiative and self-reliance enough to do it. Memorize the last sentence of the verse from Revelation. LESSON 4 PIRATES AND POLICEMEN Why do you suppose that almost every Junior Citizen enjoys pirates and is interested in policemen? Are they anything alike? Do you think either of them shows initiative or self-reliance? Can we let them stand for two kinds of citizenship — the one that results from baby living and the other that makes a Junior or Senior Citizen who lives according to the rules of good citizen- ship? Let us think about pirates first. A pirate is a man who tries to do just as he pleases. He does not want to obey law but defies it. He wants to be his own boss. He does not consider other people's rights. He wants everything he can get, for himself — rather a good-sized baby, don't you think? And a very bad waster of the life power which he has from God? Now, these things we do not like. And yet, somehow, we enjoy him. We like him because he has courage, because he dares to do hard things, be- cause he has initiative, because he is self-reliant, because he wants to be free. Every one of us has longings of this kind. Often these feelings are very strong, especially in Junior Citizens, who are at a time when they want to know and feel and show that they are real persons. They 26 CITIZEN, JR. want to prove that they have courage to dare. They want to feel that they have initiative, that they do not need to be bossed, nor even told what to do. In a way they are right, though they do not always see how to work it out. Life power, a holy thing as we know, is welling up within them, urging them to be and to be- come and to achieve. They have reached the practice time that prepares for independent Kving as citizens. As a rule, they know fairly well what they ought to do. They do not need to be told by anybody. But though they want to boss themselves they have a hard time because they think they would rather be free to do whatever they choose instead of what they should — that which brings the greatest good to the greatest number. They would like to live as pirates in the Kingdom of Myself instead of enjoying citizenship in the Land of Abundant Living for Everybody. They haven't learned yet to be their own best boss. Now let's think about poUcemen. They are men who try to help folks to do as they ought, to make the right choices. They must have courage and strength. They must be self-reliant, and they often need initiative. A policeman has the power of the law behind him. Junior Citizens like to watch one because he embodies so many things that they want for themselves. They admire his strength and his power, and wish they were like him. They think it would be wonderful to be able to command and to be obeyed as he is. They would hke to feel that some power was back of them, strong enough to make them feel invincible. And so they imagine themselves in his place just as they do with the pirate, and it gives them a thrill of freedom and power. They enjoy seeing that he is boss, just as they would like to be. Besides, in a way, a policeman stands for obedience to VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 27 law and respect for authority — doing what ought to be done. The traffic officer is one where this shows very plainly. He works the "Go-Stop*' signals or blows his whistle and indicates which way is open and which one closed to vehicles at that moment. When he tells a driver to stop, the man has to do it whether he wants to or not. Because the officer represents the law everybody must respect his authority. He is really there to help. People must obey. They cannot drive just where they please and whenever they choose. All must play fair. This thing of obedience and respect for authority is one of the hard problems for some Junior Citizens to work out. Because they still want so much to do as they please it is hard for them to be obedient and respectful. They feel that the time has come when they should begin to boss themselves. And this is true, if they only knew how to do it right. If they had to wait always to be told to do things, they never would become citizens of fine initiative and self-reliance. You can see what a great puzzle they have to solve. Perhaps it will help in your study of obedience if you turn to two places in your New Testament. The first tells about Jesus when he was a boy, a Junior Citizen. Look in Luke 2:51, where he went home with his parents after being in the Temple, and was ^'subject," or obedient to them. If he did so, why not you? The other reference is in Matthew 21: 28-30. It is one of the parables that Jesus told about two sons — not the prodigal one, but the other story. Can you see these two young fellows and what they do and say? Have you ever felt or done what either of them did? Let us think about them and see what citizens can learn from them about obedience. Perhaps we may find a surprise. 28 CITIZEN, JR. The first one acted with a good deal of the "baby" spirit at first. When he was told what to do he said, in- side, "I'm not going to/' "I don't want to," and he told his father, "I will not go." He wanted to be his own boss, something like our pirate. But as he got to thinking things over he repented and changed his mind entirely. He made a new choice — to obey. Nobody compelled him to do anything. His father probably knew nothing about it, for most likely he was somewhere else. This time the son obeyed completely, and was more the boss of himself than before because he overcame his first babyish action by choosing to do as he had been asked. He retained his initiative and self-reliance and used them in obeying. His brother had just the same unwillingness to obey, but let his father think he was going to do it. He seemed to have kept his freedom and to have bossed himself. Had he? Or was he a slave to his desire to show how independent he was and to his wish to do as he felt like doing? Was this being his best boss? Suppose that the first brother went to the vineyard because he felt that he had to, because he was afraid of his father, or because his father had "made" him go. Imagine how he would grumble and protest inside, and really stay away in spirit. Have you ever done anything like that yourself? Then were you really obedient even though your body obeyed? And were you your own boss, or did something boss you — your wish to do as you pleased? As you think about these two brothers can you see that obedience means a great deal more than just the act required or forbidden? That even though we may seem to obey we may not really be obedient? Obedience and respect for authority are things that are within us. Nobody can compel us to obey. Folks can VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY 29 compel our bodies, perhaps, but the choice, after all, re- mains with us. We are free to choose. But we must choose whether we are going to indulge in pirate living, that seeks its own wishes only, or choose to be our own policeman, who decides what is best and who has all the power of the law behind him. What is the law — the law of love, of course? "Thy neighbor as thyself," you know. And the power behind the law is God's life which is ours to use. We learned something about these things in the lesson on "Following the Star." Do you begin to see now, how they work out? Think carefully, remembering some time when you your- self did not fully obey, and some other time when you truly did. Are You Learning? Look back over the week that has been finished and then watch for a week and see how many times you act as your own policeman and make yourself obey. Give an example of how being afraid of somebody stops only the act and not the want to, even when a person seems to obey. What is wrong with pirate living that makes it poor citizenship ? Why should we have respect for authority? Suppose nobody ever asked you to obey or told you what to do from now on ? Are you boss enough of yourself to do your own choosing and be sure that it would prove to be "best for everybody"? Just what sort of things would you do if you were perfectly free to choose? Would you choose play entirely? Grade your citizen value honestly for yourself. Just as if you were reading a story in a book or a magazine, read the first six chapters of Nehemiah and see in how many ways it belongs with these two lessons. Has it helped you to have the slogan, '*Be Your Best Boss" ? GROUP in ^ Lessons s and 6 A SQUARE DEAL The symbol for this group of lessons is a pair of scales, to in- dicate balancing or making things even, since we are going to study about "A Square Deal" for everybody. Perhaps this may remind you of what we studied about "Choosing." The two are related, yet they are different. One is a sort of first cousin to the other. Here is the first half of a scrap of verse to go with the lessons. It will be a good plan to memorize the lines so that you can think them over as you study. Later on, too, you will want them so you can put them with the lines that are left blank. Those you will discover when you are ready for them. "WEIGH IT FIRST' Thinking "Some folks are thinking *me and mine,' And some are thinking *thee and thine.' 30 A SQUARE DEAL 31 LESSON 5 "SEE SAW, MARGERY DAW' Here is a conundrum for us to work out in this lesson: How is a seesaw like playing fair? If you ever made an old-fashioned seesaw by putting a board across a barrel or over a wooden "horse/' or if you have ever watched and played with a "teeter'' on the playground, you will remember the up-and-down motion by which it worked. You probably did not stop to think that the balancing of the board made the fun. You just knew that when one child went up the other went down, and that when a larger child sat on one end the board had to be moved over and made longer on the other end where the smaller child sat. If you didn't, the "teeter" would bump and stick. In "playing fair" there is a balancing between one side and another. Anything which gives one person more than he should have, or less than his share, spoils the balance, and people protest. Citizens, big and little, count a great deal on "fair play." You know how quickly somebody exclaims, "That isn't fair," if one child tries to get more than his share, or if he seems to be given something nice that the rest may not share. Citizens are quick to object — when it is somebody else who is having the advantage; but do you think they are half as inclined to feel it if they themselves are the ones who seem to be benefited, or are claiming what they want? Even if they do have a sort of prick in their minds telling them that all is not right, don't they usually try to prove that they have a right to the thing, or excuse their actions as they would not excuse somebody else? And don't they often try to blame the trouble on somebody else, even if they began it? 32 CITIZEN, JR. Isn't it funny, when you stop to think how blind and stupid they are! Think of the child, or maybe yourself, who always wants to have his own way, or else he will not play; and the girl who wants to have the best "part" if a play is being planned, and will not "be in it" unless she can star. Do you think these folks realize that they are to blame when the others do not like what is done? Do you think that playing fair requires us to look at ourselves as clearly to see what we have done as if we were watching someone else? Perhaps you do not see how it can be done. There is an interesting way that helps when you learn how to use it. It is like looking in a mirror to see yourself. You know that when you smile as you look into the glass, you see a smile, and when you frown and look cross, you see a grouchy sort of person looking back at you. You can learn to use other people as a sort of mirror in which to see yourself. They are like a looking-glass showing you the way you look at them. So, if people dis- approve of you, or are cross, stop and look at yourself. Try to see yourself as you would look if you were in their place. It is possible that they are the cranky ones, but how are you looking back at them? Perhaps they may be mistaken about you and be blaming you unjustly. You'd like to think so, but you'd better make sure. Take a good look. Maybe you are like the youngster who went running to mother crying bitterly and complaining as a spoiled child does, "Sally Jones hit me!" And when the mother asked what the child had done to Sally, at first the answer was, "Nothing"; but further questions brought the sobbing admissions: "Knocked her down — and pulled her hair — and broke her new Christmas dolly — and she hit me!" A SQUARE DEAL 33 Maybe you have been doing something like that and blaming the other person. Be sure to take a good look whenever somebody else seems cross to you. It is a man-sized lesson to learn, this playing fair by being willing to look at our own faults and to admit our share of the blame. Some people now grown never learned to do it as children, and are in trouble all the time and think that the world is abusing them. Perhaps you may know somebody like this. If so, you do not think that person is such a happy citizen that you are wildly eager to be like him, do you? Then look out — watch your step — by seeing that you give a square deal. Perhaps it will be a good plan now to think about a few of the little mean things that you may catch yourself doing — unfair things: cheating in a game in order to try to win, saying unkind things about somebody's dress or appearance, trying to play out of turn, taking advantage of somebody's misfortune, trying to slip in ahead of your turn in a line that is waiting to buy tickets, being cranky when you are called to get up in the morn- ing, being unwilUng to be obliging or to do errands, mis- representing the facts about something that has hap- pened, telling unkind tales, and similar acts. Think of others from the way you act yourself with the folks at home, at school with the teacher, on the playground, on the athletic field, at Sunday school and church, and in the community. Now write out a new list of what you should do instead. When somebody blames and criticizes you for some supposed meanness, will it help for you to be ugly about it even if the blame is unjust? What does citizen conduct call for? There are two Bible references to help you decide, Proverbs 15: i and Luke 6: 27, 28: 34 CITIZEN, JR. Here they are: A soft answer tumeth away wrath; But a grievous word stirretfi up anger. and Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despite- fully use you. To make a gentle answer and to be loving were things that Jesus seemed to expect citizens to do. He wanted them not to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good. Think about the Proverbs reference. Do you see the pictures that you will find in the mirror of other people's faces? Make a gentle answer. If you do, you can have a lot of fun watching the change in the mirror. Try it next time and see. It may be that some of the boys will think that Jesus did not mean what he said when he spoke of turning the other cheek. There may be times when they feel that they must fight instead of acting as inoffensively as this. Of course you know that fighting is, in a way, going back to the savage level; that if two men begin to fight on the street, the policeman takes them in hand as misbehaving citizens. If you boys do not feel that you can be your own policeman enough to avoid a fight, then police yourselves enough to fight for a weaker person, for a just cause, and to fight fair. Don't lose your tempers and don't be mean. Be "good sports" and obey the rules as a boxer has to learn to do. Some day you will find that you neither need nor want to fight, and you will find that what Jesus says is best. What is wrong with Margery Daw's seesaw when you are unfair? What makes the balance wrong? Is it loving A SQUARE DEAL 35 ourselves more than our neighbor when it should be even — one just the same as the other? You really do not want to be unjust; you want a square deal for him as much as for yourself. What do you think of these steps toward making things more even and helping to balance the seesaw again? — 1. Admit your fault to yourself. 2. Admit it to God and straighten things out with him. 3. Watch for a chance to do a special kindness to the one you have wronged, and so try to make it up to him for the ugly thing that was so unfair. Only a citizen of character and backbone has courage enough to do these things every time he has been unfair, but they are worth all the effort they cost. You will find that if you make a habit of doing them each time you are at fault, you will be slower to get yourself into such trouble again. And as you go on loving, you will feel less like being mean. Remember that the other person is God's child as well as you. Be careful how you treat him. Show your love of God by your love of others as Abou Ben Adhem did. Leigh Hunt has written a poem about him and his visit from an Angel, who appeared in the moonlight of his room, writing the names of those who loved the Lord. He asked the Angel to "Write me as one that loves his fellow men," and then **The Angel wrote and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light And showed the names whom love of God had blessed, And lo! Ben Adhem*s name led all the rest." See If You Know What is the trouble with a citizen who does not play fair? 36 CITIZEN, JR. What do you think other citizens can do to help such a person? Make a list of any mean things you may have done this week. Nobody else need see it. Look it over carefully and see exactly what you have done to straighten each thing up. Do not let a single one of these accounts against yourself stand without deciding what to do to redeem it. Then see that you liiake things square with the other person. **Be your own boss'* in this. LESSON 6 PAYING YOUR WAY Did you ever stop and count up just how much you cost your father and mother in a week, or a month, or a year? If you haven't, you will find it very interesting to do so. Suppose you try it. What are the different ways in which they must spend money in order to let you live as you do: for clothes and food, of course, and the expense of keeping up the house — your share of the rent or taxes, and the light and the heat and the 'phone, if you have one, etc.? Count up all the money they give you to spend for different things that you want, if you have no regular allowance. Get them to help you in working out the account. You can set down the different items and add them up to see how much they make in all. Besides these items there may be doctors' bills and dentist bills, and also a great many things that cost some- body's time instead of money, such as darning and mend- ing and all sorts of personal services that you probably are accustomed to take for granted just because you are used to having them done and so have never thought of them as worth money. And probably it has never occurred to you to ask A SQUARE DEAL 37 yourself how you are paying your way in return for all that is being spent on you. You want to play fair. How about it in this? Perhaps you are looking forward to the time when you can earn money yourself. Maybe you think that the boy or girl who has a job is a sort of hero, because he can bring in money and help to support the family in a way that you cannot yet do. Find out whether that other boy or girl is losing chances to get ready to earn far more later on than will be possible now because of leaving school and having no further training. And see whether, after all, the biggest way of taking a share at home is always by earning money. Can you help to cut down family expenses by demanding less for yourself or by doing something that has to be paid for now? There are other ways in which you can help to make up for what is spent on you. You expect to get what you ask for, and often act ugly if you do not get it. Is there anything besides being pleasant that you can do in re- turn? A baby takes everything without thinking about doing anything. It is too little to know. But are you? Perhaps all of us — ^grown people and Juniors, and even little folks — need to change our thinking about home and living together. We feel that home belongs to us, and that we have a full share in its privileges; but when there is work to be done the story is different. We'd rather that wouldn't be ours. Isn't it funny! And often when Juniors are asked to take their share they think that it is some- thing they have to do for father or mother, something that spoils their fun, something disagreeable that they want to slide out of doing. They haven't realized that it is only a part of their share in living together and making a home. Grown folks often feel bad, because of the way 38 CITIZEN, JR. Juniors act, for thinking that each one should take a share is "grown-up" thinking, and they suppose that the Juniors have ahready begun to think this way, when in fact the Juniors haven't quite caught up yet and haven't realized that there is anything unfair in what they do. How do you feel when you are asked to do something or have "regular work'' to do? Do you "just hate it"? Do you get tired of having the same thing to do every day, especially when you want to do something else? Wouldn't father and mother like a change from the things that they have to do whether they want to or not? You don't expect them to shirk. Do you want them to do all you have to do besides their own? Of course not! Maybe they feel that you are not willing to do any- thing at home but will do all sorts of things for a neighbor whom you Hke, or at a friend's house when you go there to visit. Do you know, yourself, why you do this? Why do you think mother is unreasonable when she com- plains? You do not like it when she tries to get you to play fair. What is wrong with your citizenship? One reason why you like to work somewhere else is because it is a change, the place is different and the things and the people. And another bigger reason is because you donH have to do it. You do it because you choose. Now, just suppose you were to choose to claim the right to do the same work at home, and take your share because you want to play fair and see that everybody has a square deal; suppose you were to do it before any- body had a chance to ask you for it, before any demand could be made that would take away part of the fun and so leave you feeling that you had to do it — wouldn't it please the folks and wouldn't you have a lot of fun in surprising them? There is a new plan that is used in the home of some A SQUARE DEAL 39 Junior Citizens whose father is a well-known man. Every- thing that is done by anybody in that home is done on the basis of its being a privilege to be allowed to do it. Everybody has a definite share of things to do. The small folks, of course, have the easiest things. They are eager to be allowed to try the harder ones, but know that they must earn the right to the "privilege." If a little boy is given a chance to care for the furnace, he is happy in being promoted to a bigger responsibility in helping to make the home and take care of it. But if he goes off to play and neglects the furnace, even once, the "privilege" is taken away and given to someone else, and he feels as ashamed as a soldier is when he is degraded in rank and reduced to being a private after having been an un- worthy officer. As you think over the plan used by this family do you think that it solves the problem of playing fair and giving each one a square deal? Are they right in regarding work as a privilege? Now, as you think of yourself and your own home, how would it be for you to try to discover, right now, how much of the "square deal for everybody" depends on your initiative, depends on your making a start toward a new plan. Who is not having a square deal? What changes can you start? How can you get everybody to thinking of the square-deal idea? How can you convince somebody who wants to stay in the baby stage and laughs when you talk about work and sharing being "privileges"? And you might turn to Matthew 7 : 2 and see what Jesus says there. Do you think this applies to home living? Next turn to John 13: 1-17 and see what he did to teach some folks who did not want to do a servant's work. 40 CITIZEN, JR. Finishing Up How many ways have you found of paying your way at home? Make a list of all the things that have to be done regularly by somebody at home, daily. Does each person do his or her part? Are you sure that you are carrying your share of responsibility and privilege? Do you think that the Junior Citizens owe anything to the community as well as to their homes? Why? How can the obligation be met ? This will start you to think- ing about something that you will study more in another lesson. Do you remember the two lines of verse at the beginning of this lesson group? Here are the other two that were blank there. That will finish up: How different the world would be If every one were thinking *we'!" GROUP IV 'A WORD TO THE WISE" Lessons 7 and 8 FINDING WISDOM There is a good reason why an owl is chosen as the symbol for this group of lessons which is about school citizenship. If you will look in the encyclopedia, you will find that the Roman people had among their deities, Minerva, their goddess of wis- dom. The owl, they thought, was Minerva's bird, perhaps be- cause it looks so "wise" with its big, wide-open eyes. And so, because every School Citizen is in the business of looking for wisdom of many kinds, the owl — the bird of wisdom — naturally is a good symbol for the achievements that belong with lessons on finding wisdom. It is fun to find things. You know the quick, un- expected happiness that it usually brings. If you find something that you had lost, you are happy to have it again. If it is a thing that a friend has lost, you feel good to be able to discover it for your friend; and if it is some- thing whose owner you do not know, there is always the possible chance that if it cannot be restored to the loser, you may have it to keep yourself. Of course keeping it without trying to find the owner spoils the happy feeling, but that is not what we are talking about. What we 41 42 CITIZEN, JR. mean is the sort of joy and feeling of adventure that comes, just as it did to the old-time discoverers of lands and treasure, and as it does now to inventors who have worked and worked on an idea and at last find the way to achieve it. Here is some old Hebrew poetry about wisdom. You will see that the first word is * 'happy," just the very thing that we have been talking about. It is the special word for you to keep in mind. After you have read the poetry through, you will find the word in the last sentence too. It will be a good plan to memorize this poetry on the happiness of having wisdom, for it is very famous. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, And tiie man that getteth understanding. For the gaining of it is better than the gaining of silver, And the profit thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: And none of the things thou canst desire are to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; In her left are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: And happy is every one that retaineth her. — ^Proverbs 3 : 13. LESSON 7 THE GAME Does it seem queer to you to think that you and your schoolmates, and your teachers as well, are playing a game? Think it over and see if it isn't true. As you may have guessed already, the game is "Being a Good FINDING WISDOM 43 Citizen." It is something like playing ball — the way children toss from one to another and then catch. Here are some of the balls you throw: The things you think, and say, and do. The ways you act toward your school- mates and the teachers are different kinds of "throws." And, of course, the teacher and the other boys and girls have to catch and return the ball, just as you do theirs. This game of being a School Citizen means more than just learning things. It has to do with ''folks" as well. In it you can be "happy" in "finding wisdom" and in getting understanding in ways that you may not have counted before. In this school game of yours there is a mysterious partner that plays too. Everybody has one. You cannot play without the partner, yet you cannot see it because it is a sort of shadow self made up of all the things that your ancestors handed down to you and everything that you ever have experienced from the beginning of your own life. It depends on you to do its thinking and decid- ing. It seems to have plenty of feelings and desires, but to be short on reasoning things out. That is left for you to do. Do you wonder, then, that when the blur of feelings is strong the plays made in the game are sometimes very queer? Being a sort of Siamese Twin of yours, your partner — this shadow you — sometimes helps; and then, again, it hinders by playing tricks on you because of its mistaken ideas or because it wants its own way, regard- less of the rules. But when you with your thinking and it with its feeling work together, the game goes beauti- fully and you have a happiness as satisfying as you do when playing ball and miss neither throw nor catch. Suppose, now, that you see if you recall some times in school that correspond to that. You felt the teacher liked 44 CITIZEN, JR. you, and you liked her too; and though she gave you "lots of work'' you really loved to do it and were glad to go to school. The teacher and her partner-twin and you and yours were playing then according to the rules. You '^learned a lot" and had a happy time. And if some child had been unkind or bothered you or her, the rest of you would soon have shown quite plainly that you thought such actions were unfair. They would have spoiled your happiness and would have hindered all the work you wished to do and what you felt the school should be. But sometimes an other-self is out of sorts and jogs its partner's elbow or gives him a big push exactly when he throws the ball, so that everything goes wrong. Per- haps it is the teacher's twin, perhaps it is a child's, that spoils the pleasure that was. The teacher may be very tired and easily upset because some other thing went wrong before she came to school. And so she may begin to scold or criticize for little things she would not mind on ordinary days. And very often this is just the time when Junior Citizens act worst and take what may have hap- pened for excuse to misbehave. Their twins begin to jerk around and throw mean, ugly balls. But times like these are chances for all citizens to help by being kind and playing fair, although the balls the teacher tosses may be very hard to catch. Those who play the proper way discover then new kinds of happiness and a priceless bit of wisdom that will help them anywhere if things are going wrong. They "understand" that they control their twins instead of being flung about by them, and this helps on the game. But, as a rule, the teacher's twin is not the one that starts to throwing "wild." Some boy or girl who hasn't done the work that's been assigned, or is feeling cranky, or resents something that is said, has a twin that's feeling FINDING WISDOM 45 guilty, and so makes the whole room unhappy and is also very wretched himself. The silly twin may whisper, "Just annoy her all you can," and it very often urges, "Answer back." It says, "She wants to boss you," although no other person can. It likes the fuss of being scared and testing strength with "her." No matter what "she" says or does, it isn't satisfied. It hates both school and teacher just because it hates itself. Since this is just the very thing it wishes to deny, it tries to put the blame on others and destroys the fun for all. Sometimes a citizen may find this shadow twin of his is acting mean and cranky though he knows no reason why. If you happened to remember times when your own twin did this, perhaps you'd like to "understand" from where such trouble comes. This "other-one" of each of us does many freakish things. It mixes facts and people up, because it only feels and does not think. What happens now gets all mixed up with what has been before. And since this twin is very proud, it tries to hide mistakes and to prove that all it does is absolutely right. Long, long ago, when you were small, perhaps this "other-one" got scared, or had its feelings hurt when someone seemed to boss or criticize. That made it sad and mad and gladi Sad because it didn't want to admit that it could be at fault, mad because someone interfered with what it wished to do, and glad because it enjoyed the chance to test and prove its strength in fighting back. It felt that if it could make other people uncomfortable, it proved how strong and big it was! Silly, wasn't it? Sad and mad and glad — all mixed up in one wild whirl of foolish feeling! Then the next time something hap- pened it jumped to the sillier idea, "This is that thing again." And though perhaps it wasn't even with the 46 CITIZEN, JR. same person when the newer trouble came, your silly self just hurled at him a great, wild, ugly feel in which the old-time fury was increased by all the new. Then, if the other person was not very wise to help, your foolish self got sadder and madder and gladder with every act or word. Because it couldn't reason and it didn't under- stand, you found that you were puzzled and felt the world was wrong. Then, since this sort of thing kept on time after time — five hundred or a thousand times maybe, as days grew into years — you now can see quite easily the crazy, jumping, feeling-whirl your shadow-self was in, each time banging harder at another person's ball and blaming him for all that happened from the first until the last. And so you see that now your shadow-self is fooled and doesn't know the truth. A very tiny, unimportant word by someone seems like a slap on the shoulder to knock off the "chip" it carries there as an excuse to fight. And so a sullen mood begins, when you're not feeling well, or haven't learned your lessons, or would rather go and play. A single word at times like this, though not un- kindly meant, brings on a big explosion, like dynamite, for example, or TNT. Yet all the time your shadow-self was treating you this way your good, clear mind forgot to work because your twin was fooled. If you had seen that all the fuss was just a huge mistake, you never would have let your twin make those wild sorts of throws. So now^ when happen- ings like these occur, just take a good square look, and see the hidden reasons why your twin is being fooled, and see that what your shadow sees is not the truth at alL Whatever now annoys you is a very little thing com- pared with all the old procession for which it gets the blame. It isn't fair to hurl the ball in some blind, angry FINDING WISDOM 47 way to pay for what does not belong with what has just occurred. Before you dare to throw the ball, decide which you will choose, the siUy, angry, shadow way, un- fair to other folks, or what is best for all — an angry mass of feeling, or to show the loving child of God, which you know you really are. You must decide to use your head to teach your silly self, instead of being fooled by it which does not think at all. You know which is the shadow that brings wretchedness; and you know the child of God has happiness and peace. If you explode, then stop a bit, and see if this wild way is something like some other time, and how you felt be- fore. Just chase the shadow right straight back and see if you can find the lot of funny grudges that were in your shadow's heart. You'll see how silly it all is, and that you really want to be a loving, godlike citizen, instead of "blowing up." Time spent like this will help you much, for as you live and grow, your shadow will not trick you into acting like a fool. Once in a while it also happens that a teacher's twin is not quite grown up, and plays her ugly, nasty tricks in- stead of helping her. Perhaps she never learned about the shadow-one at all, nor how to be the person that she really wants to be. Perhaps she finds the children's twins reflected in her own. Then if a child shows disrespect or naughtiness, her twin may jolt her arm because she does not know what you have just been taught. One funny thmg about it all is that no one really sees exactly what is taking place, and so, of course, each blames the other for what occurs, and thinks its side is right. At times the silly other-selves of all the class join in. They say "her" voice is sharp and mean; they think she is unkind. And some of them are half-afraid, and 48 CITIZEN, JR. some may tantalize, and everyone will wish the time for going home would come. Then, often after days and weeks of silly strife like this, the imps just try to tease her to see what she will do. They do things to get even, and call her "an old crank/' although if they could see their twins, the crankiness is shared. When times like this come the game of citizen is spoiled, for everyone who takes a turn at pranks to tease the teacher throws a ball that is not fair. And if the teacher doesn't catch it right, and if her twin spoils her throw, true citizens should pick up the ball and hand it back so she might have another try. Real catching means achievement, and tossing means it too. It means that from your lessons and from all that may occur, you're learning more and "being" more and "doing" more than you have done before. When you are very busy there's no time for foolish tricks. You'd very much rather just do your work than stop for "monkey- shines." And this is what should happen in your school- room game of ball. A first-class citizen will learn to educate his twin for playing fair and choosing well, to have a happy time in- stead of wrecking everything in jealous, bitter strife. He's busy "finding wisdom" that will choose the better way. He learns to understand his twin that it may help him make the game a joy and a delight. He's getting "understanding" that enables him to show in all his actions a self aglow with God, who shines with love in everything that goes to make the game. Remembering that "meekness" means without strife or irritation or ugliness, you'll find some things to think of in these verses from James, 3 : 13-18. Here are the verses printed so that you can study them easily. Point out as many places as you can where they seem to FINDING WISDOM 49 describe what we have been studying about School Citizens and the way to play the game. Who is wise and understanding among you? let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. This wisdom is not a wisdom that cometh down from above, but is earthy, sensual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without variance, with- out hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace. Exercises Watch for a week and see how you play the game as a member of the School Citizens* team. In what ways does your twin try to trick you? What is your real self like, and where does it get the power to be different from the shadow one? Sometimes your teacher or someone else becomes a mirror of what is seen in you. Look up Exodus 34: 29-35 ^^^ 2 Corinthians 2: 12. Never mind if you do not under- stand it all. Get the main idea. Then read this verse from the same chapter in Corinthians. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a muTor the Glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. Are you veiled with a shadow, so that you cannot find an answering glory in the mirror of your teacher's face? How can you bring out the glory in your parents and chiuns and teachers? What is your share in the game? 50 CITIZEN, JR. LESSON 8 THE WISE OWL Here are some lines from some postcard verses that describe "a gay young owl" who sat in a tree and nearly broke his neck by twisting it around to see everything that was said and done. "Thus day by day he wiser grew, The more he saw, the more he knew. The more he knew, the less he talked, His wisdom in his heart he locked. "As silence grew he grew more wise, Looked more the sage with rounder eyes, Till of his wisdom all have heard. Let's imitate that famous bird." If you really know about owls, you probably have been smiling over these verses and over the old-time idea that owls are specially "wise." You know that instead of being alert they seem rather stupid, especially in the day- time. If you go up to one suddenly and press its feathers, it may arch itself and blink at you with its round, staring eyes. It may rufHe up its feathers until it looks like a mischievous joker with a big round face. It is this wise look, probably, that has given it such a reputation through hundreds of years from very ancient times down to to-day. Although the postcard verses are only nonsense and give the old-time idea of an owFs being wise, it is fun to find out some of the things that are hidden in this tale of the wise owl. Whoever wrote it had discovered some very true things about people: I. That if they observe carefully they can learn much. FINDING WISDOM 51 2. That when they are thinking things over they are too busy to talk. 3. That the more they think things out, the wiser they become. If you think, you will see that this gay young owl who became so wise had a real purpose behind his looking and thinking. He wanted to know about the world, he wanted to learn and to understand what he saw and heard. This is quite as true about you as a Junior Citizen too, isn^t it? — although maybe your teacher at school does not think from your "silence'' that you've grown so wise that you show that your mind is so busy trying to observe and think things out that you haven't time for idle chatter. So perhaps she would like you to do some imitating of the owl's wisdom of silence. But it is about the thinking part of the owl's wisdom that you probably are most interested. Perhaps you are puzzled to know about ways of thinking at all, and how they can bring wisdom. This second lesson for you as a School Citizen is to help you to begin working out this very puzzle about thinking, so let's begin. First, you may enjoy watching yourself for a while to see how you think. You'll want to find out how far on you are from the kind of thinking that young children like most to do most of the time, and how near you have come toward real "grown-up" thinking. Here are questions for you to ask yourself: Do I spend a great deal of time "daydreaming"? When I am working on a problem or trying to study, does my mind stay on what I have to do, or does it skip out of the window and away to play or to something that's happened or something I'm going to do? If you daydream, and if your thoughts wander about when you should study, then you haven't found the way 52 CITIZEN, JR. out of child thinking. Truly grown-up thinking is dif- ferent from these because it is busy trying to accomplish something. Think a minute: is there any difference be- tween the daydreaming sort of thinking and the kind you do when you are trying to build a bird house or find out how to make a dolFs dress, or something of that kind? Which kind do you need in order to study your lessons, to work out problems, or to decide what it were better to do in order to accomplish something you want? Now, do you begin to understand a difference between the two kinds of thinking? It is the second kind that the owl in the postcard verses is supposed to do and to have used in order to become so "wise." That is the kind you will "imitate" as a School Citizen in order to search out the treasures of the finest wisdom. There are more ways of describing the two sorts of thinking. Suppose you decide among them as if they were conundrums to be answered: In which kind of thinking do your thoughts go strolling around from place to place as if they were tramps or beggars? In which kind are they like explorers and discoverers who have learned to use the compass and the stars, and many other things in order to guide them on their journey to the places to which they wish to go? Which kind results in nothing but a "feeling" inside you? One kind gives the sort of pleasure that a child has when sucking a thumb. The other is like eating a fine dinner. Which is which? Why? In one kind of thinking the thoughts boss you. In the other you are master of the thoughts and make them do things for you. Which is which, again? One trouble with the childish kind of thinking is that FINDING WISDOM 53 it is a kind of fake: the daydreams are not the kind that really come true. They are not plans carefully thought out and backed up with strong purpose to make them be- come facts. They are just like the desert mirages that youVe read about — nothing real at all. Your mind force is used up — for nothing of value. Suppose you were going along the street carrying a bag of corn under one arm and did not know that there was a hole in one corner from which the grain was drop- ping out behind you one kernel at a time. That is the way your day's energy leaks away in daydreams. If a baby tears up a Bible or a hymn book or a prayerbook, you do not think the child has sinned, but if you waste the life energy which is a holy thing with its source in God, then you must hold yourself accountable. Now you know better than to do the childish thinking. There may be times when that twin of yours of which we spoke in the other lesson, may say to you : "Oh, come on; don't bother. Let's have a good time and take it easy, dreaming." Then will be a fine chance for you to train it in purposeful acting and the kind of thinking that makes a citizen of character. You see, your twin likes nothing better at all than to dream, so it can put off doing something that takes real effort. It hates to work. If you do not train it, it will spoil your chances of success many a time. It will make you "a putter-off" instead of a person who achieves. It will divide your mind in two and pull one way with half of your energy going toward play, while the other half may make believe to be work- ing. That splits you up into pieces of a person instead of giving you a chance to focus all your efforts the way a magnifying glass does the rays of the sun when you burn a hole in paper. If you do as your lazy twin wants you to, it will be like trying to walk upstairs with one foot going 54 CITIZEN, JR. one way and the other starting off in the opposite direc- tion. You will not get anywhere. And that would mean being a failure instead of "glorifying God'' by making a fine success. It will pay you to think this out carefully, and con- sider it as the owl did what he saw and heard. Then you will not be misled because you see even some grown persons dreaming instead of doing. Here are some of the reasons why such persons act as they do: They are lazy-minded and don't want to exert them- selves to do good, quality thinking that makes things happen. They think they enjoy themselves better by day- dreaming and make-believe. They have not found out that what they call "work" would bring them a fine kind of pleasure if they'd just get busy and achieve something. They have bound themselves by the habit of waiting until later to begin instead of starting right away when a thing should be begun. Often there's something that they want to "put off" or avoid doing because it takes effort or because they do not hke it. They know that the thing they are trying to escape will have to be done sooner or later, but they just play ostrich, which is said to hide his head in the sand when he is in danger, and think he is wholly concealed. They poke their heads into the dream sands to make- believe escape. Real thinking is a fine achievement. It is something that we learn by degrees. By means of it we discover how things resemble each other or are different. We find out the causes of things, and what we can do to achieve what we desire from the materials we have. We learn relation- ships between things and the results of their actions. We discover rules to guide our conduct and to avoid past FINDING WISDOM 55 mistakes, as well as to achieve new undertakings. We build ourselves, our character, and our future success. As you think about these things suppose you turn to the story where Jesus was talking about a man who was going to build a tower. It is in Luke 14: 28. If you are going to build a person, you will have to "count the cost'* of your thinking and not waste your Ufe materials in day- dreaming. Every desire you have, every wish, every thought can go into the making of you if you learn right thinking and plan your tower to be a structure worthy of God's child. When you daydream you may knock down some of the rows that you have been building; if you do poor thinking on lessons and other tasks, you will be leaving holes in your walls and making unfit openings for doors and windows. Quiet, steady work, conscientious work from day to day is the kind that results from true wisdom. Prove Your Wisdom Do you work a little on the easy studies and let the harder ones wait until the last, and then maybe do nothing at them after all? Do you try to do two things at once? This splits you up and gives only half your power to each of them. Are you half hearted in your work? Or dead in earnest? Do you put off doing things and then try to make up for it by a grand rush? Do you work by spurts or steadily, purposefully? Re- member the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Which are you? Are you a quitter who says things are "too hard'' because you are too lazy to try? Test yourself for a period of days and see if a noted business executive is right when he says that the biggest part of getting things done is getting them ''started.'' See how many more things you accomplish because you 56 CITIZEN, JR. begin them promptly, than you would do if you delayed. Solomon says in Proverbs 4:7: Wisdom IS the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom; Yea, with all thy getting, get understanding. In how many ways are you getting ** wisdom'* and * 'under- standing" through your school citizenship? GROUP V WHEREVER YOU LIVE" Lessons 9 and 10 NEIGHBORS If you look in the next to the last chapter of the book of Rev- elation, you will find that the "holy city" is described as . • . coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God ; her light was like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal: • • . And the build- ing of the wall thereof was jasper and the city was pure gold, like unto pure glass. • . . And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. Jasper walls and gold streets — what have they to do with our group of lessons about "Neighbors" and a little symbol picture of a street "wherever you live"? Jasper and gold are not the way things appear to you perhaps, but there is a real connection. You may begin to get a glimmer of light if you will first remember that back in Lesson i we talked about the citizenship of the good, the kingdom of God, when we began to learn that in Him we "live and move and have our being." Now, look at the quotation from Revelation and see "from God," "having the glory of God," "her light was like ... a jas- per stone." The Uttle picture of a street fits in with the 57 S8 CITIZEN, JR. Revelation verses too — "and the street of the city was pure gold." Something as beautiful as this is what our community living and citizenship can mean if we know the full meaning of being "neighbors." Of course you do not yet see all the reasons why jasper and gold belong in our thinking about common, everyday places wherever we live, but the rest is part of the citizen- ship secret that you are about to discover in the lessons on "Touchstone Tests" and "The Street of the Golden Mile." In the Revelation chapter there is a verse that we left out at first, but must not miss: And he that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure the city. What our citizenship "reed" is you will find in Luke 6:31, something that you have heard about ever since you were little: And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Here is a citizen reminder of it that may have a familiar sound and yet is a little different from what you usually have heard or said: "Remember the Rule that is Golden." LESSON 9 TOUCHSTONE TESTS When you read the word "touchstone" what do you suppose it means? And what connection can there be between touchstone tests and the city of jasper and gold that symbolizes community citizenship? The encyclo- pedia tells us. Touchstone is a very fine-grained, dark-colored variety of jasper used for trying the quality of alloys of precious NEIGHBORS 59 metals. The alloy is rubbed on the stone and the streak compared with that of various alloys of known composi- tion prepared for that purpose and called touch needles. It was formerly used for determining the fineness of gold. Touchstone also means "any test by which the qualities of a thing are tried." So there we are: jasper and gold, and tests by which the qualities of a citizen are tried! Before we are quite ready to go ahead with our testing we must prepare some "touch needles." Since community citizenship depends on relations between people, let's start by trying to discover why we like or dislike folks. Well begin this way. THE COMPANIONS YOU LIKE Those who like you. Those who are good sports, not afraid to play the game fairly and squarely. Those who are strong and can do things. Those who are kind and considerate. Those who stand up for you when things are hard. This is only a "starter" for the list. Finish it your- self. Then we'll go ahead and prepare another *^touch needle." GROWN PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE Those who are "nice" to you. Maybe they give you candy or cookies, or other things that you like to eat. Perhaps they give you money to go to the movies or to buy things you want. Maybe they take you to places — to shows, picnics — or on hikes, etc. Those who do not nag you. The ones who smile at you, and make you feel they like you. 6o CITIZEN, JR. Those who "understand" how it is when things go wrong, and who do not always blame you for things that you do not mean to do. Those who are able to do things that you admire. The ones who "believe in you" and make you feel that you are nice and that you can be some- body worth while. The kind who, though they seem to scold some- times, do it in a way that makes you want to do the thing you should. The kind that you are not afraid of, to whom you can go and tell things that bother you, and ask questions that you do not understand. Those who may not say or do anything special for you, yet somehow something comes from them to you and draws you to them. Put down other ideas for the list if they come to you. You want as complete a set of needles as you can make. The next two sets are just the opposite of these two. One you can work out by yourself. It is why your companions like you, and what you need to be so that they may like you. The last set is different and a little harder, so you will need more help with it. WHY OLDER PEOPLE LIKE YOU Because you are "well behaved." Because you are reliable when you have something to do or have given a promise Because you are thorough in the things you undertake. Because they see you succeeding in your own affairs, if you show leadership, initiative, ability to do and make things. NEIGHBORS 6i Because you have fine qualities that promise much for your future. Because you are adding to your natural ability and developing it by study or practical effort. Because you are sufficiently master of yourself to know how to obey without fussing or objecting when it is not necessary. Because you are careful of your clothes, books, and other possessions. When they see that you are thoughtful about not slamming doors, tracking in mud, leaving your room in disorder, or your belongings scattered all through the house. Because you are courteous and well mannered. Because you treat them considerately and do nice things for them; notice where you can help, etc. Because you seem to like them. The last reasons are far more influential than you think, maybe, or ever have suspected, probably. Very likely you have been so occupied with whether they are "nice" to you that you have not thought that they might be wondering about how you felt toward them. Yet older people appreciate attention and kindness just as much as you do what they give you. Older folks really take it as a compliment when their opinions are asked, or when their companionship is sought or wished. Very often they are just as uncertain and timid about making advances to you as you ever could feel toward them. They don't know whether you will like or want them, though most of them would be eager to be good friends with you if they just knew how. In this case, as in many others, a great deal depends on understanding the other person and what is meant by 62 CITIZEN, JR. what is said or done. One place where this brings about a situation that would be funny if it were not so deadly serious with the people in it, is with teachers at school and sometimes with your parents at home. Suppose, for example, something goes wrong — you misbehave, or don't get your lessons. Then if the teacher mentions it or shows any disapproval, you feel hurt or disgraced or angry, and blame her for making you feel that way. You really want her to like you, but when these things happen you sort of decide that she doesn't and that you don't like her either. And all the time she is wanting to like you just ever so much; she is wanting you to qualify for her liking you for some of the reasons we've just listed. When you disappoint her by poor con- duct, unlearned lessons, etc., you are disappointing her ambition to see you become all that she knows and hopes you can be. She wants you to succeed; and because she cares she tells you where the trouble lies. She doesn't want you to be disappointed in the results of your work, she doesn't want to see you cheat yourself out of what you may become, and she cares enough to try to help you to see what is happening. She wants you to have the very thing you are wanting — the right to her approval and liking because of your proof of your worth and merit. So when she's really caring you blame her for "having it in for you" and not liking you. The same ridiculous sort of thing often happens at home, or when you get into difficulty with a neighbor or some other grown person. You can think these things out for yourself, now, remembering what you learned in the lessons on school citizenship and what we have just been thinking about. As you think things over can you see that where the trouble lies is that you have failed in your part of a com- NEIGHBORS 63 munity relationship? You test other people by your ''test needles" and they test you by theirs, and all the time you forget about the "touchstone" that would bring the tests out right every time instead of mixing them so. What is the touchstone that will show you the inner meanings of conmiunity. citizenship? Where will you find your jasper to test for gold in conduct and prove the worth of your citizenship as a member of the community? It is in some Bible verses in Luke, just after the "Rule that is Golden." And if ye love them that love you, what thank have ye? for even sinners love those that love them. And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye? for even sinners do the same. ... Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful. And judge not, and ye shall not be judged; and condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: release, and ye shall be released : give, and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, run- ning over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. Love, you see, is the touchstone — love which is of God. And this love will work out what seen! like miracles as you test yourself for community citizenship and do unto others as you would have them do to you. Let us see how it may work out. If you show a loving spirit even to somebody who does not seem to be loving toward you, what will the result be? Take up "test needles" from your different lists and see. The other person will begin to be more loving to you. "Be merciful," even though the other person does not seem merciful toward you. Find your test needles and 64 CITIZEN, JR. see what will result in establishing the friendly attitude which is a part of community citizenship. "Judge not," that the other person is this or that dis- agreeable thing. You may not understand that you are really looking at love turned wrongside out so that the seams show. Prove by your test needles that "ye shall not be judged." "Condemn not" — send out love instead of anger, antagonism, and strife. Test and see what will come back to you. "Release" — let the other person be free. Do not bind him by demands for what you want or by thinking ill of him; and you shall be released yourself through love. Try to discover the nice things in him, and by showing your own nice qualities in loving ways the tests will prove that your community citizenship is made of jasper and gold. "Give." Just look over the test-needle lists and see how often giving occurs in some form. Then remember "with what measure ye mete [measure out] it shall be measured to you again." A person who has been a teacher of Junior Citizens who have now grown to be the prominent men of the com- munity where they live sent a clipping when this book of yours was being planned. The clipping was about a very old book, and this is how it began: THE GOOD LITTLE BOY*S BOOK Such is the title of a little paper-covered book, dis- colored by seventy-five years of usage and weather, that has fallen into our hands. It was evidently a prize be- stowed upon a deserving Sunday-school pupil. . . . The Good Little Boy's Book begins its instructions thus: *T do not know anything more pleasing than to see children NEIGHBORS 65 conduct themselves properly on all occasions. There are some boys who never seem to know how they ought to behave. I know one who would tease people with ques- tions when they were reading or writing, take one*s chair if one happened to rise for a moment, leave the door wide open on a cold day, and do a htmdred other rude things, just because he did not take the trouble to think about the matter/' Since you know the touchstone tests, suppose you see just what loving considerate things this seventy-five- year-old book was trying to teach. Though it says "boy," "girl" will do too. Make as long a list as you can, of ways in which you are going to prove the quality of your community life at home, at school, in the neighborhood, etc. Memorize the touchstone quotation, so that you will have it as a help as long as you live. It will make a big difference in your community citizenship if you will let it. Look up Matthew 5:43-48. From what Jesus said, even to love one's enemies was to be a matter of course, an everyday mark of a true citizen of God's kingdom. Do you think he would have set such a standard if it were too hard? If in God's love and life and power we live and move and are, should we find it hard to live as Jesus shows that a citizen should? Where can you get what you need in order to live as a citizen whose conduct meets the touchstone tests and proves that it is fine gold? Will practice and habit help? What will you do at times when your test would show no gold at all in what you have done? Need you ever be discouraged and think it is no use? Does a community citizen of the finest sort ever excuse himself by what somebody else has done? 66 CITIZEN, JR. Special Tests Has getting up pleasantly anything to do with jasper and gold in your conduct? What part of the time are you '*on your honor'' in school? When you would rather read or play and there is some errand or *'work" that you are needed for, what will you do to prove the quality of your citizenship? How about being tidy in clothes, person, and habits? Will you adopt this as a daily test for your conduct as a citizen of the community? — *T will do something with- out fail to help at home." LESSON 10 THE STREET OF THE GOLDEN MILE You found some of the gold and jasper of community citizenship in the lesson that we studied last time. And you saw how the loving spirit of "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them likewise" is the shining rule by which to test your conduct. Now, in this new lesson you can measure the street of living together by the very same "Rule that is Golden." Look in Matthew 5:41, where you will find another way in which Jesus expressed the same idea when he gave a special direction to citizens of his kingdom, the fellow- ship of the good. "And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two." Think this over and see whether he meant, "Be twice as considerate, obliging, and generous as you would be required or expected to be." Now, suppose we start in to measure the Street of Living Together, by this special meaning of our golden reed, and see how we can discover there that we are measuring off the Street of the Golden Mile. Have you ever seen somebody going along the street NEIGHBORS 67 reading a letter, who tore it into bits and scattered them? or somebody who was eating peanuts and throwing the shells around? or picnic folks who scattered food refuse, and papers, leaving them to litter the place, without considering what it would be like for the next people who came? How would you feel if you had just cleaned the sidewalk for mother when somebody came along and littered it this way? Would you think it fair or con- siderate? And if people came into your yard, even though they had permission, and left papers and food behind them, would you feel that they had shown even common courtesy? Is there any difference between what is fair and considerate in these cases and the others? Because a place belongs to the whole community instead of to a person, does that change what ought to be done? 'Twice as considerate, obliging, and generous, as you would be required or expected to be" is our rule of gold. Suppose you measure here, and see what true, wide-awake re- spectable community citizens would do. Let's measure this way. If streets and parks and the woods and the shore are ours to use and to enjoy, are they ours to keep clean too? Suppose you find them littered, what will you do in order to belong on the Street of the Golden Mile? How about whittling letters in trees or hacking benches, fences, etc.? Or writing with pencil and chalk on houses and walls or in public places? People who do these things are forgetting their citizenship in thinking of their own fun. What are the things that you think they should realize and remember in order to measure their conduct with the "reed" that tests for citizenship and a place in the Street of the Golden Mile? How can a Junior Citizen help such folks to learn how much nicer •it is to live up to tJie finest citizenship? 68 CITIZEN, JR. One of the places where some Junior Citizens are care- less in such matters is in school. They mark up text- books that are furnished them and are careless and waste- ful with pencils and paper and other supplies. Once a teacher asked some of these folks a few questions to help them to think, and to understand what they were doing. You may be interested in the questions yourself: "Who owns the school buildings?" — Many of the pupils did not know; some guessed "The school board," but before long they all realized that it is the "people of the town, because they pay the taxes to build and keep up the schools." "What diflference does it make to 'the people' if a wall is defaced and has to be refinished?" — Soon the pupils saw that such things mean more taxes, more money to be paid by the fathers and mothers and the rest of the people of the community. "What difference would more taxes mean to the pupils?" — Suppose the parents had to pay only ten cents more tax; that would mean there would be a dime less, with which one might buy an ice-cream cone, a soda, or help to pay for a hair ribbon. By thinking such questions through with their teacher the boys and girls came to feel that they had a share in the community ownership of public buildings, and that they had a citizen's responsibility for a share in keeping things nice everywhere, and avoiding all possible waste. Since you have been thinking about taxes, suppose you ask older people some questions in order to find out just how much the citizens of your community paid in taxes to build your school. See if you can discover how much it costs each year for every boy and girl who attends. If a boy or girl adds to the expense, is it fair? What are the different kinds of things that boys and girls can do NEIGHBORS 69 to prove to the community that they are good citizens, appreciating what has been paid for by the community for them? The people are willing to pay that much for every child each year. Apply the rule that is golden and list some things that the boys and girls may do in ex- change. Count up the amount that the community has spent on you since you began to go to school. What have you done to prove that you are worthy of this and that you deserve the chance for other years? Can you think of any "rule of gold" changes that you and your schoolmates can make in your attitude toward the principal, teachers, or the janitor? Maybe there are in your school boys or girls who have not grown much beyond the baby stage of wanting to do just as they please, with no thought about community citizenship and the living that goes with it. They do not understand that the school is really wanting to help them to have and to make use of all the opportunities that the community has provided. Go back to your school citizenship lessons and see if you can find ways in which school citizenship becomes community citizenship. Then think again of the boys and girls who want only the babyish good times that mean laziness and amusing themselves in ways that waste time or property. When they fight in spirit against the teachers, principal, or janitor are they like soldiers who fire in mistake at members of their own scouting party? How can you help such boys and girls to under- stand better? What can you do as a good citizen to pro- tect community property and help the representatives of the community that make up the faculty of your school? When school is out vacation comes. This often means auto rides into the country, corn roasts, etc. Shall we see 70 CITIZEN, JR. where these things affect community citizenship in ways that may need changing? Speaking of auto rides may perhaps make you think of the kind of drivers that people call "road hogs/' What is the matter with such people? Of whose pleasure are they thinking? How far along are they in community citizen- ship ? How do you act toward them? Do you show them an ugly face? Does being disagreeable to them make them want to be better citizens? Think of the two sides of the road and the two ways of looking at the matter. If they break their part of the Golden Rule, does it justify your smashing it too? How can you make this experi- ence of the trip a part of the "golden mile"? There's a great deal to think of here. Now, there is something else that may happen. There used to be a delightful custom in the country districts. The farmers had so much fruit that they did not mind at all if people helped themselves when passing, to what lay near the road or under the trees. But people have abused this community courtesy. With the coming of thousands of automobiles there came hundreds of people who were sort of community babies. They would even take fruit from the trees. Perhaps someone else had taken what lay on the ground. They wanted some and so took a share from the best on the trees, a little or a great deal, accord- ing to how greedy and unprincipled they were. To them it seemed a very little thing. The farmer had so much, and what they took would not matter, they thought. It made them angry if the farmer was cross and objected. Maybe you have felt something like this about some apples, pears, or peaches, or a bunch of grapes from a vineyard. Maybe it was corn or melons, or "only flowers'' that you took. Putting aside the fact of your taking without permission what does not belong to you, and NEIGHBORS 71 granting that you took only "a little/' suppose we count up and try to see things from the farmer's side. It has taken hard work for him to plant and cultivate his crop. When it is harvested it will bring him in the money to pay his bills. Suppose that in a day only five out of the many passing autos stop for people to take fruit or corn. How long will it be until a bushel has walked away? Then in the course of a month, how much less of a crop will he have to sell? Of how much money wiU he be robbed by people who would be horrified at the idea of stealing actual cash and who thought it all right for them to take a "little''? Who, then, is responsible for the fact that the farmer who began as such a friendly citizen of the community, now puts up high fences and "Keep Out" or "No Tres- passing" signs? Does taking a "little" have nothing to do with community citizenship? In how many ways can you help to prevent it, and reestablish the "golden mile"? Now, let us reckon the nuisance caused by careless auto parties who have not made provision for drinking water and for filling their radiators in advance. Suppose you lived in a farmhouse at the foot of a long hill, where, three or four times an hour all day long, day after day, people stopped to ask for water. Would you feel that it was fair or right? Could you get your work done? Would you want to wash and sterilize all the glasses that so many people would need? Why ask the farmer's wife to do it? She has mountains of work to do in a day, yet often she has this heavy burden from thoughtless com- munity citizens who have made her pay for their careless- ness and negligence. What can you, as a Junior Citizen, do to prevent this tarnishing of her "golden mile"? What is your idea of a "good time" on Halloween? If you think that it is not the thing to indulge in mischievous 72 CITIZEN, JR. pranks that destroy property and cause annoyance to people, can you explain how such performances are viola- tions of community living? See if citizenship can be golden when measured by whether it contributes something to the living that is shared by people of a community. How would you suggest a way of turning mischievous pranks inside out and making them into surprises and jokes that would deh'ght and help? Which will bring you the greater fun? Will you start this "wherever you live"? So far we have been discussing mostly the kind of community living that has to do with property and possessions. Now suppose we think a little of ways that concern "folks" themselves. What is the golden attitude toward people who are "different" or "queer"? Usually it is not easy for boys and girls to keep it. They are some- what like the old Scotchman who said: "All the world is queer but thee and me, Jean. And thee's a little queer." People who seem queer to us make us feel as if they were pushing us away from them, because they are not like our ideas of what is admirable. Half the time we do not understand nor see the many lovely things that such people possess. We are too busy seeing what we think are their defects. How would you like it if everybody turned away from you? Why not adventure with your golden reed and see what shining quality you can dis- cover in those "queer" folks that will prove them likable after all? You would be grateful if somebody gave you a chance. Try it once or twice at least. After you have gone with them for a while you may not find them queer at all. How about serving the neighborhood where you live by doing kind turns for old people or those who are sick or infirm? Can you help to welcome newcomers and give them a chance? As you think of these things you can NEIGHBORS 73 recall what Jesus said — "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me" (Matthew 25 : 40). Go from this to what he said in Mark 3: 35, "For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." Think of being brethren of one who revealed God. As you reveal him in golden conduct you will find in others some golden thing. Then you can see that you live in the Street of the Golden Mile. Special Work Notice where you can help by picking up banana peel or other litter and trash. Resolve: *'I will do something every day to make home attractive — dust, clean up, plant something, mow the lawn, make something such as a piece of furniture, a bird house, a bird bath, a feeding station." Memorize Mark 3 : 35 to help you as a community citizen. Look up the answer that Jesus made when he was asked: "Who is my neighbor?" You will find it in Luke 10: 30-37. Has this anything to do with the way you will treat a person who is queer? Make a record of your golden chances for a week and how many you have been able to keep. GROUP VI Lessons ii and 12 . PATRIOTIC HORIZONS Some time perhaps you may have climbed away up inside of the Statue of Liberty, which stands in New York Harbor, to where you could look out over land and sea toward the horizon line. Maybe you have been on the top of a very high building in the city, or have stood on the prairie where you could see for miles and miles in every direc- tion, to where the sky and the earth seemed to meet. Or per- haps you have found a hilltop higher than any other point near by and have looked from its summit in every direction as you slowly turned around. Or you may some time have been on a vessel at sea, or in some other place where you could get a wide view of the immense circle that marks the horizon. If you had such an outlook, did it bring a wonderful feeling; a joy in the freedom and vastness and greatness, and did you feel a strange power back of it all? such as we like to think of in connection with this great country of ours? If you never have seen a horizon view, nor felt these wonderful things it will be well worth while for you to explore for an opportunity. 74 •BE AN AMERICAN" PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 75 Then, as you understand this freedom and power in the wide-spreading view, it will seem very natural that "Liberty'' should be holding up her torch to give light to the world as it spreads out around her. And you will see why a picture of the Statue of Liberty is just the thing for the symbol of the lessons on your patriotic horizons, "A Real American" and "Loving Your Country/' Maybe you are wondering now what need you have for lessons of this kind. You feel that you know about liberty and freedom and all the things for which patriotism stands. Wait and see. Watch your horizon line as you study and see whether you can discover something that you never noticed before. Most of us find that true American citizenship has meanings so wide that to try to reach their limits is like traveling to meet the horizon — the farther you go the more it moves beyond you. One of our patriotic hymns, "America," which you probably know very well, fits in beautifully with our thoughts about horizons. It gives word pictures of dif- ferent scenes. Think of the second stanza and the first two hues of the third. Aren't they ahnost like what you might see if you were standing somewhere looking around you toward a horizon? The first stanza, of course, brings in our feeling about freedom and the Statue of Liberty, while the last stanza is a citizen prayer. You know the strange and awe-inspiring feeling of the greatness of things that comes over you when you are looking out across a wonderful expanse — something that stirs you and makes you catch your breath because of the bigness and the wonder of it. For ages of time people who have felt these things have been stirred by some- thing there that spoke to them in some unknown way of God and of his wonderful power. As you think of this, say over the citizen prayer that is the close of the hymn y(, CITIZEN, JR. "America/' and see if you do not understand and love it more than you ever did before. **Our fathers* God, to thee, Author of hberty, To thee we sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light! Protect us by thy might, Great God, otu* king.*' LESSON 11 A REAL AMERICAN Are you sure whether you are a real American or not? You probably think, "Why, of course I am; I was born an American." Even so, but are you sure that makes you a real one? If you are a real American, it means more than just being born as the child of parents who are American citizens. To understand you must climb to the top of an imaginary Statue of Liberty and gain views of patriotic horizons. As you look toward the wide, sweeping circle around you, you will see things that help you to under- stand the spirit of America and the ideals that it stands for. And then you will test your conduct to see whether it is shaped by a fine loyalty to what our country means. You can best begin with the real Liberty Statue. Do you remember where it came from, and why? If not, search in a history book or in an encyclopedia to see if you can find out. Then look up the words "liberty" and "freedom" and see if you discover anything that connects them with what you studied in "Following the Star," in Group II, when you were thinking about initiative PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 77 and self-reliance. Then think about America's patriotic horizon of "liberty," ^'freedom/' and "justice for all." Now, if you look back to the opening part of Group II, you will notice one of the famous slogans men- tioned there, "Make the world safe for democracy." The words were caught from a sentence by President Wood- row Wilson during the World War. This "democracy" which was to be safeguarded for the world is an exten- sion of the liberty and freedom and justice horizon. Real Americans believe in "democracy," which we might almost say means "everybody's opportunity." The Old-World traditions and customs made artificial dis- tinctions which gave most of the advantages to the "few" and despised the "common people," whom Lincoln said God must have liked since he made so many of them. Americans have no kings, emperors, dukes, or barons: no separations among the people because of "high" or "low" birth, in this Old-World sense, but they often spoil their democratic ideal by the way they regard people with money. Suppose you test yourself out as to this. Are you "democratic," or are you something of a snob? If your parents have only limited means, are you ashamed of them and of your home? Do you hate to be known for what you are? Do you seek attention from those who have more money? Would you rather go with them than with somebody like yourself or who has even less than you? How do you choose your friends, for what they ham or for what they are? If your parents have money, do you stick to your own crowd exclusively or are you good friends with whatever companions are worth while? How do you treat those who have less advantages and money than you have? Whatever your financial standing, have you the 78 CITIZEN, JR. gracious ways that come from a comradely heart? Be- cause you are so friendly and sincere, do others find it easier to be their genuine selves, their very best, rather than to be hypocrites or shams? Are you a true American, then, in this sort of "democracy" as you check your conduct by this ideal? You know that our country has treasured from its be- ginnings the ideal of liberty and equality among its citizens. How do your conduct and attitude toward people of different race and national origin bear this out? Do you look down on the ignorant "foreigners'^ and do you despise the "colored people"? We, who are in this country now — descendants of imn^grants from other lands — have some big problems to solve in the way of fellow- ship with those who come with customs and traditions differing from ours. Are we willing to give them court- eous recognition and an opportunity to grow and to share with us the best that they have and the best that is ours? Study this incident which really happened: "My ancestors came over on the Mayflower," said the lady from Boston, rather impressively. "My ancestors," replied the clergyman to whom she was speaking, "were members of the reception committee which welcomed yours." The clergyman was the Rev. Sherman Coolidge, a full- blooded Arapahoe Indian on the staff of the Episcopal Cathedral at Denver. Are you anything like the woman who spoke to him? In a volume of Indian poetry, there is some quaint verse which tells about the attitude of those first Ameri- cans who welcomed the white settlers. Here is part of it to show you how some of them felt and what they did when the news came of the white man's arrival. See if they had the spirit of true democracy: PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 79 "Lone Dog Unto the Delawares '^Brothers, Lennapi, Hear ye, come ye, all ye — By south-way, east-way, shoreland place Men come. Boats come, Float fast. Handsome. Man-who-paints, much-talker, he much-walked Easterly, south also. All-time stalked — Friends, they, he says, Simrise men, sun-bom men, east-coming; Great things have, wonderful, thundering — Yea, great things, hear we, from clam-clam sea — Hear ye — White bird boat, great eagle, floats up streams, Man-carrying, house-bearing, much fire gleams. Friends they. Say they. Come ye, hear ye, all ye, Let us running-friendly be. Let us brother-hearted be, Giver-brothers standing we. Men with meat, men with hides, everyman, Bring your gifts laying them At Clam-clam sea." ^ Because we have been so accustomed to think of the explorers and discoverers as having the right to claim this country when they found it, most of us never have realized how shamefully the white men misused the friendliness of the Indians. Those were days before patriotic ho rizons had widened as they are doing now. In * The Path on the Rainbow^ Boni & Liveright, publishers. 8o CITIZEN, JR. order to understand more clearly what actually occurred, just suppose that by way of the sky crowds of unknown beings began to descend on our land, and little by little to drive us from our homes, to spoil our cities, and to establish a new manner of living that we did not under- stand. How would we feel? Yet this is what the white people have done to the Indians. If you could talk with Indians now Jiving you would find that they feel the unfairness of being crowded out and despoiled in the years gone by. They feel as wronged as you would feel if forced to give up your home to strangers who had no right to it. It is not pleasant to have to face these facts and to see how they break one of the treasured ideals that Americans love — a square deal. We need to pray for forgiveness and guidance, to "our fathers' God," the "Author of liberty." Unless we can find right now ways to do the fair thing by the Indians of to-day as well as by the newcomers to our shores, unless we do our part in the "giver-brother" spirit of sharing, what happened to the Indians may be repeated with us. We and our ideals may be crowded out by the newcomers whom we make to feel unwelcome and unwanted because we do not understand their ways nor help them to understand ours. Some of them have wonder possessions for our country, in music, painting, drama, handicrafts, industry, agri- culture, etc. Some of them seem to have little beyond a great need, need of all that we have and are that is good and fine. Many of them have come here with high dreams of a land of liberty, and have had them spoiled. Every one of them needs an American brother-hearted friend with whom to enjoy the true American fellowship of ideals and liberty. This means that we need them to share with us as much as they need what we have to give. PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 8i To be a democracy we must have "everybody's oppor- tunity.'' In order to see how your conduct may seem to some of these foreign-born or new Americans, suppose conditions were reversed and you were in their place. Have you ever been lonely? in a strange place? Suppose everybody around you spoke in strange sounds that you could not understand; that you heard nothing else wherever you went — except at home and among a few friends. And suppose, in addition, that the customs of the country were strange to you and that people disliked and avoided you when you went among them or that they took mean advantage of your ignorance. How would you feel? There are many problems to be solved — and they are not easy — in this joining together of old-time Americans and new. But the spirit of good will, of courtesy and consideration and fair play, the "brother-hearted" spirit of true citizens of the Kingdom of the Good — this will work magic results. Here is where your home citizenship, school citizen- ship, and community citizenship all come together as parts of your American citizenship. Among these new- comers are boys and girls who are having difficult times. It is hard for them to choose between the ways of the Old World and of the New. Often, without your knowing it, they are watching you and deciding because of what they see you do. You need not be surprised if they seem greedy and grasping. That comes from the old-time bondage which their people have suffered and the bHnd desire for free- dom and achievement that urges them on now. They may lie, and cheat, and steal. They may use talk that is not nice. Much of this too comes from bad conditions in the old country. Released from that, they want every- 82 CITIZEN, JR. thing. Of course some of their choices are not right according to citizen standards, but don't be too severe in judging them. They have not had your chance. They need friends to show them what true citizenship means. You can be friendly with them without being intimate, of course, if your parents object for any reason to your associating with these boys and girls. Remember not to be a snob. Don't patronize. There is nothing of golden citizenship in such an attitude. Here are some suggestions to help you apply your "rule that is golden": 1. Smile at them in a friendly way when you meet them. 2. Watch that they have a fair chance in games, etc. 3. Help them to learn English correctly by explaining their mistakes, politely. They will appreciate this brother-friendliness greatly if you offer your sug- gestions considerately. 4. You may be an interpreter to them of true American ideals. Your own conduct and example, of course, count for an immense amount here. But you can also make suggestions. *The best kind of Ameri- cans do thus and so," or "This is the way we should do." Explain that even if they have seen some American doing or saying what they are copying unwisely, it isn't the finest choice to follow, and that you know they want to choose the best. Praise when you can. Thinking It Over What proofs can you give that you are a real American? Ask yourself carefully : Am I fit to be copied by the newcomers? Are they more polite and courteous than I am? PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 83 Can I learn from them nice ways of showing respect to father and mother and other people? Have I rude ways that will become their ideals and spoil the beautiful thing that they might bring to American citizenship? What will you do about such manners and habits as you have that you would not wish a new American to make part of himself? What is your citizenship responsibility here? Which of the following ideals are being offered to foreign- bom people by the attitude of Americans in your community : These or Those To work with the hands Labor is honorable, is inferior. To "make money** is Money is of value as a the main thing. servant. You must be *4n style" Character first. to be anybody. **Do" others all you can. Fair play is the law. Rudeness does not mat- Courtesy is blessed, ter. Write in your notebook something about any of these ideals that appeal to you. Look up James 2 : 1-9 and see if it belongs with what we have decided about snobbishness. Try to find the legend about St. Francis of Assisi and the hated, despised, distrusted, wicked Wolf of Gubbio about whom Josephine Preston Peabody wrote, "The Little Poor Man touched my heart: With love, with love, it broke. And from my bonden death-in-life I woke!" 1 If the Christ-love has touched your heart, you can do the same for others, as a loyal American. 1 The Wolf of Gubbio, Houghton Mifiain Company, Publishers. 84 ^ CITIZEN, JR. Learn this citizen reminder: For freedom did Christ set us free; stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. — Galatians 5:1. LESSON 12 LOVING YOUR COUNTRY The schools have taught you their flag exercises, and you know how to take care of our national emblem and honor it. But what does patriotism mean? Only this? Is it only saluting the flag, being thrilled as it goes by, and when we see soldiers marching? Is it just patriotic speeches on holidays, cheering and salutes to Americans of note? Have you learned "how to strive daily and hourly to keep that flag unsullied' 7 Is patriotism only a vague, general love of country, the sort of thing that youVe heard long, tiresome speeches about? When you care deeply for a friend your love means more than just the feeling you have. It means sharing, for one thing. It means looking out for your friend's interests and defending them; it means helping and it means being worthy of your friend's love, loyalty, and confidence. The same things are part of real love for your country. True patriots love by what they "are" and "do" for their country's sake. If you think over the life story of well- known Americans, you will see how they prove this. There are hosts of these true Americans out on the horizons of history. Out of the great number we can select half a dozen now. Look, first, back in Revolu- tionary times to where John Hancock on the horizon is willing to risk everything in order to make his country free. He and all the rest of the signers of the Declaration PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 85 of Independence knew that many people at that time believed that by putting their names to the document they were practically signing their own death warrants. They risked being taken as traitors and punished for dis- loyalty to England. Yet look at John Hancock, signing his name in large letters with the comment, "I write so that George Third may read without his spectacles.'' His courage and patriotism show larger, since by signing first he declared his leadership in the movement and so risked special punishment. You remember that he was Pres- ident of the Continental Congress that drew up the Declaration of Independence. Surely, he and the others loved their country truly and well with their courage and convictions. Have you the courage to let people know where you stand in matters of right and wrong? Widen out your horizon. George Washington. Look back along the history line to Valley Forge, where Washington showed himself as a patriot who refused to give up when everything looked as if it were about to fail in the Revolutionary cause. See him as a patriot who prayed. It was winter; there was no money to pay the soldiers; there was little to eat; the men were suffering because their shoes had worn out and their feet left bloody tracks in the snow. For these patriots and the needs of his country Washington prayed — and help came. Do you think that he prayed less or had less faith during the time after the war when the colonies seemed about to separate and fight each other instead of con- tinuing to unite as a nation? In such difficult times he was chosen to be the first President of the country. Just then he had a big choice to make. There was a group of his friends who urged him to become "king'' of the colonies. Many a man would have coveted the honor for 86 CITIZEN, JR. himself and would have chosen the power that the king would have. But Washington urged and chose what was a new thing in the world — a new government by the people themselves. Because of his choice the country be- came "The United States of America/^ and the history of the whole world has been changed from what it would have been if he had chosen to be king. Washington proved his patriotism by his persisting through diffi- culties, by his prayers, and by his unselfish choosing which still continue to bless the world. How about these three things in your everyday love of your country? Abraham Lincoln, whom the whole world recognizes as one of its greatest men, is over there in another part of the historical horizon of patriots. He endured and died — because he had the courage to do hard things when he believed they were right. He had to endure much criti- cism from people who did not understand and who mis- judged him. And what "made Lincoln great was what made all who knew him love him ... to this day. He had no hatred in his heart. He was the strongest man in the country, strong in his patience, in his power of making other people see as he saw, and do as he desired, but he was strong in his love for mankind.'' Surely, he proved his patriotism by what he was and what he did for his country. How about you? Count up the ways in which you can imitate him, from day to day. Frances Willard, woman patriot, you will see as you turn a little further around. She saw that drink was keeping thousands from being good citizens and that other citizens were profiting by the destruction of homes, the suffering of women and children, and the weakness and wreck of the people who drank. For years she was the organizer and the person who made harmony among the bands of women who sought to destroy "the drink PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 87 traffic." What heroism and devotion were required in the face of prejudice, hatred, and misunderstanding peo- ple who live nowadays can scarcely realize. Though years of eflFort have fruited in the Eighteenth Prohibition Amendment, which gives us prohibition, the fight against drink is still unfinished. But citizens now have a better chance to be free from drink slavery, and the government of our country does not prrofit by the sale of licenses for citizen-destroying liquors. So Frances Willard was a patriot who did not live in vain. It is yours to carry on her work and to encourage loyal obedience to the law that has been made. Susan B. Anthony is a patriot of whom you may never have heard, though she was a wonderful champion of fair play, a pioneer in the movement which gave women many rights that had been denied them, including a full share in citizenship and the right to vote. What she withstood in ridicule and abuse would have discouraged a less persistent citizen, but such things only made her more determined. She died before suffrage for women became a fact, but the amendment to the Constitution finally passed by Congress was called by her name. Women of this country and girls who are future citizens in possession of full rights owe much to her courageous, untiring patriotism. Without her work they would lack many privileges that they now take as a matter of course. It cost true patriotic endeavor to obtain them. Junior Citizens can follow her by being undiscouraged in their efforts for what is right, by keeping their eyes on the goal that they have set, even though progress seems slow and effort seems to bear little result. You can be as vaKant a patriot as she. On other parts of the horizon are countless patriots of many kinds who have helped by their practical, self- 88 CITIZEN, JR. sacrificing patriotism to make this country of ours what it is to-day. They did their part, even though it was quiet and unobtrusive, so that nobody else knew much about it at the time. Yet even now, petty, mean, self-seeking, self-centered citizens are plentiful even among grown people. Such persons have not understood all that citizenship and patriotism mean. Nor did they have the preparation and training such as you are getting. Because a nation cannot be better than the individuals that make it, what you are now counts big. You dare not leave things until you grow up. Bigger problems and great experiences are ahead for citizens of the future. From among the Junior Citizens of to-day must come the leaders and pioneers of to-morrow's advance. The world will need for its new causes its Washingtons, Hancocks, Lincolns, Willards, and Anthonys. Will you be ready to be one? Here are some things that will count toward the mak- ing of superfine patriotic American citizens: Conduct, now, at home, in school and community. You know what this means. Character — the kind that is built by choosing the best and seeking the good of everybody. Information about many things. You are by no means too young to begin to understand the citizen meanings and the lack of patriotism in graft, vote-selling, putting local affairs beyond everything else, waste, child labor, ^'bootlegging," etc. Ask older people about them and test them by the citizenship laws and tests that you have learned. Look these matters up by asking in the library for information on the different subjects such as children in industry, de-forest-ation (the middle of the word sug- gests the meaning) and what is needed to prevent its PATRIOTIC HORIZONS 89 disastrous results. When you find out, for example, how many children are picking cranberries, opening oysters, etc., for hours every day with no chance to play and no opportunity for school, then you can begin making what somebody has called a "divine nuisance" of yourself by incessantly talking and asking older people what can be done. Your country and the world need your finest patriotism of every sort. Judas sold the world's best Citizen for thirty pieces of silver. Benedict Arnold tried to betray his country. Wrong choosing is a kind of treason. Every day counts, and every minute of every day. The future depends on you and your ideals. What will you do with it? What are you doing now? Other Work Memorize "America'' if you have not already done so. How many picture ideas, whether horizon views or not, can you find in it? Compare it with ''America, the Beautiful.'' Look for the pictures there too. Which do you like better? When you **salute the flag" and pledge allegiance, from now on, what will you think of as real meanings for your citizenship ? What things are you going to pick out as your special share now in trying to better your country — bad housing conditions? playgrounds in crowded parts of cities? or some of the other things mentioned in the lesson? Can you think up or find out some needed thing which has not been spoken of ? Suppose every Junior Citizen all over the country were to get to work in earnest, right away, would nothing happen nowf GROUP VII Lessons 13 and 14 AEROPLANE SERVICE Have you ever been up in an aeroplane? Do you know whether things look the same when seen from above? Surely, you have seen movie films show- ing how things appear to a per- son in a flying machine. Because it is so high above even the tallest buildings the view is wider and more far-reaching, and because of the flight it is constantly changing. Aeroplanes too are for something besides observation. They have a purpose; they carry passengers, mail, etc.; they help to locate lost people and to keep guard against forest fires. Such aeroplane views and service are something like a true world citizen's way of seeing and being. His world knowledge is wide and far- reaching, and his helpful sharing in world living is greater than it could be without such view and purpose. These lessons will show you more plainly how this is so. It is interesting, once you know how, to watch and see the kind of citizenship to which people have grown. You know it by the things they are interested in, and how they think and understand what happens in the world. Some folks seem to live in a cellar where they see almost nothing. These are the people who have little chance 90 •YOUR WORLD" AEROPLANE SERVICE 91 because of their neglected education, or work that is too heavy or too long. These are in the baby stage of "eat and sleep just to live." Other people seem to walk along a street but see little or nothing except their own feet and the part of the pave- ment just before them, or whatever is very close by. These are folks who are like very small children, inter- ested in only a very small circle of people. Just a very few outside of the members of their families secure their interest and affection. Others are like children a little older who care for a wider circle; their families, playmates, and some grown- ups, such as the policemen and firemen perhaps, maybe some teacher whom they love and admire, and others whom they regard as unusual or heroic, or about whom others are talking — "a human fly,'' movie people, base- ball players, etc. The rest of the world is scarcely more than a set of furniture and seems mostly in their way at that! Little by little citizen-thinking grows in some people. From family and school and church, on into the com- munity and nation the aeroplane of their interest travels. Then many of them stop. They neither look nor see any further. A few may perhaps go far enough to become interested in some other nation that is friendly to their own. But only the very few go into the aeroplane which lets them travel all over the world in their interest and thinking. All the other people are world citizens, for everybody is one, but most do not realize it. The few are the exceptions; they know. They see that whatever concerns the interests and welfare of any part of the world is of importance to them as well, and that they have obligations and privileges that are as wide as the world. 92 CITIZEN, JR. Does it make you almost dizzy to try to fly so high and so far as to think of being this kind of citizen? Never mind, after you get used to it thinking this way will be- come so natural that seeing far-off things will be as easy as it now is to notice what happens along the street where you live. In I Corinthians 12: 12-26 you will find this spirit of world citizenship expressed in another way, by different parts of the body. See what the Bible verses say: As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. . . . And the eye cannot say to lie hand, I have no need of thee; or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. . . . Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members there- of. The picture symbol for these lessons has two hemi- spheres, and yet it represents one world. Think about this and then read these words from Ephesians 2: 18: For through him we both have our access in one spirit unto the Father. So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. Join this with the Corinthians verses and see if true Christian citizenship is as wide as the world. LESSON 13 BIRD'S-EYE VIEWS Long before there were aviators to be spoken of as bird-men, and before there were aeroplanes to see from, people used the words *^bird's-eye view" to describe what could be seen from a very high outlook. In your aero- AEROPLANE SERVICE 93 plane service, right now as a Junior Citizen, you will want to make voyages in a good many directions to get bird's-eye views of the world. It would be a pity to wait until you are older before getting big views of what the world is like. You would miss so many good times and would have a lot of catching up to do later on. The more you know about what the world is like from your voyages now, the better you will be able to "fly'' in your planes later on as you think intelligently about world conditions and happenings in other countries. Besides, unless you get used to thinking in world views the longer you will have to put off your aeroplane service to the world. Although you could begin almost anywhere, suppose you make a first-trial voyage to see what you can learn about just common, everyday bread and how it is used all over the world. Are there any different sorts used in various countries? Are there places where bread as you know it, is not used? What substitutes for bread are found in different places? What was the bread described in the Bible? What do you know about the modern process of breadmaking in large bakeries? These are only a few of the interesting things that you may observe on this trip. Houses next. Have you ever compared the different shapes and kinds of houses that people live in, throughout the world? Try to count up all the different varieties you can. Notice the difference between Lapland and Eskimo houses and those in Africa. How do they differ from houses in Palestine? Is there any difference between the appearance of houses in the northeastern part of the United States and in the southwestern? Why? If you were to alight away down in the Argentine or in Chile, how would you know from the houses that you were not 94 CITIZEN, JR. in England, Switzerland, or Russia? In what European country might you think you were? Why? If you were to fly around the world in the different temperature zones, what would you discover about houses that are in different countries and continents having the same lati- tude north or south of the equator? How about clothes? They will make an interesting journey too. What do you know about differences there? Could you tell a Hindu from a Korean? a Japanese from a Chinese? would you recognize a Norwegian, an Italian peasant, and a Bedouin? Do you find any places where differences in clothing show different religious faiths? Shoes, although a part of clothes, might give you an interesting trip. After you have seen as many kinds as possible you might compare them with the ones used in Bible times. Where is it customary to remove shoes now, as Moses was told to do when he saw the burning bush where the angel of God's presence talked with him in the desert? You will find that story in Exodus 3: 2-5. Another interesting trip would be a tour of inspection to compare methods and means of travel and transporta- tion in all parts of the world. You will be interested in both animals and vehicles, and may learn something about roads and the time required to journey by land and by water. How about travel and vehicles in Bible times? Where are similar customs still in use? Trees and fruits can give you a most entertaining trip, especially if you let it include wood and fruits, going back to the places from which they come to your home. You might compare the trees of the East and the West of this continent, the North and the South, and then see whether corresponding locations in Europe and Asia have the same kinds. Why not fly from arctic to antarctic circles, to get views of the range in varieties of trees AEROPLANE SERVICE 95 in that direction and how the two hemispheres compare? Other fascinating journeys would be those in which you observe family life — the place of the father and of the mother and that of the children; what the children play and what kind of schools they have. Different religions and governments will give you trips of travel too. You will want to compare others with your own, and know what the conditions are outside of this country of ours. If there are other things you think of that specially interest you, by all means take those trips. The more you know about this world of ours, the better you will be ready to understand what you see and hear and read, both now and later on when you have immense oppor- tunities of world citizenship for which you are preparing. As for flying machines to take you on all these many journeys, there are several kinds at your service, espe- cially books, magazines, and talks with people from other countries. Even pubUcations that are more especially for older people you will find helpful with their interesting pictures and photographs that give the needed world knowledge. The National Geographic Magazine, Asia, and the different missionary magazines all will help. Geographies, encyclopedias, and Bible dictionaries are other "planes" that you can use. For trips of a different kind you will need such magazines as Science and Inven- tion, or The Literary Digest, or Popular Science Monthly — to discover new things of many kinds that are going on in the world. You can ask questions of older people and get them to help you. They may be very much behind the times themselves, and will enjoy taking the trip with you if you do not make them uncomfortable by trying to prove 96 CITIZEN, JR. how much or how little they know. They may have for- gotten a great deal that they knew once and need only a little brushing up to be able to remember. Exercises Since this lesson is to help you in gaining world knowledge you can report on your work by degrees and get credit both now and later on. If you have had a special trip assigned to you, report on it in class during this period. Look at the front page of the newspapers for a week and find how many parts of the world are mentioned. This will vary, for world conditions may bring up few places one week and many places another. If you hear a place mentioned when grown people are talking, remember it and find out where it is. Ask why it is interesting. Get older folks interested in world- citizenship thinking such as you are learning. They may never have thought about it. Listen to older folks talking and weigh their citizen atti- tudes in the scales provided by the Bible verses for this lesson group. Our own country has such a wide range of territory and conditions that it will repay a flying visit. Look up the far-scattered places of interest in the main part of the United States, between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Then find out what you can about the other regions. Porto Rico — what is it like? What help have we been there? Alaska — see if you can find books telling about products and climate there, the midnight sun, and the industries and animals and transportation. Then a long flight to the middle of the Pacific, to the Hawaiian Islands. What do you know of them? How did they come to be a part of the United States? Is there a famous volcano there? Find out about those other islands nearer Asia, the Philippines. Have we helped any there? Then fly to the Isthmus of Panama to the AEROPLANE SERVICE 97 Canal Zone. Have we done a bit of world service there ? In how many ways? What have been the results of the World War to the chil- dren of the world? What are your advantages over children in most countries ? Then what is the measure of your responsibility and privilege as a world citizen? Remember, "Freely ye have received, freely give," and "with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.'* LESSON 14 INTO ALL THE WORLD Here is a Bible verse that will add to our meanings for world citizenship. It is what Jesus said to his disciples before he left them. "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation'' (Mark 16: 15). You can see in it a direction that concerns all lands and all peoples — that the whole world may come to share in the full citizenship of God's kingdom. Because of this do you think that as a Junior Citizen your preparation for world citizenship would be half complete without a knowledge of religions and missions in many lands and among many peoples? Surely not. So those are the next trips that your aeroplane service will prepare for. Do you know the difference between the religious be- liefs of the people of Japan and those of India? the Chinese and the Mexicans? the people of Central Africa and those of South America? the Alaskan Indians and the Philippines? Those are real good, exciting trips to take, especially if you are on the lookout to see what fine things you can discover in the faiths of these different peoples, and just how you think they most need help in order to understand citizenship in God's kingdom. Here are other trips. The early Christians were some- 98 CITIZEN, JR. times persecuted and even put to death, as you probably know, under the authority of the Roman emperors. In order to be sure that you realize just where those rulers had their capital, look up the location of the city of Rome in modern Italy. Point it out on your world map. Per- haps, too, you can find pictures of the Coliseum, the building where so many Christians met death rather than give up or deny their faith. In this land of ours you do not know anything of such severe tests of faith and loyalty, but there are countries in this modern world where people have been both per- secuted and slaughtered because they were Christians. Those people are the Armenians and the Koreans. Look up their countries and then look at your little world maps and see exactly where these people have lived. Because the Armenians live in the part of the world where the Bible lands were, you may want to make some careful trips to those regions in order to find out more about customs there, both past and present. There were several Bible lands. You know which way to go and where to find Syria, Armenia, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, and Rom^e, so here are some questions to test your world knowledge and initiative. What is the condition of the people, especially the children there, in the ^^Near East" since the World War? Try to discover whether faulty world citizenship on the part of other countries is partly responsible for this state of things. For example, what was wrong with the world citizenship of Turkey? Did religion have anything to do with its action? What did Great Britain do that allowed the Turks a chance to continue to murder the Armenians wholesale? What share had Germany in the affair? Did the United States have a chance to help after the World War? What was its answer? AEROPLANE SERVICE 99 You might also find about the Jews and their return to Palestine and what American Jews think about this Zionist movement, as it is called. See what missions and missionaries you can find out about that are at work in Bible lands. You may discover something about Robert College where so many Ameri- can college students have gone to serve for a period of years just after finishing their own college work. If you were talking with a Syrian or a Turk, in regard to religion, what would you expect him to believe? How would his ideas dififer from yours? You might also make trips to find out about famous people who have lived there. You may perhaps have realized that Jesus and John and Peter and Paul were all Jews who actually lived in this part of the world that you are reviewing now. How long ago was it that they lived there? Now, as to some later people. Can you find out what ruler was called "The Sick Man of Europe"? The River Nile was explored to its source in the heart of Africa by a man who first went there to find out what had become of a pioneer missionary who had gone into the interior and had not been heard from for a long time. Who was the missionary? Who was the explorer who went out to find him? Are you glad that it was an American news- paper, the New York Herald, that sent him out? Who was the British general who conquered Palestine in the World War and rode in triumph into Jerusalem? See if you can find out about the railroad that he built across the desert from Egypt to Palestine. These things will none of them be hard to dis- cover if you try just a little, and, besides, by asking other people questions, you know, perhaps you can get them to take some aeroplane trips with you for world- loo CITIZEN, JR. citizenship information. And that will be a bit of world service. Are you game for some more things to hunt up, this time about missions? You know you can report on them either now or later. First, here is a paragraph from a magazine called "Missions," that may interest you, especially if you have been contributing money for missionary enterprises. DO YOU WEAR A CHURCH? A missionary at home on furlough was invited to din- ner at a great summer resort, where he saw and met many people of prominence. After dinner he went to his room and wrote a letter to his wife. **Dear Wife: I've had dinner at the great Hotel . The company was wonderful. I saw strange things. Many women were present. There were some who wore to my certain knowledge one church, forty cottage organs, and twenty libraries." Churches and cottage organs and libraries are not the only kinds of invisible ornaments that a world citizen may wear. Think of the different sorts of missionary activities there are. Medical missions. This means hospitals, doctors, nurses, and all kinds of equipment for which money is needed and given. This sentence from a book for older people will give you an idea of the world- citizenship value of these things. "As we face the tasks of strengthening the sense of brotherhood between great continents it is evident that the medical missionary will continue to be one of the most helpful and influential forces." This is meant in still another sense from the world interest brought about by the explorer who went to find a medical missionary in Africa. AEROPLANE SERVICE loi Schools and colleges. Day schools with Christian teachers and Christian ideals — do you think these are a help toward an understanding and realization of world brotherhood and kingdom citizenship? How about the influence that will result in homes from which the pupils come? Normal schools. Think about these schools for native teachers. Who understands native children better, a native or a foreigner? Then if five foreign teachers can train from twenty to fifty native teachers in a few years' time, and each native teacher can train fifty boys and girls that a foreign teacher would not reach, how much will the gain be? Do you think the figures should be larger, for a lifetime of work? Is this a quality of world- citizenship planning that will produce results faster than if all foreign teachers had to be sent out, then to learn the language and begin to understand the people and become acquainted with the customs and thinking of the country? Or suppose native teachers had to be sent over here to be trained — all of them. What would make their progress slow and delay the work of teaching the children? Colleges. How many reasons can you think of why Chris- tian colleges are needed and are of value? Why not let the Christian students go to non-Christian universities or come to this country instead? Agricultural schools. In India there have been devastating famines for centuries. Millions have suffered and died for lack of food. Immense sums have been collected in Christian countries to pay for food to keep the people alive. The old methods of farm- ing were such that famines could not be avoided, but there is a Christian agricultural school which has been proving that, by introducing modern farm machinery and methods, crops can be raised in ways to avoid famine. In how many ways does this help world citizenship? In other countries, China, for instance, different fruits such I02 CITIZEN, JR. as apples have been introduced by missionaries and have become a source of profit to the regions where they are grown. If forest trees could be set out on a large scale, through the influence of agricultural schools, the rainfall in China could be greatly controlled, the scientists say, and this would help to prevent both floods and famines. What do you think of the need of this kind of world helpfulness from mission schools? Closing There have been times through the centuries when people of Christian nations tried to conquer other nations and compel them to accept Christianity. * 'Crusades" of warriors, and even of children, started from Europe to conquer the Holy Land from the infidels, as they called the Turks. Contrast these mistaken attempts with the loving spirit of ministers and teachers and other Chris- tian workers who now give themselves to help and instruct and heal the nations of the world. As you think of these things you may like to memorize two stanzas from one of Longfellow*s poems. The word "corselet" that he uses is the name of part of the armor worn by the crusaders. "Cross against corselet, Love against hatred, Peace cry for war cry, Patience is powerful. He that o'ercometh Hath power o'er the nations. "Stronger than steel Is the sword of the Spirit. Swifter than arrows The Light of the truth is. Greater than Anger Is Love and subdueth." AEROPLANE SERVICE 103 Perhaps your class can prepare and give a missionary play to interest people and to earn money to give for missions. Perhaps by the end of the citizenship course of lessons you can have arranged a missionary exhibit that will interest not only your class and its friends but the school and church and community as well. You may like to write a short biography of some famous missionary like John G. Paton, who transformed the can- nibals of the New Hebrides Islands. Any missionary biography that you report in class or that you write up in your notebook creditably should entitle you to a symbol picture. So, too, will a good report of any missionary trip on your world-service aeroplane. How many ways now, can you obey the directions that Jesus gave to his disciples — '*Go ye into all the world"? SUNLIGHT LIVING' GROUP VIII Lessons 15 and 16 SUNLIGHT LIVING In this group of lessons, ^'Old FaithfuF' and "The Com- ing of the Sun," we are going to look for two ways to help. After you have finished the lessons you will understand why the symbol is a rising sun. You can watch as you go along to see why the symbol is a good one for the work you do in prac- ticing the lessons. Since we are at work learning about helping, we take as our watchword for this group, **Count on Me." LESSON 15 "OLD FAITHFUL" Do you remember about the geyser in Yellowstone National Park, that is called Old Faithful, and do you recall the reason for its name? People for years and years have been visiting it because it is so regular in the time of its appearing. If you do not know about it, you will enjoy looking it up and finding a picture of the geyser in action, for it looks like an immense, beautiful fountain. If you find it, you might bring it to class, if you can. The reason for its name may help you to guess what we 104 SUNLIGHT LIVING 105 are going to study about in this lesson. Do you see why the action of this geyser can remind you of a citizen who can be counted on? Here is a big word — ''dependability" — that older people use to express the idea. Suppose you cut the word in two, this way, ''depend" and "ability," to see if you can guess at its meaning. You may find something interesting too if you will consult one of the big dictionaries that have several volumes, and see what "depend" meant in the language from which we borrowed it. Or you might ask somebody who has been studying Latin. Such a person should be able to tell you in a minute. The second part that we cut from the big word gives away its meaning, of course, because it is so much like the httle everyday word "able." So if we fit the two ideas together, we find that they give us the picture of hanging securely from something — like a swing tied to the limb of a tree, or a painter's platform hung by hooks and ropes from a roof, or like a monkey hanging by his tail. In each case there is security as long as the support holds. If it breaks, there may be disaster. Now, dependable persons are the sort upon whom things may be hung with security. They will not let us down with a bump. We can be sure of them; can count on them. Talking of monkeys and of dependability in people suggests a story which shows in monkey parable what people are like who are not dependable. Do you remem- ber the Bandar-Log, or Monkey People in Kipling's Jungle Book? Look up the descriptions of them in the story of "Kaa's Hunting," where it tells how they begin a thing and drop it and how they are always going to do something big but never doing it. You will find it funny to see how much like some folks they are. After you have read about them you might make a list of the ways in io6 CITIZEN, JR. which they showed their lack of dependability as people do. How about you? Are you ever a Bandar-Log? When you begin a job can you be depended on to finish it thoroughly? Or do you drop it like a half-grown apple that falls from a tree? If you promise to do a thing, can people depend on your work or do you let them down with a jolt, as if they were in a swing hung from a rotten branch? If you are told to do something, do you pretend to obey, as the unreliable son did in the parable that we studied, or can folks rely on your word? If you are sent to the store to buy something and find that it costs ten cents less than you expected, do you keep the change or do you return it to the person who sent you? Can people count on you to be strictly honest, as honest with their money as you would want them to be with yours? If a boy or girl does the Bandar-Log thing, is it ^^baby" living or the true citizen kind? Look over the list you made and the questions you have just been answering, and see what you think it is. Next take the telescope of your imagination and see the Bandar-Log boys and girls as grown-up citizens. If they keep up the same kind of habits, what sort of citizens will they be? Would you want to have to trust things with them? Do you think it is worth the effort of training in habits of dependable living, to avoid your becoming low-grade citizens such as these? There are many ways in which a citizen can train for dependability. Here are a few suggestions about some of them. Remembering: If somebody gives you a message to deliver, can you repeat it accurately? How many times do you need to have it told to you before you can remember it perfectly? SUNLIGHT LIVING 107 When you have learned your lessons do you remember them well because you have thought them out, or do you forget quickly what you have studied? Do you see why "cramming" is unwise and injurious to you? Observing: When something interesting has happened can you tell afterward exactly what you saw? Are you so accurate in noticing details that people can refer to you if they are uncertain about them, and be sure of a correct answer from you? Along the way to school, or when you are walking along a street do you notice interesting things or do you drift along dreaming about something? Quality Work: Do you work so well that people feel sure that if you are given something to do it will be done excellently? Are you building a fine reputation for the quality of your work at home and in school? Trustworthiness: When your teacher is called out of the classroom, do you and the others behave as nicely as when she is there? Can you be depended on to manage yourselves? Loyalty: Do your friends feel that they can depend on you or do they have to reckon with moods and fickleness? Do you champion the best in them? Character Decisions: Can people say of you that they can rely always on your doing the thing that you know is right? Questions How do child experiences make a difference in the senior citizenship of dependable folks? io8 CITIZEN, JR. Do you see any connection between dependability and playing fair? If so, what is it? After you have practiced in your everyday decisions for a week count up and see how many times you have been like Old Faithful and how many times a Bandar-Log. Which brought the more satisfying results? How many ways can you think of in which Junior Citizens could train for dependability? Make a list. Do you think it is rather hard to keep **choosing" as you know that your citizenship requires? You will find it easier, the longer you practice, especially if you keep wanting the thing that is **best.*' Here are some verses that you can memorize. If you study them carefully and think about what they say you will find a hidden meaning there that will help you to put the glow of sunlight into what has seemed so hard. Here is a hint to help you fimd this second meaning: — ^What does the Sun represent for you? The verses were written by Sidney Lanier, one of our American poets, who faced hard things bravely: "Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; The Worker must pass to his work in the terrible town; But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done; I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun; How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run, I am lit with the Sun." ^ LESSON 16 THE COMING OF THE SUN The poet who faced his day "lit with the Sun" wrote this description of a person who belongs with these lessons of ours about '^Sunlight Living." 1 "From "Sunrise." Used by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. SUNLIGHT LIVING 109 "... walking midway of the street, As she had just stepped forth from out the gate Of the very, very heaven where God is, Still glittering with the God-shine on her.** ^ Imagine what a wonderful thing it would be to have such a God-shine about us that people walking along the street would feel as if we had just been with God himself. Yet as you think of things you have already studied, is this anything more than a true citizen may hope to do? The lesson that begins now is to help you to find ways of becoming this kind of citizen. The first part of the lesson will be about the every- morning coming of the sun, and the second about the shining that comes when the sun breaks through the clouds after a time of unpleasant weather. What the everyday presence of the sun means to us is like the effect of a happy, good-natured, "sunshiny," smiling citizen of course. And the sunlight coming after gray clouds or storm, corresponds to what happens when we find fun for ourselves or for other people no matter how hard or disagreeable things may seem to be. After we think a while about all of this we shall be able to see very plainly some ways in which citizens can help. The sun is one of the dependable things that we know about best. Day after day it gives us its light after the hours of darkness. And, besides, even the light of the moon is a reflection of sunlight, you know. Even on the days when we cannot see the sun because of clouds or rain or snow we know that it is there by the presence of the daylight. When the day is clear and the sky is blue everybody is happy because of the sunshine. Of course you know what a sunny citizen is — the 1 "The Jacquerie," by Sidney Lanier. Used by permission of Charles Scrib- ner'sSons. no CITIZEN, JR. happy, good-natured kind that everybody is so glad to have around, the sort that always makes you feel better and makes you want to smile and have a good time. If you are not sure why we call such people "sunny," watch a smile as it comes and see if it isn^t like sunshine. Now, let us think about smiles awhile. Did you know that there are other kinds than the ones on the face? We can talk about at least three others. Then perhaps you can think of more. Maybe you know about the little signs that a big city telephone company sent out for its patrons to tack up where they would be seen. The little cards read, "The voice with the smile wins." So you see, thousands of people began to know that there is a smile in a pleasant voice. Do you? How does it work out? And why does such a voice win? Do you think that a citizen can learn to use such a smiling voice? Does yours smile? What difference do you think it would make if your voice never had any unpleasant, disagreeable sound because you never had anything but a shine inside? How many people do you think of who would have had a sunshiny feeling instead of an unpleasant one if your voice had smiled all through yesterday and to-day? Count up. Do you know that words can smile? It depends on how you put them together, whether they do or not. You can say a thing in a rough way, "I want some," or in a pleas- ing, gracious way, "Please give me some." Practice a bit for the sunny way, the smile that brings another smile. You can have lots of fun with it, for you can help un- comfortable people and even transform disagreeable ones when you find out how to use the words with a smile in them. If a book agent came to the door, how would you say in a way that would be friendly but final, that your mother does not want a book? SUNLIGHT LIVING iii And how about the smile of pleasant manners? Do you think it is really worth anything? Of course not the kind that say all over that they are a counterfeit, but the real, genuine, pleasant way of living graciously with people because of the kindly shining that we have within our- selves and feel toward them. Not "being nice just to be nice, but because we are nice/' Now we are ready to think about the citizenship that is like the sun when it comes out from behind the clouds. Everybody feels happy when stormy, gloomy weather is past. We are happy because of the beauty and joy that the sunshine brings. Sometimes we find bits of shining in unexpected places. One Junior discovered it in the mud-puddles along the way to school. Have you ever happened to see how they shine when the light on them is just right? They have a glory that is a surprise. It made the Junior think of i Corinthians 15:49. Look it up and you will see. Muddy water, like the earthy; shining beauty, like the heaven world. Does this remind you at all of something that happened once when Jesus was praying? See Luke 9: 28-32. As you think of it you may like to know about something written about Jesus by a woman who makes some of our finest poetry. Her name is Sara Teasdale. She was writing in prose, this time, in a magazine for grown peo- ple, telling about "The Carpenter's Son." In it she put this unusual sentence, which is more wonderful the longer you think of it: "Here was a man, incandescent with the Spirit of God as no man ever had been before.'' Think about it carefully: "incandescent" — like the shining of the fiber in the gas mantles, or of the filmy wires in electric-light bulbs; both dull things that are made to glow and shine like sunlight. A body that shone with the glory of God! 112 CITIZEN, JR. This glory was especially plain at the time about which you were reading, when Jesus was "transfigured" in the presence of Peter and James and John. Perhaps you are wondering what all this has to do with Junior Citizens. Maybe you think that it was just something that hap- pened to Jesus then and that nobody else can share it. But think back to Lesson 2, where we found that every one of us lives with a life that comes from God. Think of the mud-puddles showing a glory like the heaven world above them; and then think of the most glorious smile that you ever saw. Wasn't it truly a bit of the glory of God? Wasn't that person's face iUumined like the incan- descent fibers of the lights? Then is there any reason why your face should not shine, as well? Now, what about a citizen who keeps cheery and good- natured and smiling even though things are disagreeable and hard. Perhaps you are wondering how you can be good natured and sunny when things are hard and you are cross and cranky inside. Those are the practice times when we have to look carefully and "choose" whether we really want more to be cross or to live out the glory of God. It is really an "adventure" to do it; to choose to be like the sun because you really want more than any- thing else to be like God. You may not always succeed at first in looking squarely at your decision; but it is a habit that can grow and be perfected. Just as an illustration of how it can be done let us suppose that you want to find some inside sunlight on a rainy day. Well, you can see the splashes of the rain, and listen to its singing. You can sing a tune to yourself as you march along the pavement to school, and your feet will keep time pleasantly. You can watch the water running along the gutters, and imagine that it is a river and that the pieces of waste and chips are boats carrying SUNLIGHT LIVING 113 goods to a faraway place. You know all about that of course. But perhaps you never have noticed the me- nagerie town in the wet pavements when the buildings show upside down and people are stretched out until they look like camels and giraffes. Sometimes the pavement becomes a flower garden as you see the reflection of little children's pink or blue or red coats, or their yellow sweaters. And then there is the lovely shining of the water to watch for on the pavements, till you see the dull sidewalk transfigured before you. As you go along full of happy thoughts like these may- be you'll meet a grouchy person; somebody that you know. Then you can have a heap of fun watching how the sun will come out in him if you give a cheery saluta- tion or show him some of your fun or even just smile at him. If you have never laughed your way through a rainy day, you don't know how much fun you have missed in seeing the sun come out from behind the clouds on peo- ple's faces. But you have to laugh from inside you — not just to make them laugh — if you want the sun to come out really. There are lots of other places where laughing helps. Watch some time and see when people are crowding to get on a street car or to reach a bargain counter, or when something else makes them jam together and push. Perhaps some folks get "mad" and others, scared. Then maybe somebody takes it aU as a joke and laughs. The rest begin to look around, and pretty soon more smile until what seemed so ugly disappears. Or, perhaps it may be when folks are coming home from a picnic and are feeling cross and tired. If somebody comes up, smiling and good-natured, and tells a funny story, everybody gets to laughing, and pretty soon they aU feel better. You see how well such a person is doing "sunlight living." 114 CITIZEN, JR. Special Work See if you can find an account of President Lincoln and his funny stories that he used to make things easier for himself and for other people when they all had so much to endure. Make a personal * Veather report" for a week and see how many times you can put down stmshine living of one kind or another. Here is a bit of verse by our poet Longfellow. Perhaps if you memorize it, it will help you to remember what you are learning in these lessons. **And that smile, like sunshine dart Into many a sunless heart, For a smile of God thou art.*' GROUP IX 'WHITE SHINING" Lessons 17 and 18 THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING If you have ever seen the re- flection of the moonlight on the water you will very quickly understand why the Indians have called it "The Path of White Shining.'' If you never have seen it, nor the shining of the sun on the sea or the lake, you have seen pictures of it surely. And you may have noticed the reflections of lights on the water in the river, and the gold and silver glimmer of lights reflected in wet pavements on rainy nights. You always find it when you are looking toward a light, whether it is sun or moon or star or city light. Some years ago a person who was watching the moon- light on the ocean thought that this path of white shining seemed to show that all water remembers the time when Jesus walked upon the Sea of Galilee, and that whenever a light shines upon water, anywhere, the bright pathway of his steps is revealed for men to see. This shining pathway is straight and clear. Unlike the paths in the woods and the fields it does not wind and wander. Because of this and because of its beauty, and because of its poetic reminder of the glory of Jesus' life, we are going to take the Indian "Path of White Shining" 115 ii6 CITIZEN, JR. for our symbol during these two lessons. It will represent the use of words that leaves a beautiful record in ourselves and in other people. Some folks have vagabond tongues, wandering away from speech that is well chosen. They say things and use words that belong to a go-as-you-please living that is like the wandering woodland paths. Perhaps you never thought that choosing has anything special to do with the way that you talk, and with what other people say, yet it is true. So, for these lessons, maybe you will like to have as your everyday slogan something about your speech. 'Watch Your Words." LESSON 17 DUNCE-CAP TALK One of the ways in which the tongues of boys and girls act like vagabonds is in the use of talk that is cheap. This means the teUing of nasty stories, swearing, unkind re- marks and the different kinds of lies. A lot of wanderings! Of course you know that such things are not right, and you know the citizenship rules, "Blessed are the pure in heart," and "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," but perhaps we can discover some new meanings in them as we study. The next time you hear somebody telling a story or saying something that is not nice, suppose you stop and see why. Although some people may seem to have minds that have been poisoned, see if it isn't usually just a cheap way of attracting attention to themselves that makes them do it. They think it is smart, or very "knowing" perhaps, and they want to seem unusual — just a little different from other folks. Or they may be trying to "shock" the people who hear them; they want THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING 117 to make a sensation. They expect that folks will be horrified and say how bad they are, and so, pay a lot more attention to them. They get attention all right, but do not realize that it is the sort they would receive if they dumped the garbage can on the front steps when they had invited people to a party and saw them coming. Sometimes they are trying to make a laugh. They want to attract attention by being what they think is funny, not realizing how pitifully cheap their kind of fun is. They would not think of going to a party with- out a necktie, with shoes unlaced and trousers torn, nor with their hair in curlers, nor wearing dirty working clothes. These things would shame them by the kind of "attention" they would attract. Yet these same poor citizens do not see that their smutty talk is just adver- tising them as cheap and silly and of very poor taste, the kind that they will some day be ashamed to own as theirs. They do not realize that it is a pretty poor sort of attention too that they receive by showing that their minds enjoy playing with dirt. Those who use this cheap speech really do not mean to be as bad as they sound. If you could get them to answer truly, they would say that, of course, they would rather be good than bad, but they'd rather be smart, or funny, or something else that will make people think they are different, and so pay attention to them. Do you see how they wander in their choosing, and want two things at once? And which sort of citizenship are they fooling themselves into? Now that you think of it, aren't these much the same reasons that people have for swearing? Perhaps they have heard some mistaken grown person say these words, just as sometimes they have heard older people use nasty ii8 CITIZEN, JR. talk and tell shady stories. The Juniors want to appear and to feel "grown up''; they want to show that they are not afraid to dare to do these things that people know are wrong. Sometimes they think it is being smart, and they want to "show off." Or perhaps they are very angry and want to express all the poison of the hatred they feel. They do not dare to strike nor to kill the person against whom they rage, so they take this way of doing it in words. They want pirate living instead of policing them- selves. You know in what class of citizens they belong. They have themselves sorted out wrong. Unkind talk too is usually to make a sensation or be- cause someone is angry or resentful or jealous. The reason for it is a selfish one. Think this over and see if it doesn't prove true. All these folks — those with impure tongues, those with profane angry ones, and those with unkind ones — are really to be pitied in a way. Savages do many things that civihzed people are above doing, yet these people with unfit speech are going back as far as they dare and are living on a savage level instead of catching up with the rest or tiuly going ahead of them and showing something finer than has yet been lived. This savagery and their wanting so much to attract attention from other people is what marks their living as so cheap and inferior. People who are very busy, just being and doing their best, are not thinking about whether other folks are paying atten- tion to them or not. They are too busy with worthwhile things. Now, let us go back to the citizenship rules. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The pure- hearted have one chief desire — to live the best, to be as clean and clear as crystal glass so that God's life may not be tarnished as it shows through them. They would THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING 119 as soon think of rubbing a handful of soot over a new white suit and their faces and hair as to use or hear nasty words. And not being interested in such things, they do not look for them in others. People feel somehow that they are the sort before whom such speech should not be used. And so it is the better side, the more godlike part of other people that they call out just by being themselves, by being pure in their own hearts. What do you think such persons would do or say if someone used impure talk in their presence? See if you can find a story about what General Grant said to a man who was going to tell a nasty story. What can a Junior Citizen do when others in a crowd are using filthy talk or saying something that is only a little shady? If we really love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our strength and with all our mind, do you think we will want to hear his name used lightly and care- lessly or in angry curses? When we have something precious we do not want it carelessly handled. As we watch the beautiful path of light on the water on moonlit nights we are disappointed when a big cloud comes up and blots out the radiance. What can we do that will really help if someone does these unworthy things in our presence? And if the temptation should come, because of frequently hearing profane or ugly talk, to use it thoughtlessly ourselves, what can we do to prevent it? How can we be sure of quality citizenship in this that shall be as lovely as the shining pathway on the water? Special Work Read James 3:26 and discuss it in class. Is it clever to tell nasty stories? Why? Is it manly or smart to swear? Why? I20 CITIZEN, JR. Do you understand anything of what the old Jewish say- ing means that you find in Proverbs 21: 24: Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue Keepeth his soul from troubles? Keep careful watch over your speech during the next week to make sure that your words are all kind; that they are clean ; that none of your talk is *' cheap,** The slogan will help, "Watch Your Words!" LESSON 18 MASKS Perhaps you like to dress up on Halloween and wear a mask so that people will not know who you are. Maybe you have been at a masquerade and had a lot of fun trying to guess who your friends were. But with you on Halloween and with your friends at the party the mask wasn't the real person; it was only a sham, a, false face. Look up about masks in the encyclopedia and see if you can find some pictures of the sort of masks that the actors used to wear in the old Greek theaters, hundreds of years ago. There were ones for each different kind of part, the comic and the serious. Wearing these as false faces, the actors were supposed to be other persons than themselves. Have you ever thought how lies are the false faces that people sometimes put on when they wish to seem some- thing which they are not? Although their real selves are God's, they are foolish enough to want to hide behind these masks for some reason or other. They haven't realized how silly it is to try to deceive people, nor that they will be sure to be found out. These lying masks are of different sorts and degrees of meanness and of desire to deceive. Here is a list of dif- THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING 121 ferent kinds made by some citizens who are still growing up. Do you wear any of them? 1. Boys and girls lie, sometimes, just to entertain themselves or the crowd by a big story that will be exciting. They twist the facts of what has happened so as to make them give a different meaning or seem bigger and more thrilling. How long will it be before the crowd will learn to measure their trick and see through it? People like accurate facts and trustworthiness. 2. Lies are told because people want to appear bigger and more important than they are. They want to seem richer, to own more and to be able to do more than they really are. Do you think that they will fool folks very long? Why not be truthful? 3. People lie sometimes because they want to tell a bigger story than somebody else has just told. They are not willing to let anybody else have first place, or be ahead of them. Have you ever watched such persons and noticed how a flushed face and uneasy manner betray their lying and why they are doing it? Wouldn't truth and modesty be better than such a picture as they make? 4. They lie to excuse themselves, sometimes, when they have been caught in the wrong, or when they are afraid of being caught. This usually makes things worse than ever, and they tell more lies to try to cover up the ones they've already told. And in the end and when all is uncovered their shame is worse than at first. The truth would have paid, besides being "right." 5. They he at times, because they are angry with some- one and they think they can "get even" by telling some- thing mean about them. This kind of a lie acts like an AustraUan "boomerang." It brings trouble back to them. God's law of love would have protected them if they had protected others instead of lying about them. 122 CITIZEN, JR. 6. They sometimes lie just because they enjoy spread- ing an evil report about somebody. Though often the other person is innocent, the one who is lying feels jealous because the other is given credit or position or advantages that the lying ones covet. Even aside from the wrong of this, which is great enough, is the injury that they do to themselves. Wouldn't saying something kind have helped in every way? 7. They lie sometimes to flatter people, to "work" them and so gain some favor or something they want. When folks find them out, as they surely do in time, their careful planning meets disaster and they lose their "standing'' with people. Honesty is best. 8. They lie for the sake of trying to be pleasant and to make folks like them. This goes all the way from a false but well-meant politeness, to being a thorough hypocrite. When such lying is continued even the tones of people's voices become insincere and betray them in spite of them- selves. People Uke a friend to be genuine and sincere. 9. Folks lie because they haven't courage enough to tell the truth and face other people's opinions. Lying doesn't save them, though, for people usually know, and despise them as cowards. In the end if they told the truth, folks would at least respect them for it. 10. People lie in order to try to get out of a difficulty or scrape that they have been in. If they realized what they were doing to themselves, they would shun the lies and be courageously truthful. Such a list as that is all black clouds and no white shining. Suppose you look back over it and see where the lack of true citizenship comes in, and where the poor citizenship affects other people. Then as you think things over, point out what would make a path of white shining, instead, THE PATH OF WHITE SHINING 123 Some of these lies are the kinds that people use only once in a while. The mask of deceit is pulled over their customary honest faces because of some special thing. But now and then there are boys and girls and men and women, too, who wear deceitful masks so much of the time that people come to distrust them absolutely no matter what they say. So strong has the habit of lying proved to be in them that people think of them as fakes and shams. Suppose that you were carried ahead twenty- five years and set down where you could see the Juniors when they were grown up. Think out ways in which their lying will hinder their fullest citizenship. Will it pay, in the end? Perhaps you yourself are tempted to lie for one reason or another. What can you do to stop it? Do you remem- ber the slogan for this group of lessons? Here is a prayer that you can use as well. You will find it in Psalm 141 : 3. "Set a watch, O Jehovah, before my mouth. Keep the door of my lips." Memorize it thoroughly so that you will have it when you need it. Here is another verse that you will like and that should be a help: Psalm 34:5. "They looked unto him and were radiant; and their faces shall never be confounded." Put it alongside of the citizen rule about lying: "Thou shalt not bear false wit- ness against thy neighbor." Does the word "radiant" seem like a sort of promise of the shining truth that God will give you if you ask his help to use the citizen rule? Every time that you are tempted to lie, ask yourself which you really want, the mask of deceit, or the truth and honesty that shows a shining pathway. Work These Out For how many lessons of this group can you use the prayer that is in Psalm 51 : 10: 124 CITIZEN, JR. Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me? How do lies injtire good citizenship? As you memorize these lines from Scott, decide just how they apply to these lessons. *'0! many a shaft, at random sent. Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken. May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!" How many times have you seen a path of white shining in some one's speech or conduct recently? How about yoin- own ? Have you gained any points lately ? How well have you established the habit to "Watch Your Words"? GROUP X Lessons 19 and 20 BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS The bluebird has become a symbol of happiness. Its color and song are lovely, but it is since people have read the play called "The Bluebird" that it has come to represent happiness to them. You may have read the play or seen it either on the stage or in the movies. In that story two children went in search of a bluebird which was to bring new life and happiness to a little neighbor girl who was sick. A fairy gave the little boy a hat with a diamond in it. When the diamond was turned the souls of the everyday things —the walls of the house, light, water, and fire, bread and sugar, and the cat and the dog — could be seen and understood. In our next lessons we shall go in search of happiness to transform the ugly moods that often come to citizens. Each of you will have a hat with a diamond in it — your desire to be a good citizen. Now it is time to "Turn Your Diamond." •BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS" 125 126 CITIZEN, JR. LESSON 19 DOWN IN THE MOUTH A DISCOURAGED Citizen's face isn't on straight. It is all pulled out of shape. The eyes are dull and look as if the tears would come at any minute. And the mouth instead of curving happily is all pulled down at the corners. It is so sad and good-for-nothing and discouraged that people do not like to see it around. And the person is the picture of one who hasn't a friend in the world and who would like to "crawl into a hole and die," as people often say. What is the matter? Perhaps he hasn't played fair with his body. Maybe he was greedy and over ate. Maybe he hasn't kept cleaned up inside. Maybe he hasn't slept as much as is best; or some other thing that makes him all worn out and tired instead of full of "pep." If you do not see what this has to do with it, never mind. Just turn to what Paul says in i Corinthians 3: i6. Kjiow ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? In the margin you will j&nd that "temple" means "sanctuary," which is another way of saying "holy place." So you see that the discouraged citizen has been desecrating one of God's holy places by mistreating his body. Of course he has not realized what he was doing. He just did what he felt like doing. In order to make this all still plainer, turn back to the Old Testament and read about the Temple at Jerusalem and some things that happened to it. You will find the places in 2 Chronicles 5:13 and 14; 2 Chronicles 29:15-19; 2 Kings 21:47, and 2 Chronicles 33:45-47. You might also look up Daniel 5 : 2-5, where Nebuchadnezzar and his court drank BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 127 wine and praised their idols in the golden vessels taken from the Temple of God in Jerusalem. This was just be- fore the handwriting appeared on the wall of the king's palace foretelling Nebuchadnezzar's downfall. When you were the discouraged citizen whose body had been mistreated because of over eating we might say that you set up an idol in the temple. When you were careless about cleaning up inside you let trash and disorder accumulate there instead of doing as King Hezekiah did. And when you did not rest enough you let some other desire carry off some of the sacred equipment of your temple. So how could the glory of God be revealed there? But bodily conditions may not be the reason for the discouragements that you have felt. The trouble may be in your mind, and in your feelings — the "Holy of holies" of your personal temple. Here are some causes of that kind which several growing citizens have thought of as they talked about this lesson for our book. Maybe the teacher may have scolded at you too much. Your parents seem to nag at you. Your feelings may have been hurt. You have lost a game or somebody has been mean to you. Perhaps you can add to the list. Do so if you can, in order to have it ready to talk over in class. Try to find out whether anything was wrong with your citizenship when the teacher "called you down/' or your parents "nagged/' or when you sat up after you were tired and should have gone to bed. Were you "playing fair" and were you doing Senior-Citizen choosing? It isn't spe- cially pleasant to look one's faults in the face, but how are we going to see ourselves as we seem to others unless we are willing to look? And how are we going to find out how to change if we stick our heads into the sand as the 128 CITIZEN, JR. ostriches are said to do, because we don't want to look and to see? In this connection you will probably like to reread part of the story of Elijah. You will find it in i Kings lo: 4~i8. Elijah was discouraged because he thought being good was "such a lonesome job.'' He thought that he had been a wonderful example of a good citizen, and that everybody else was at fault. He was tired of trying and "wanted to die.'' Look and see what happened to help him. He first had to tell the cause of his discouragement and find out that it was all a mistake. Then as he communed with God he received strength from him. These things are the remedy for all discouraged citizens. When you get discouraged it really means that you are wanting to get back to the baby stage of living. You want people to pay you attention and comfort you or do things for you or be sorry for you, etc. You want to stop trying and not exert yourself any more than you did when you were a baby. You pity yourself as Elijah did. But most of the time you do not realize that this is what it means. Can you think out how this pitying of yourself is really a sort of mental "consumption" wasting away your strength? Would it do to call it a kind of "cannibal" living, since you eat up yourself and you eat up the strength and patience and time and spirit of other people? Another way to describe it would be "pussy-cat" living since you want to be stroked and made comfortable! Now that you realize these things of course you do not for a minute want to keep them up. One big help toward a change will be to look at things squarely. Perhaps you will need to ask yourself whether you really get a sort of pleasure from sagging and discouragement. Do you really BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 129 want the happiness of the bluebird, or this other false kind of sensation — the one that makes you the center of things? Find out whether you bring the trouble upon yourseK by not being fair at home or at school, or with somebody you know. If so, you will want to get to work and fix things up. Remember, too, where you get your power to live. With all of God's wonderful supply to draw from is there any reason why you should not come to live superbly and to overcome whatever trouble there may be in you or in other people? Like Elijah, when you speak with God, you can be strong again. Now go over your "discouraged" list again and see how such living spoils your good citizenship and how it inter- feres with other people. What sort of future citizen will result if you keep on? What is to be done to avoid this? Let us review what we have studied: Remove the cause by studying the facts, make the better choice, and shine with God in overcoming. Then you will have turned your diamond and will see a very different-looking world. Finding Bluebirds Somebody once made a sulky little girl laugh, and helped her to choose better by saying to her with a nice tone and a pleasant smile, **0h, Mary, please put your face on straight !" Do you know how to put yours on that way ? Think back to the lessons on * 'Sunlight Living" and see how many bluebird ways of bringing happiness you can find to help discouraged people. Pick out and make a list of the ones that appeal to you most and that you will try both with other people and with yourself. What is the greatest secret of happiness-living for a dis- couraged person to learn? Look carefully at the last part of the lesson that you have just been studying and see if you can find this very special bluebird for happi- ness. I30 CITIZEN, JR. Here are verses from Longfellow for you to memorize. As you do so, you will find it interesting to picture in your mind what is said. You can see the **torrents** half dried up, and later full to overflowing. Perhaps you may have seen a stream do this. Next look for the cause and compare it with the cause spoken of in the last two lines, to see how these verses express the citizen secret of happiness. **As torrents in summer, Half dried in their channels, Suddenly rise, though the Sky is still cloudless, For rain has been falling Far off at their fountains, **So hearts that are fainting Grow full to overflowing. And they that behold it Marvel and know not That God at their fountains Far off has been raining." LESSON 20 GRIT GOING TO WASTE A Junior Citizen who always had been troubled by a very difficult temper had been nagged about it, and scolded for it, and made to feel like a heathen because of it until she was bitterly discouraged and, like Elijah, she wanted to die. She would repent and pray and try to be good, but it didn't seem to help very much. One day as she was talking to her pastor he asked how she was getting along. So she told him how she felt about her "terrible temper." With the kindest sort of smile he looked at her and said, ''Don't you know that temper is only grit going to waste?" BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 131 Instantly that turned the diamond for her. It took away the old hopeless feeling forever. She saw that in- stead of being something altogether bad, temper means power going to waste, power that may be used in splendid, courageous living. She did not know, as you do, that this tremendous life energy is a holy thing, and for a long time she did not learn to use it rightly, but she did see that to lose one's temper means an immense waste of good material. Now let us look at some Bible verses — Proverbs 16:32: He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city. As you think this over imagine that you see the persons who are compared. On one side is somebody who is not easily made angry. On the other side is a ^'mighty" one, an emperor or a wealthy person who cares only for him- self; whoever you choose. Then another contrast. A man who is able to be quiet and poised under provocation, while opposite to him is a conqueror of a walled and fortified city, perhaps. As you picture such contrasts work out why one is "better" than the other. Next suppose we list everything that is like losing one's temper, so as to learn as much as we can. There are fret- ful, snarling, surly, irritable, sulky times as well as blazing angry ones. All of them belong together, like a family. Think awhile and see to what they would grow when they ripened. And refer to what Jesus says in Matthew 5: 22. Such moods mean that you are being pulled back toward a savage way of living that would end in your doing what would injure or kill. That sounds pretty terrible, for, of course, you hadn't realized it was like that. Now that you see it so plainly as it is when it gets ripe, it will be 132 CITIZEN, JR. easier not to choose that sort of living. Besides, suppose the habit grows stronger until it controls you. You know the sort of citizens who do that kind of thing when they are grown and who have to be put in prison. Do you suppose that if they had learned how to govern them- selves when they were Juniors, they would have landed there? All of the trouble about temper needn't be as bad as it seems. It just means that you have to run yourself as if you were an automobile. Instead of letting it turn just any way, or allowing somebody else to interfere when you are driving, you must guide the wheel yourself. The power within you is so strong that it can go with a whiz, but you must guide it. When you are ugly because you do not like something that somebody has done to you, and when you "just hate" somebody who is good, or who has succeeded where you have failed, and when you get angry, the old furious, savage way of living is trying to swing the wheel out of your hands, and a smash-up is likely to happen. You know how it is. Lots of times, it may be that you have trouble with your temper because you are afraid that somebody is going to boss you or to try to make you do something that you do not want to do; just as if the other person grabbed the steering wheel away from you. You'll have to admit that sometimes you do need help, but right here is where you have a great chance for citizenship training. Just because other people love you and want to help, because they are so eager for you to do exactly what is right, and because they feel that they are responsible for you they often start to **boss" or criticize, or even just tell you what to do, when you feel that it isn't necessary. Sometimes they are so accustomed to running things that they forget to giye you your turn; and sometimes, BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 133 especially if they are Junior Citizens, they are so eager to run things themselves that they try to take part of your share. No matter what the reason is, you've got to learn to drive, to be your own best boss, as we studied in the lessons on "Following the Star." If you get cranky, you are not guiding. You prove that you are still scared and think that somebody is going to run into you. If you flare up, you start a fire in the other person. You have to learn the biggest choosing. How can you do it? Try to think. If an older person is the one who is seeming to try to take the wheel from your hands, can't you quietly ex- plain, after you have prayed a bit silently? Why not help the other person to understand by asking that a chance be given you to prove what fine initiative and self- reliance you are capable of showing; what an excellent citizen you can prove yourself to be! People will usually listen if you are nice about it, especially if you speak gently and smile in a courteous, considerate way that shows that you want to play fair. If it is another Junior, just remember that whatever you say and do is going to make it either hard or easy for him to be a good citizen. "Watch Your Words." If you can keep yourself steady, you can show him how to play fair, and both of you will gain. With either the older people or with Juniors, do you think it can help to be ugly? Does it get you anywhere? Some folks aren't quite sure. They rather enjoy letting go. It gives them a feeling of freedom and power. Is this a good kind? Or is it only pirate living? Another reason why some folks like to indulge in angry spells is because they think they can get what they choose by doing so; trying to make people give them what they want rather than stand the horrid times when they are angry. Big 134 CITIZEN, JR. squalling babies, aren't they? Some others do it because it is the only way they know of making other folks obey them, and this is what they want. They are so small in their living that they resort to a mean trick like this to prove how big and powerful they wish they were. Still other folks get angry because they have not learned any better way of securing justice and making things come right. They are afraid of the person with whom they are angry, afraid of being mastered by that person. They are strong enough to want fair play and to try to get it instead of giving up discouraged, but they feel weak and unable to meet the other person's attitude except by an angry protest. Of course the other one does not understand and regards it as a sign of an ugly dis- position. Perhaps this may be true in your case. If so, you have a lot of adventures ahead as you learn how to rely on God to keep you quiet and strong, instead of doing unworthy things. It may help you to know that many grown people have this difficulty. You will see it showing every now and then. Usually they did not get a good start. Probably when they were little, somebody was bossy or cranky or interfered needlessly with them. Perhaps somebody thought it was funny to see them get *^mad" when they were teased. (You've seen folks who did such things to a baby and laughed at it, but later, when it was a little older, scold it for being ugly tempered.) Maybe it was a bossy brother or a very nagging sister who interfered with their initiative and development. Whatever the reason, these unfortunate older people still carry with them deep in their minds the picture of what happened. They may have forgotten it, but the picture is still there, and away deep down is the old angry feeling. So without realizing it when somebody annoys them now, the happenings of BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 135 to-day combine with the buried feeling of the old expe- riences just like two big soap bubbles when you put them together. And then they get a big anger, and soon there is a smash-up. Think how immensely strong the habit has grown through the years of doing these things. Can you afford to risk becoming like them? You know better and are having chances that they never had. Will you not have to count in these things when you must play fair with such an unfortunate grown person the next time that trouble starts? You will have to help be good for both. Just what will be your share as a Junior Citizen in preventing more trouble for them on your account? Just how can you help? Perhaps you have found out that when you try to con- trol your temper by just cramming it back and holding in the ugly things that you want to do and say, it sud- denly breaks loose and you do something that you are sorry for even when you least expect it. Some tiny thing makes it come up like those funny little heads that spring up out of the Jack-in-the-Box playthings that children have. The lid flies off and up your temper comes with its ugly old face. That happens because you were trying to be good by just holding in. You haven't learned to use your temper. Look up Proverbs 19: n, Proverbs 15: i, Romans 12:21, Luke 6:32-33 and Galatians 5:13-15, and see if you can work out for yourself ways of using God's life lovingly instead of wasting it in temper. May- be you may not succeed the first time you try to live the new way. Never mind. Keep at it. It is just like learn- ing a game, or practicing for a race. Think back to what we read about the tremendous strength of the bad- temper habit that some persons have. We talked of it in the lesson on "The Game." Let that be a measure to show you how wonderful the new and better habit can 136 CITIZEN, JR. be in you if you practice year by year in constant choices of what you really wish to have when it is "ripe." Temper is grit, or power going to waste, you remember. And God is Love. Which do you choose? Bluebird Searchings Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek," those who have no antagonisms, no ugly fighting places, no scratchy sur- faces to rub against other people or to be bimiped by them. Why are they "blessed" or happy? How can you have true adventures of spirit in changing from discouragement to a new enthusiastic effort ? How is it possible to have a real adventure with yourself or with other people in regard to temper and moods like it? In an old-time story book there was a story of a boy who was easily discouraged and who had a nasty temper. As he went on a journey much like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, he was reminded over and over of this verse, which helped him to win out. "Keep your temper. Never give in, And success you'll surely win." Write in your notebook or tell in class why these two points can promise success. If an older citizen is cranky to you, are you justified in becoming cross or in losing your temper? Why? What can you do to bring "happiness" instead? What Bluebird tests have you passed since you began these two lessons? Here is a part of a psalm for you to think about and memorize, if you have not done so already. Psalm 1:1-3: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, BLUEBIRDS FOR HAPPINESS 137 Nor sitteth in the seat of the scoffers: But his delight is in the law of Jehovah; And on his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, That bringeth forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also doth not wither; And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. What is the kingdom law by which such a man guides his conduct and achieves success instead of being proud, scornful and disagreeable? What is the best way to 'Turn Your Diamond'*? GROUP XI Lessons 21 and 22 TESTS OF COURAGE Tests of courage for everyday and for special times are what we will aim to work out in this new group of lessons since cit- izenship of quality requires cour- age of the finest kind. Just as an Indian lad must learn to shoot straight to the mark with his arrows, so you as a Junior Citizen are going to practice in order to form the habits that will give to your courage the surest aim. Before you come to the time of full citizenship you will test yourself out again and again. As you do so you may like to think of this Bible verse which holds a courage secret. It is the first verse of Psalm 27. Jehovah is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? •AIM STRAIGHT" LESSON 21 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES Did you know that some of the old fairy tales that you used to read can come true in your everyday living? Take 138 TESTS OF COURAGE 139 Jack the Giant Killer, for instance. Just as he found adventures in the course of his journeyings and found ways of overcoming his huge enemies, so you can have adventures and make courageous conquests from day to day. Every hard task, every difl&cult thing, instead of overwhehning you, stealing away your courage and making you pity yourself because you have such a hard lot, can really become a challenge to you to test your ability and courage. Then, instead of being a cowardly person who sees only the difficult part, you can be one of those courageous souls who are on the lookout to dis- cover in hard things adventures. What does it matter if the thing is hard? Are you eager to prove how weak you are? If you master things, isn't it a proof of your courage and your power? In whose strength do you live? What about the Bible verse with its secret for courage? Now that you come to see some of these things, aren't folks really funny sometimes in the way that they act? Perhaps you may catch a glimpse of something funny in yourself that you never supposed was there if you will just look closely enough. When you are promoted from easy work to something harder, to a higher grade or a bigger undertaking, of course you feel pleased and a bit proud of this proof of your ability and progress. But when the slow, hard part of the new work begins, does the happy music that was inside you change to a doleful wail about how hard you have to work and a complaint that there isn't any fun in this thing? And then when you manage to succeed do you find yourself bragging about what a "lot of work" it had been, and do you feel big and satisfied with yourself again? Aren't you rather funny, now that you think of it all? Do you Hve in minutes or in meanings? Isn't it the spirit of the mean- 140 CITIZEN, JR. ings that makes the minutes count whether for cowardice or courage? Next time, how will it do to ask yourself, "Am I showing the courage that makes adventures?*' You can have a wonderfully good time as you explore each difficult thing and master it. This means exactly what it says. You can actually have fun out of the hard things. Don't you like to win a hard game better than an easy one? Then think and see that every disagreeable task, every hard decision, every difficult undertaking holds hidden treasure, something that is worth your best efforts and that calls to you for the courage of an adven- ture in discovering its wealth. You can even have an adventure in discovering courage when you are discouraged. Let things come back into your mind from tt^e time that you began to feel discouraged. Find out just what happened; look even at the uncomfortable, disagreeable, discouraging facts, whatever they may be. You can't afford to make a Jack- in-the-Box of them, you know. Do not brood, but look to see just where you were at fault and how you can change. Then make your decision for new courage, in God's name. Find your adventure in using his life to bring triumph out of defeat, no matter how long or how short a time it takes. Make a big adventure out of changing yourself from a citizen who is a nuisance, a drain and a drag, to one who boosts and succeeds. You can have an adventure if you use this God-inspired courage when you are tempted to let your temper and fiery feelings run away with you in irritability, stubborn- ness, anger, etc. Indeed, these things can yield two kinds of adventure. A quality citizen can be made from a bothersome strife-stirring one, and you can adventure with the other persons involved, for instead of getting "even" by going down to a low, unkind level of living you TESTS OF COURAGE 141 can climb up the Jacob's ladder of prayer and choose to give them your loving kindness. In both the Old Testament and the New — in Proverbs 25: 21-22 and in Romans 12 : 20 — you will find directions to follow in your adventure and conduct. Here are the verses for you to see how both the Old Testament and the New give you directions in almost the same words. Old Testament If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou wilt heap coals of fire upon his head, And Jehovah will reward thee. New Testament But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. This expression about heaping coals of fire refers to the old savage desire for vengeance upon an enemy ex- pressed proverbially by the thought of making him suffer from the fire. But the only vengeance that a true citizen takes is to do a good turn to the offender. Then the "enemy" feels a "burning sense of shame" that makes him desire to make things right, since he has not received evil but good. If a return is made in a spirit like his own, do you think there is much hope of mending matters and changing to a loving relationship again very soon? What, then, is "good business" from a citizen's point of view? Do you recall the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel? Jacob was facing something very hard, the results of his sin of years before. As you remember, he had done his brother Esau a great wrong. For years they had not 142 CITIZEN, JR. even seen each other, since Esau had said he would kill Jacob. Of course, remembering what he had done, Jacob was afraid to meet his brother. Yet he must meet him the next day. That night the messenger of God wrestled with him. Surely, it was like a fight between his old tricky self and the higher one. How he must have lived over what he had done ! Probably he felt tempted to keep on in the same spirit, for people often do when they have wronged someone. But he must also have seen how he looked in God's sight, and longed to be made right. And so, in the darkness he wrestled with a man who revealed God to him and who gave him a new name when he insisted on having the stranger's blessing. From being Jacob he became Israel. If you look up the meanings of these names, you will see that from being a tricky, dis- honest man he was now to live as a prince who had power with God and men. Did you ever wrestle anything out this way? Then you know the wonderful change that came. Perhaps you were trying to play fair with somebody whom you had wronged. You didn't want to apologize, maybe; you were ashamed and afraid to meet the person. But as you prayed and thought, you found new courage and you went and did the hard thing. Everything was straightened out again and you felt like a new person. Now that you look back over it, do you see what an adventure of a spiritual kind it was? Do you think it was worth the hard struggle to make an Israel out of your Jacob? Does it give you more courage to adventure, the next time that something happens? There is still another way in which a citizen can prac- tice the tests for this finest of courage. Do you remember the Code for American Boys and Girls? It is in the book, The Rules of the Game, Part of the code says, "I will not TESTS OF COURAGE 143 be afraid of doing right when the crowd does wrong." Do you feel that you can say this of yourself? Of course it is hard, one of the hardest things that a citizen has to do. It is an immense test of his courage so it is a chance for a supreme adventure. Who knows whether in some way, either now or later, your courage and your stand for the right may turn the whole crowd in regard to this thing and start some or all of them to making right life decisions besides. So do you dare to risk not doing it? Perhaps the whole citizenship problem for you and for them hangs on what you do. Will you be dependable in this? Not by your own efforts alone can you achieve the adventure, but you, with the power of God living in you, can do it. Maybe it may comfort and help you to think about Someone else who was alone in his stand for the right, whose friends went back on him, and one of them even betrayed him to the folks that hated him. Yes, just as you have guessed, it was Jesus, in the garden of Geth- semane. He went there to pray. He needed comradeship in his diflficulty, but even his best friends did not under- stand and went to sleep, although he had told them that he was sorrowful even "unto death." Alone in the garden he faced an agony of spirit so great that it brought a bloody sweat that might have killed him. If he had died then, people could not have been sure of the wonderful thing that he was going to prove. Three times he went back to his friends and they failed him. But his prayer to God for help and that his will only might be accom- plished brought him aid from the invisible world. A little later he was betrayed by one of those whom he had chosen to be with him. He went on courageously to his death, for only in this way — by being put to death and buried, and then by rising again — could he make the 144 CITIZEN, JR. world sure that death is not the end of everything and that the soul's life goes on eternally. It was a magnificent adventure of spirit, the greatest ever known. Being done in the strength and power of God it could not fail. Just as Jesus received help from the world of the spirit, so peace and quiet come to you when you make it your one purpose to glorify God as you adventure in doing what is best for everybody, though all the crowd is against you. So when the crowd is going in the wrong direction and you must stand alone, take courage and pray as Jesus did. If he could face what he did, alone, in the strength of God, so can you. Know that God is with you and within you, giving you life. Ask him to put into your mind what to say, to show you how to make the right way so attractive that the crowd will want to do it. Help wiU come and you will find the way to achieve your adventure. Remember your verse that holds the courage secret and remember Jesus Christ as he faced the worst that the world could do. It is courage like his that brings heroic adventures. Some Test Points See whether you recall the verses by Sidney Lanier, the lines from the poem **Sunrise" that you memorized in the * 'Sunlight Living" group of lessons. Does this poetry belong with these Courage lessons too? Why? Is it true that **he that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city"? Which takes more courage? How will you complete this — *T will be courageous as a citizenand will not ^because I choose instead "? Ask yourself, "How many ways can I think of in which courage is a help in my good citizenship?" List your answers. How far does your courage or the lack of it make a dif- ference to other citizens, both Junior and Senior? TESTS OF COURAGE 145 LESSON 22 WHEN THE CROWD LAUGHS How do you suppose Noah felt when the neighbors made fun of him while he was building the ark? Do you think his feelings were anything like your own that time when the crowd laughed at you because you stood up for something that was right and that they did not want to do? Did you have Noah-courage to meet the test and to hold fast to the code ideal, "I will not be afraid of being laughed at'7 It surely does take courage to be unafraid of ridicule and of being thought queer. Some- times you wish there were something to help you out perhaps. Let us talk it over and do a little "supposing." Suppose you are on a hike with the crowd and know exactly which road to choose when you come to a cross- ing. You are absolutely sure about it and nobody else knows. Will you really mind their opinion very much if they all insist on going the other way? Isn't there some- thing that makes you feel secure in knowing that they, not you, are mistaken and that they will find it out in the end? And you will not be willing to go with them the wrong way either, will you? You'll march straight ahead in the right direction and let them follow or not as they choose. You know. This is what will help you when you stand up for doing right and the crowd laughs at you. The thing that will help you not to be afraid and not to mind, will be your being absolutely sure that the thing is right. You will be able then to see where their road leads, and will know that it will not take them where they would really want to be, in the end. So you will not care if they do laugh. You will know and will not mind because you can see 146 CITIZEN, JR. that the laugh and the joke are really on them. Noah let the crowd laugh, and went on building the ark. You can let your crowd laugh while you go on building citizenship. It isn't just comfortable at the time, but, like Noah, in the end results will justify your courage. If you think that it is hard to wait until the crowd finds out its mistake, perhaps it will help to think a bit about the quiet patient endurance of Jesus when the soldiers and the crowd were mocking him and his mes- sage. You know how they dressed him up like a king and struck at him and spit at him. If anybody did such things to you, probably you would be insulted and might want to fight back. But Jesus didn't. He did not even say a word. Now ask yourself this: Which takes the greater courage, to fight back or to be undisturbed? Will you achieve it? Sometimes citizens "have their feelings hurt." Did you ever have it happen to you? Yet, can anybody really hurt your feelings except yourself? Why do feelings get hurt anyhow? "Somebody says something mean to you." If that hurts, is it because it is true? If so, you hurt yourself because you aren't willing to recognize your fault. The baby seK in you wants to think it is perfect and wants everybody else to think so too. This is one of the times that take real courage to admit disagreeable facts and to change conduct. If the mean thing is not true, need you mind? Are you afraid of being left out of somebody's friendship, of being scorned? Then you are hurting yourself. Make yourself worthy of the best friendship in the world and the loss is the other person's, not yours. Don't hurt yourself; make yourself. If you are "hurt," is it your real citizen self that is hurt or only the proud, childish self that wants to show that it is perfect? Isn't the only injury that can be done TESTS OF COURAGE 147 caused by you when you are less than the shining, glorious being who reveals God's life? Anything in you that darkens his glory has to be taken away as quickly as possible. If a friend shows you that you need it, have courage to be grateful. There is a test in this. There are other ways that test you for greater courage. How about the courage required not to "take a dare'' when it would be either unwise or wrong to do as you are dared? Or when you have had a big disappointment, and everything goes wrong? How about courage then? What about the courage that it takes to stick at a job, when the fellows come and call you while you are "mow- ing the lawn, or something"? Think about Peter, who wanted to fight back when the soldiers came to take Jesus, and who later denied, three separate times, that he even knew who Jesus was. Did he find it easier to fight or to have the courage to face the crowd? How about you when you have to face yours? Which is the greater, the courage to die, as a soldier dies, or the courage that it takes to live right and go against the crowd? Do you have it? Have you ever been discouraged — when you were scolded, maybe — and thought to yourself, "I wish I were dead"? Or have you been angry at somebody, perhaps, and thought to yourself: "If I would be sick and die, it would serve them right. Then they would be sorry"? Whether you have "wished you were dead," either be- cause you were discouraged or because you were wanting to pay somebody meanly for something that offended you, can't you see that it was courage that you needed? Living seemed too hard; you felt that you were over- whelmed by something too big for you to overcome. You wanted to escape because you needed the courage to live. Somebody found fault with you, nagged you, blamed you 148 CITIZEN, JR. unjustly, seemed unkind and inconsiderate; made you feel inferior and oppressed. You felt powerless to struggle against them and against the whole happening and you probably were not willing to look at the facts of your own conduct justly, nor to admit whatever fault was there. You were too busy with the other fellow. You wanted to escape him; you thought that if you were dead, you'd be out of it all and would "get even'' with him. How you needed the superb courage to live in God's wonderful life, instead of being a coward who wanted to die! By this time you know that it takes even greater courage to live than it takes to die as a soldier does. And you know just where a citizen can secure all the strength and power that he needs for this great undertaking. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Go back to Psalm 27, in which we found our verse with the courage secret. The very last of the psalm will tell you what you must constantly do if you are to have the courage that you need for living. To some Junior Citizens — a few — the thought of death seems terrible. They live in the valley of its shadow, fearing its evil, though they never tell anybody about it. They are afraid to die and afraid of the mystery of death. Part of their trouble may come from things such as we have been discussing, or they may have had a fright or an accident and crowded its memory back in their minds because it seemed too terrible to think of. New courage may come to them by recalling all they can of what happened, and then getting rid of their feeling by realizing that it really does not matter, for Jesus proved by his dying and rising again that life goes straight on and does not stop although the body may die. Whether or not you are a citizen who has had this fear of death, you may be glad to read what an American TESTS OF COURAGE 149 Indian felt as death approached him. It is in "The Change Song," an interpretation by Constance Lindsey Skinner. Here are a few lines from it. "... There is a sweeter song, my kinsman. It is the Change Song of Supreme One. I hear it now, He chants it to my heart Because pale death has crossed my threshold and has clasped my hand. Tear not,' sings Supreme One; 'I am making pure, making pure. I destroy not life, I am Life-Maker.' "Ah! Ah! my kinsmen are wailing; They saw me depart with death Into the White Change. But I go on — and on! And I sing the Change Song of Supreme One. »» 1 Closing Test Points What arrow-tests for courage wotdd you Uke most to pass, in order to win the citizen S3mibol for courage? Have you earned any points this last week? Look back to the "Finding Wisdom" lessons and see if you understand more about what it means when your feel- ings are "hurt." What is the straight aim that you need to find? Have you found the secret hidden in the Bible verse, Jehovah is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? iProra "The Path and the Rainbow." Used by permission of Boni and Liverightt publi^ers. GROUP XII •UNLOCK IT" Lessons 23 and 24 TWO PUZZLES The next two lessons are "A Rebus/' and "Wardrobe Puzzles." They deal with two kinds of things that puzzle Junior Citizens. A puzzle is a mystery. It seems closed and locked, and we have to hunt for a key that will open it. A pad- lock has been chosen as the symbol for this group because it differs from an ordinary lock. A key is needed to open either kind but how about the closing? Which one operates automatically? If we can get the right key for our two puzzles, we should be able to secure citizen-choices that will be as dependable as a padlock when it closes. Once started the thing is practically done. Think back to Lesson i as you study these new ones, and see if this sentence is the key to select for opening our padlock: "Seek First the Kingdom.'' LESSON 23 A REBUS Do you know the kind of puzzle that is called a rebus? The kind where you have to work out the meaning by putting together a string of pictures, letters, etc.? Here 150 TWO PUZZLES 151 is a very short, simple, easy one that will tell you of one puzzle that Junior Citizens have to solve. en: $5 bill :ING If you aren't able to read it now, perhaps you will be after you have read the Bible verse that follows. It tells a lot about the big puzzle as well as the little one. It is Galatians 5: 25, 26: If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. Now turn to Genesis 25: 29-34 and Genesis 27: 41, the story of Jacob and Esau. Of course you are familiar with the story from having studied it before, but you probably never thought about it in connection with citizenship. Suppose you work it out now, just as if it were a puzzle. How did Jacob violate the rules of the citizenship of the good? You remember that we spoke of them in other lessons. Why was it wrong for him to do as he did? What was the reason for his wrong choosing? Junior Citizens of to-day do not have to think about "birthrights," but there are some other things about which they often show envy or jealousy. Here is a sort of outline list that you can fill up with items as you think of them. I. Favors 4. Presents from People 2. Money 5. Friends or Position 3. Possessions 6. Opportunities 152 CITIZEN, JR. Next you might think out the kind of actions and ex- periences that citizens often bring about by their envious, jealous attitudes. What is wrong — the root of the wrong choosing? Think back to the verse from Galatians that tells about the rebus and then turn to Galatians 5: 13-15 and Romans 13 : 8-10, and see how these verses are re- lated to the puzzle that Juniors have to solve. You might also look up Genesis 4: 5-8 and i John 3:15. If anger is a disguised murder desire, how about the conduct of Junior Citizens when they show envy and jealousy to- ward others? If murder feelings are poison to the one who has them, love is the antidote for them. And love is of God. Since this is the case, what is the key to the puzzle? Since you have gone this far, maybe you would like to work out the citizenship damages — present and future — that come from envious, jealous living and choosing. Go over your list and think of the results to the citizen and to others, both now and later, that might result from such life standards. What does "playing fair" require of a citizen in such circumstances? There are two sides to this question. The right-hand side can represent what concerns the citizen himself and let the left-hand represent what others must do when a citizen commits a misdemeanor of this kind. What big reason for choosing the best line of conduct wiU make the right choice as easy as deciding whether to take a shining new penny or a dollar gold piece? What you have learned in other lessons should help you to answer, and the slogan for this group may also help you to decide. But do you know how a citizen can seek the Kingdom of the Good — when he does not want to? That is a rather TWO PUZZLES 153 big puzzle too. He can pray to want to choose the King- dom way of living — to want to be good, to want to love. If he finds that he is not quite sure that he even wants to pray to want this, he can pray to want to want it. Or he may even have to go back still further before he can find a prayer that he can pray with his whole heart and nothing held back. Then he can pray to want to want to want to be good and to show God's love. Maybe that sounds to you something like the nursery rhyme about the old woman whose pig wouldn't jump over the stile: "Water, water, quench fire; fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite pig, pig won't jump over the stile, and I shan't get home to-night!" But you will find that if you try this sort of praying, especially for love, your stubborn pig of an "I don't want to" will start to jump over the stile even though it may seem impossible. Perhaps, too, it will help you to make him go if you realize why you are envious or jealous. Isn't it true that you are imitating a baby in this? You want everything you see others having and you cry with your actions if you can't have what you want. Aren't you trying to prove that you are "just as good as anybody else" even if you have to be mean to do it? Fimny, isn't it, when you come to think of it? — ^rather baby reasons for choosing and for conduct! When you are tying up a package, every time you put the twine around and tie it the bundle is fastened more securely. The same thing happens with envying and jealousy and feelings like them. Each time they are re- peated makes another twist in the rope of the habit that binds you tight until it becomes very hard for you to get away when you are a grown-up citizen. Is this a good reason for watching your choosing, time after time and year after year? 154 CITIZEN, JR. When you choose the loving way of true citizenship and overcome your envy or jealousy by straight thinking, the prayer that brings a beautiful spirit and kindly action, then you build a habit of a different kind. Every fine choice you make is like a bit of practice in playing the violin or the piano. At first your fingers may not be quite right and the tones may not be perfect, but as you go on trying and practicing you become able to play more and more difficult pieces and your music becomes more beautiful. The loving choice is truly the key of your citizen music. This habit of choosing lovingly will make a marvelous change in the citizen that you are making. When you are grown, instead of showing that the demons of envious, jealous thoughts are living in your body, you will have the likeness of the Son of God. Surely, this is the choice to make! Puzzle Thinking How are jealousy and envy **imripe'' living? Have you seen a citizen who merited a symbol picture for being generous and thoughtful of others where some persons would have been envious or jealous? If somebody shows envy or jealousy toward you, what can you do that will make you a quality citizen instead of an inferior one ? Memorize the verses, Galatians 5: 25, 26, that express the rebus of the puzzle you have been studying, and that give its solution. LESSON 24 WARDROBE PUZZLES There is a difference between the puzzles that boys have about clothes, etc., and the ones that girls must TWO PUZZLES 155 solve. Let us see if we can say it in a sentence. How is this? Boys usually are as "scarecrow careless'' as the girls are "baby doll fussy." And yet, aren't both boys and girls often puzzled because they can't be allowed to do just as they please about what they wear and how they look? So here their puzzles combine. Don't you think it would be interesting to think out what these puzzles have to do with citizenship and what solutions we can find for them? Perhaps we'd better begin at home, for there is where a citizen often feels the troublesome puzzle. Home Citizenship, Is it fair to the home folks to be untidy and careless, or so busy "dolling up" and going that you don't want to take your share of the homemaking privileges? Is it fair to make it necessary for the folks at home to keep reminding you about hair-brushing, teeth-cleaning, and attention to nails and clothing, untidy bureau drawers and clothes presses, etc.? You aren't a baby who has to have these things attended to for you. Why not look after them yourself instead of making it necessary for other folks to do them for you with their minds and tongues! Where are your initiative and your independ- ence in these things? It is all right to want to be attractive and to have nice clothes, but do you think it is fair to be wasteful of your parents' money either by being careless of your clothes or by demanding expensive things for everyday wear, or wanting to wear your very best all the time? School Citizenship, Have you ever thought that carelessness in personal appearance is just about equal to saying: "I don't care whether I'm an agreeable, pleasing person! I'm satisfied 156 CITIZEN, JR. as long as I can do as I please and don't have to bother"? Did you ever happen to think that careless personal habits might lead people to misjudge you and give them the impression that you haven't the fine qualities of citizenship that you feel you possess? How do you feel, yourself, when you see a neat, clean, attractive person beside one who is careless and untidy in grooming. Which would you expect to succeed better in the business world? Would you think it appropriate if the teacher came with dirty face and hands and uncombed hair? Or if the minister got up to preach in a pair of overalls or with hands and face smeared after working on his automobile? Why, then, should you excuse yourself from grooming yourself nicely? Where is there any real difference? And, girls — how about it? Does a woman think it suitable to wear a party dress when getting the break- fast, or cleaning the windows, or going to market? Why should you want to be "dolled up" all the time regardless of whether it is appropriate or not? Think out what "suitable" dress should be — the kind that suits what you are doing at the time you wear it, and that truly ex- presses you. Have you such an exaggerated sense of your own im- portance that you want to try to outdress others? Is it "fair" — even though you succeed in persuading your parents to buy you the things you want and demand — if your having them and wearing them makes other girls uncomfortable or demand more than their parents can afford for them? Are you at all responsible for them? Exaggerated dress is much like singing at the top of your voice as you go along the street to attract attention. It is out of place. And it may cause people to misjudge you. Think out ways in which this is true. In many schools either the girls or the authorities have TWO PUZZLES 157 set definite limits for the dress of the girls who attend. What is the standard in your school? Do you see an opportunity for you and your friends, as good citizens, to show some fine initiative in deciding the dress problems on a basis of citizenship instead of letting matters go as they have been? What is your share in bringing your school to a better standard? Citizenship of the Good. If you will turn to i Corinthians 6: 19-20 you will find verses something like some that we referred to in the lessons of another group. But look especially at the last part of this and see if you find in it a key for the clothing puzzles of both boys and girls — "Glorify God, therefore, in your body." If you really feel that your body is a temple of God's Spirit, will you want to be careless or exaggerated in your dress? Which sort of choosing would put God into second place and you as the deity of the temple? Would such choosing and living make the superb sort of citizen that you are wanting to become? Is it your wish to live in a way that seems to say, "I don't care anything about this old temple. Anything will do. It is too much bother to be careful"? And do you think, girls, that a church should be fixed up to look like a picture show? How about your personal "temple"? Does it "glorify God"? More Puzzle Thinking A man called ''Beau Brummel," who was famous for being the best-dressed man of his time, was told by someone that a certain man was so well dressed that everybody on the streets turned to look at him. Beau Brummel replied that if that were the case, the man was not truly well dressed or he would not have attracted attention. Do you understand what he meant? 158 CITIZEN, JR. If the soldiers found that it was a great help to be neat and clean and to keep themselves tidily in order, is there any reason why Junior Citizens should let them- selves be careless? How have you pictured the way that a citizen of the king- dom of God should appear? Do you think that we foimd the right key to our puz- zles in the words, *'Seek first the Kingdom"? GROUP XIII 'COUNT UP" Lessons 25 and 26 COUNTING UP Most citizens would like to have a well-filled purse. If some- body gave you one, you would enjoy counting up what was in it to see how much it was worth. You would be greatly disap- pointed if you found bills that were counterfeit or coins from a country whose currency is not worth the same as ours and not accepted here. You would want them to have full value and be of an acceptable standard. On account of this a purse is the symbol for these next lessons, to represent the measure of value that true citizens want for their living and loving and doing. They do not wish counterfeits, nor do they desire what is un- worthy. King Solomon at the beginning of his reign dreamed that he had made a true citizen's choice. Instead of choosing riches, honor and other things of that kind, he asked for something else and received God's approval of it. You can read what God said to him, in i Kings 3 : 10-14. Here is a part of his prayer that every Junior Citizen might use: "Give thy servant an understanding heart." 159 i6o CITIZEN, JR. LESSON 25 MONKEY LIVING Do you remember about the Bandar-Log that we talked of once before? In the story of "Kaa's Hunting" of the Bandar-Log there are some places that are funny because of the way that they show up counterfeit living whether in monkeys or in people. One place is where the monkeys are described as they acted in the Deserted City. There, in the hall of the King's council-chamber, they would sit in groups, scratching for fleas and pretending to be men. They would scamper through the passages and rooms and tunnels, forgetting whether they had been in them before or not. As they moved around in crowds they would say that they were doing as men did. And though they muddied the water in the tanks when they drank they declared they were the wisest, best, strongest, cleverest and gentlest people of the Jungle. And you remember how they were always wanting to be ^'noticed" by the Jungle people and would do almost anything to attract their attention. And then at the close of the story there is a funny verse which says that they tried to remember all the different kinds of talk they had ever heard — that of bats and beasts and birds and fishes — and then jabber it all at once, in order to make it seem that they were talking just like men! Silly imitators, weren't they! But there are people who '^ape" the clothes and manners and speech of others in just such an unthinking way. They are what children caU "copy cats." Perhaps you know persons who are like that — always imitating, always going with the crowd, deciding the right or the wrong of their conduct by, "All COUNTING UP i6i the rest are doing it." They follow all the silly fads they see, and make freak fashions more extreme as they try to keep up with "the latest style." What monkeys they are! what Bandar-Logs! What has become of the fine originality and initiative and self-reliance that these people should be showing? In the Bible, in the story of David and Goliath you will enjoy seeing how David refused to do any such monkey living, but trusted to the weapon he knew and to the blessing and power of God. You will find it in I Samuel 17:33-50. As you read it again notice verses 38-40 and verse 45. David wasn't going to spoil everything by imitating unwisely, but chose to be himself, even though he might be ridiculed. He knew which was the better choice and did not mind. Put these two verses together and see the superb citizen choosing that David showed — this: And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. and this: Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to thee in the name of Jehovah of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. Here are some items suggesting ways in which Junior Citizens are not always so sure as David in their choosing. You will want to think them over and discuss them in class. 1. It is not the clothes that count as much as my attitude and conduct as I wear them. 2. If I do "movie" thinking and fussy '^fashion-plate" living, I am not expressing my true self. i62 CITIZEN, JR. 3. Good grooming — the nice attention to hair, teeth, nails and details of dress — is more important than the width of my ribbons, the size and shape of my collars, and the way my hair is cut or arranged. 4. In selecting manners and ways of speech, the form is not the most important thing, but the reason and spirit behind them. I will learn to pick and choose in these things in order to find the best. 5. If the hoops of a barrel slip off, the staves all clatter apart and fall in different directions. I will find a big, strong purpose to hold my living in shape so that it may not go to pieces in unwise imitation of what other people do. David's purpose may help you here. And Solomon's prayer may become the voice of your own soul's need. Exercises Write in your own words for your notebook what David's purpose was in not using Saul's armor. How can it be a citizen's purpose? Is there any connection between this story about David and the lesson on self-reliance? Explain. How many tests of courage did David undergo in the story you have been studying? Look over the whole tale from the time of his arrival at the Israelite camp. What, exactly, were these tests of courage that he met? How can you learn to draw the line about fads and fashions, **movie" conduct, story-book living, and the manners and ways of older people whom you are watching? What is the value of an imitator's ptirse filled with Bandar- Log thinking, choosing, doing? What is the difference between wise imitation of a good example and what we have called monkey living? How can you, as a strong citizen, help the weaker ones who are copying you? Will you be a David? COUNTING UP 163 LESSON 26 CITIZEN TREASURES "Where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also." Matthew 6: 21. Older people — sometimes what we call good people — once in a while make it very hard for Junior Citizens to work out the values of conduct- treasure; the kind that we want to discover in this lesson. Every now and then some person whom we have admired, or to whom we have looked for good example, says or does things that make Junior Citizens uncertain about what are the really im- portant things. Again and again some smart trick is praised that is not quite fair to somebody. These "good'' people are not good enough to see the very great dif- ference that there is between true and false smartness; between the kind that takes brains and character, and the kind that is trickery and thieving and roguery in disguise. For example, when the question of money-getting is the problem, an older person may say of someone, "I don't blame him for it, everybody has to look out for himself," just as if that excused meanness, dishonesty, and not giving the other fellow the square deal that you would want for yourself ! Then when younger citizens hear these things said by people to whom they look up, they begin to wonder whether what they have been taught about right and wrong is true, and whether the principles of Jesus are just something to be talked about on Sundays, but too hard or even impossible to follow through the week. How can they know that such talk is like what Jesus described as "wolves in sheep's clothing" ? (See Matthew 7: 15.) "What shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" asks Jesus in Matthew 16: 26. i64 CITIZEN, JR. Money and success are good and important, but if a citizen sells himself in order to make the bargain, is it really worth while? If money were the chief thing we were after in this world, then it wouldn't matter so much if a citizen made himself "a cheap skate," a liar and a cheat in order to get it. See if you agree with the person who answered a dis- couraged citizen by saying, "It all depends on the way you do your bookkeeping.'' There are things of greater value than money or success or position that you must put into the account. These things have spiritual values far greater than can be reckoned in money. You may like to look up some references in your Bible so as to study the stories of three different sets of people who made some imperfect reckonings. The first is the account of Eli's sons. You wiU find it in i Samuel 2:12- 17. Think carefully as you read it and see what was wrong with their figuring. Next we will go back to the story of Jacob and Esau again to see whether Jacob reaUy gained as much as he lost by his sharp dealings with Esau and his dishonesty to his father (Genesis 27:2-25), and see how Esau counted up values (Genesis 25:32-34). The third place to look up is about the rich young ruler who came to Jesus to find out about the kingdom of heaven. Luke 18:18-30. Jesus saw that money was worth more in this young man's eyes than character or helping other people, so he gave him a test that showed him how he was counting things up. After you have thought about these people you may like to begin working out the same principles in some true stories of people who are living nowadays. A woman who was hiring a teacher for a private school had engaged one for a salary which was satisfactory to COUNTING UP 165 the teacher. But when word came from former employers telling how valuable the teacher had been to them; in- stead of congratulating herself on having secured a bar- gain in the teacher, the woman in charge raised the salary without being asked, saying that the teacher would be worth that much more to the school. How do you reckon up the honesty values of this decision and action? A banker knew a widow who owned a nice farm. He knew also somebody who wanted to buy one. He went to the widow representing himself to be her friend who wanted to help her get the money out of the place and into a good investment. He persuaded her to sell the farm to him for what seemed like a good price to the widow. Then as soon as he had possession he turned around and sold the farm to the man that wanted one, putting hundreds of dollars into his own pockets. What were the citizenship values of a bargain like this? How do you think he was regarded by his fellow townsmen after such a bit of trickery? Now, a story just the reverse of the last one. An American living in China needed a place in the mountains where he could take his family during the deadly heat of the summers. He owned a lot but was not yet ready to build. No place was available for renting, but a chance came to buy a house that needed repairs and alterations in order to make it satisfactory. The price asked by the Russian woman who owned it seemed too high, but the American paid it to get the place. After the remodeling was done it was found that the sale had really been a bargain. A year or so later when he sold it again a large profit was cleared. Then the American and his wife sat down and figured out just how much they felt they should share with the woman from whom they had bought. A check with an amount in three figures was what they sent i66 CITIZEN, JR. to her. Of course they were not legally compelled to do it. They felt that it was only fair to her to do so. They were not wealthy themselves, but missionaries on a salary from which they had managed by economy to save dur- ing years, enough for the little place in the mountains away from the fearful heat of summers in the city where they were stationed. The extra money would have helped to build the new house, yet they felt that they would rather pay it to the woman than use it in that way. What qualities of citizenship did they show? Were they right in their choosing? What citizenship rule did they follow? Perhaps you have overheard people telling of things like these that have happened, both good and bad, that you can tell about in class to see how the citizenship tests apply. Perhaps you have known of Junior Citizens who did the honorable thing when they might have done differently. See if you can tell some in class. Before you stop this lesson suppose you stretch your imagination a little to make it reach to the time when you are a full-grown citizen yourself. If you have learned to judge values now, to put character first and not money, do you think you will know later what to do if someone asks you to take part in a grafting scheme or some under- hand business? Will it be any easier to decide? If a per- son sells himself out to secure special privileges that would be unfair to others, what is wrong with his reckoning? Do you see how a person who violates citizen rules sells himself "cheap'7 Working It Out Why is **graft" wrong? Give some examples of ways in which Junior Citizens are tempted to sell themselves cheap. Is there any test of courage to be met in these things? COUNTING UP 167 What is the difference between true and false smartness? Is it right to "do a friend a favor" if by so doing you violate citizen rules? Just what can you do in such a case? If a citizen *s chief desire is to show the glory of God, how can this become a citizen test for conduct treasure? Memorize Solomon's prayer and decide why it is of value for these lessons. Here it is again: **Give thy servant an understanding heart." ••GUARD THE GATE' GROUP XIV Lessons 27 and 28 THE KEEPER OF THE GATE The month of January is at one of the gates of time where a year comes in as another goes out. It borrowed its name from Janus, the god of gates and doors among the Roman peo- ple. They thought he had two faces so that he might look in both directions and guard the ways. As a citizen you can be a Janus who watches and guards the goings and comings of money. You can find out when to open and close the gateway and the reasons for doing so. That is why a gate is the symbol for these two lessons, "Your Money's Worth" and "Goblins and Genii." You can have a most interesting time experimenting as you become the guar- dian of the portal. Here is a citizen-thought that you may like to keep in mind as you study: "Money has twin faces. One side is Life and the other is Opportunity.^^ LESSON 27 YOUR MONEY'S WORTH When you have a nickel do you look at it as merely a coin, a thing that will buy you something you like — 168 THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 169 chocolate peppermints, maybe? Are you sure that you know what any piece of money means? Perhaps it will be interesting to think back to the times before money was used. A man has written a book about money for older boys and girls. In telling about the time before there was money he says that when "some people found that they could make certain things much better than their neighbors they made more of these things therefore than they themselves needed. These they ex- changed for such other articles as their companions were willing to give up. It was precisely the same principle as that on which two boys 'swap' a jackknife for a fishing rod, or two little girls exchange a doll for a ring." The same thing still goes on, for instance among the peoples of the far north, who exchange furs for the things brought by traders. In Africa too the same kind of ex- change still keeps up, where the natives give ivory and other products of their region for the traders' supplies. In all of these there is a "trading'' of a thing that represents one person's efforts, for something that required another person's time and strength to prepare. The first kind of money used seems to have been metal rings of different sizes. Perhaps this had its beginning in ornaments like finger rings, bracelets, anklets, etc. There are still some countries in the world where a man's wealth is computed by the value and weight of the collars, bracelets, etc., that are possessed by his wife or wives. In connection with this early "ring" money you will be interested to know that it is the kind referred to most commonly in the Bible. If you will look in a Bible dictionary under the word "money," you will find all sorts of interesting things that will help you to under- stand references in the Bible. You can have as much fun lyo CITIZEN, JR. studying them out as you have when you are collecting stamps and old coins and read up about them. One thing that you will discover is that the word ^'talent" (the story of the ten, five and one talents, you know) means a circle or ring, and that it was a very large piece that weighed about one hundred and thirty pounds. You may also find a picture taken from the inscriptions on old Egyptian monuments showing a man weighing ring money. This picture is in a Bible dictionary that is bound with the special ^'concordance" for the American Revised Version of the Bible. Perhaps your minister may have a copy that he would let you examine and take to class. As you probably know, before modern threshing machines were invented, it took a long time and much hard work to thresh out the grain that a farmer grew. Here is an old saying that was a bitter jest about the way some people spent hard-earned money. "Come easy, go easy, Daddy made it threshing." Everybody in those times understood how unkind and inconsiderate a son or daughter was who could spend money easily and unthinkingly just because it came into his hands or hers without costing them hard work. Contrast with this what a college student said in regard to what money means. "Whenever I think that I'd like to buy something — clothes, or candy, or a tablet, or a book or a ticket for an entertainment course — I stop and think of my father and then of the money. I remember how hard he has to work in order to earn it, so as I think of the money that the thing would cost, I say to myself: ^This represents a piece of my father. Is what I want to THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 171 buy worth that much of him?^ And that helps me to decide whether to spend it or not." In a college paper the student editors put this, which shows what they thought of the way that some folks spend money: "If you haven't earned at least a part of the money to pay for your course by the time you have reached your senior year in college, it will take a rich daddy to support you after you graduate." If you will think back over these three stories and what we learned about the beginnings of money, and trading, perhaps you can begin to see the reason for calling one twin face of money, Life, The traders in times of barter gave a thing that represented themselves and the effort they had expended — bits of their own lives. The farmer's children cared nothing for the life-cost of the money they spent. The college student thought of a father's life and work when considering the spending of money. And the not-earning seniors in college were wanting to receive all that life could give without using their own lives to earn at least a share. Why should anyone wish always to receive for nothing what other people must give part of their lives to earn? Yet many Junior Citizens do. What about you? There is another very interesting thing about money and life. From being a piece of someone else's life money comes to you. Sometimes, if you have earned it, it be- comes at once a piece of yours. If it is a gift of a part of someone else to you, it can become a part of you, or be thrown away, according as you use it. The same thing is true of the money that you yourself earn; as you spend it you either throw it away or you find that it brings you something to enjoy or to wear, or to use, etc., and so it brings to you a new piece of life. As you give out, you receive. The gate swings open and something goes out, 172 CITIZEN, JR. but another enters before the gate closes. As you give life you get life. Suppose we think back to Lesson I, and remember once more from where our life comes to us. If life is holy, if its power and beauty are of God, if in him we live and move and have our being, how shall we think of the money which is earned by the use of that life and which represents the life of people as well? What does the highest kind of citizen-thinking tell us as to the sacred reasons for the wise and careful use of money? Why is careless and wasteful spending a sign of poor citizenship? In thinking about waste and carelessness in using materials that have cost some person a share of his power of life, you will find an interesting comment in what Jesus says at the close of the account of his feeding of the multitudes. It is in the sixth chapter of John, verse 1 2 : Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost. Although Jesus spoke of pieces of loaves and fishes, can we not let it include whatever represents somebody's life? Think up some different kinds of things that you can gather up to prevent a part of somebody's life from going to waste. Can you include the saving of pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters, too? Why should we throw them away or waste them? Test Plans Which is the more important to gain, the ability to make money or the money itself? Why? What do you think of the citizen whose chief question is, "What is there in it for me?*' when a chance for citizen helpfulness or service comes? Is there anything good in such an attitude? Where is the mistake in it? THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 173 Is there any difference between saving and hoarding? Ex- plain the reason for your answer. Write this in your notebook. What is wrong with the fellow who says: "Fve got only this little bit. I might as well blow it in. Being broke isn*t much worse than this"? Why is one of money's Janus faces called **Life" in this lesson? What changes have you decided to make in your use of money because of studying this lesson? LESSON 28 GOBLINS AND GENII Probably there are very few Junior Citizens who have not read nor heard James Whitcomb Riley's verses about "Little Orphant Annie" and her stories of how "the gobble-uns '11 git you, ef you don't watch out." Of course you know that there are no goblins of the kind that Annie tells about, but there are other things that "git you" quite as disastrously when you do not "watch out." Some of them we will call money goblins. Here are ways that they "git" folks. Debt. In olden times a debtor could even be put into prison if he could not pay. This was true and very com- mon at the time when Jesus lived, as you will remember from the parable of the debtors in Matthew 18. Perhaps you have been in debt to somebody. Did you ever borrow a nickel or a quarter and then have to pay it back just when you wanted the money for something else? Hadn't the goblins put you in prison then? When you borrowed, how much of your "life" did you give for the bit of "life" received? The goblins fooled you that time, didn't they? Wanting something for "nothing." And were you the 174 CITIZEN, JR. least bit tempted to wish you didn't have to pay? Goblins were after you then trying to turn you into somebody who wanted what belonged to somebody else. What are such people called when they grow up, if they do such things? Goblins are trying to get you into prison, surely, if you don't watch debt! Wanting ^^easy money ^^ whether from parents or other people. Same old story — wanting something more from others than you were willing to give? Is there anything of a cheat about this? How about the citizen who will not do an errand for anybody unless he is paid a big price? How about the bellboys in hotels who want big tips for little services? Don't you think that they are in the clutches of the money goblins? What kind of future citizens will they be? They may have to fight the goblins to keep from becoming money grabbers, grafters, unscrupulous, tricky merchants and salesmen, etc. Wanting money when it costs in character, "Do a friend a favor" at the price of doing what is wrong? Sold out to the goblins, "cheap." ^^Get-rich-quick^' schemes — the old something-for- nothing story again, or something far bigger than the life put into the work is worth. You may read "ads" of this sort in the papers, or you may know of men going around trying to sell schemes of this sort to people in your neighborhood. Perhaps you have known of friends or neighbors who have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars of their savings in this way. Goblins got them, un- doubtedly. But how about yourself? Do you never day- dream about "finding money" or "If I were rich"? Look out, tliey are trying to "git" you! Fear of spending anything because of being afraid of having nothing later on; always seeing the rainy day ahead — ^look up Matthew 5 : 24-26 and see if the goblins THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 175 aren't making folks afraid to trust God for what is needed. This does not mean that we should not make wise provision for what may be ahead of us, but it does mean that we should not save with a hoarding spirit. Perhaps you find it hard to spend for fear you'll want your money later. Too much of that kind of thinking gives the goblins a chance to fasten the poverty habit to your mind. Miserliness. Do you remember the story of the famous miser, King Midas, who wished that everything he touched would turn to gold? And what a wretched time he had with his food and his clothes? If a person is always trying to make money, and to save money, just to put it away and have it, is he anything like Midas? The goblins are playing pranks with him. Are you stingy about anything? Look out! Be generous! Spending whatever you have as soon as you get it. If money is life and holds the seed of more life for you, are you losing your harvest, like the seed thrown on stony ground and on the wayside, in Jesus' parable? Look out for the "wantybuyit" goblins! Spending foolishly and extravagantly. We have al- ready talked of this a little. Is what you get in return worth much to you, or are the goblins cheating you when you spend like this? Better ask yourself the big question that you find in Isaiah 55:2: Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? "Bread" is lifegiving and symbolizes life. The marginal reading for the word "labor" is "earnings." Now say the verse over with these word changes; then memorize the Bible form, so that you can always have this verse to help you to think. 176 CITIZEN, JR. Well, we are all sure that we don't want the money- goblins to get us. And we are beginning to understand what they are. Any way of getting, having, keeping, or spending money that damages life, either ours or other people's, is the goblin way. Does this give us a clue as to how we may master money instead of being its slaves? Let's see. How is this? — Whatever brings more life, or a greater chance for it. Does this explain why the name for the second twin face of money is Opportunity? You remember, of course, that in the old fairy tales like "Aladdin" there were genii who did the bidding of the person who rubbed a lamp or a ring, or who had a magic formula. There are genii of money that bring the wealth of vast and countless opportunity-treasures to those who have the secret of mastering them. A common, everyday word is one secret charm that secures the service of these genii. It has only six letters, "t-h— f-t." Now do you know? Lots of people do not understand this word and despise it as Aladdin's wife despised the magic lamp when she sold it. They think that ^^ thrift" means being stingy and close. You know better than that. When you call on the money genii to help you to build your palace of life, you plan to be thrifty, you ask the genii to give you the opportunities for riches of happy, worthwhile, life-bringing things both now and in the future. "Thrift" means spending part and saving part; wise use now and saving in preparation for wise use later as good opportunities show themselves to you. Right here you may be interested in what men who have made millions of money have said. Perhaps you already know Andrew Carnegie's advice to save a part of every dollar that you receive. Will you save it just to save it or to get ready for bigger things to come? There is a man who has made a big fortune in auto- THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 177 mobiles that have given the farmers great opportunities for new life of many kinds. This man, Henry Ford, understood thrift so well that he offered to buy the world's "scrapped" navies in order to use the materials instead of having them wasted by the sinking of the war- ships. A man once said to him, "People who come at last by real money never do it by saving." By that he meant, piling up the dollars. Here is Mr. Ford's response: "The thing to do is to put it back into yourself, into your work, into the thing that is important, into whatever you are so much interested in that it is more important to you than the money." The longer you think over that answer, the better you will see how it shows the twin faces of money and the genii at work. "Put it back into yourself." Invest it for new oppor- tunities to make yourself and to prepare to be of more use. A Junior Citizen might do this in many ways. A boy can invest his money in material that will let him experi- ment; for mechanical equipment and for magazines, if he is interested in scientific things. A girl might invest in books that give directions for candy-making, doll- dressmaking, cooking; and she might buy what she needed to practice those things. Either boys or girls can have gardens, buying the seeds, etc. They might take lessons on a musical instrument, or in touch typewriting. There are some simple kinds of shorthand that are as fascinating as "codes," puzzles, and sign languages. Do you see the genii at work? "Put it into your work." If you have some way of earning money, give yourself a chance to earn more. For example, a boy who used his express wagon to deliver parcels and do errands for neighbors in spare time might save up and buy a bicycle. You can see how it will work 178 CITIZEN, JR. in other ways that you will think of for yourself; ways that set the genii to working for you. "Put it into something important; into whatever you are so much interested in that it is more important to you than the money." For a Junior Citizen this may mean many things: saving up for college or for a trip to a place of historic interest, or to do something special to help father or mother, etc. So you see it can also include that very important thing, the part of your money that you consecrate to God and give away. By sharing a part of what you have you make room for more to come to you, and by giving part away, you keep from being stingy as well as glorifying God by serving him. True thrift means being generous. Jesus spoke of it in Luke 6 : 38. Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. Is it your own money that you put into the collection at Sunday school and church, and that you give to various causes? Many people have found it a wonderfully good plan to set apart a definite share of what they have, for purposes like these, as God^s special part of their be- longings. Sometimes it is a tenth, and sometimes more. Then they always have something to give when appeals are made, and can usually give more than by any other plan. The tenth was the old Jewish plan. It was called the tithe. In Malachi 3 : 10 you will see what the prophet represents God as telling his people: Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, • . . and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. THE KEEPER OF THE GATE 179 Of course this means more than giving a share of one's money; it means putting his Kingdom "first" in our thoughts and plans and actions. This, Jesus says, is the citizen's way to abundance of every kind. Special Work The father of some Junior Citizens says that being in debt is like paying for a horse after it is dead. Do you think he is right? Why? What is the test of wise spending ? What wise plans have you made in regard to yours? What are good reasons for saving? Do you see any connection between having abundance and setting aside a special share for God? What part of your funds and time and living do you think God's special share should be? Shoiild you always take out the money from what you have? Why? If you make a fund for God in this way, will you ever feel "I haven't anything to give" when you would like to help a good cause? Do you really want to master money, enough to keep choosing as a citizen should? Or would you rather let money master you ? Explain why. Will prayer help you in any way, to choose? If what you "really want" and "choose" is to live the radiant life of God that is untouched by poverty or lack and that has all his riches to draw upon, then you know that "Money has twin faces, Life and Opportunity." GROUP XV Lessons 29 and 30 TELLING TIME "FOREVER—NEVER* How long is it since you learned to "tell time'' by the clock? Probably it was "long ago/' when you were rather little. Perhaps you can't even remember. The knowledge came, perhaps a little at a time. It be- came a part of you, and now you use it without remembering just when or where it came. But you have it, and it serves you when- ever you wish. Perhaps the time will come when you may look back and wonder when you learned other things about "time" which you will have worked out in these next two lessons. After they have been a part of you so long that it will seem as if you always knew, maybe you will stop and wonder how it came about. Time comes and goes, and goes and comes, and yet it is always here. The important thing about it, of course, is what you do with it and with the things it brings to you. Perhaps you know Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If," in which he includes among his list of "Ifs," the one about giving "the unforgiving minute its sixty seconds' worth of distance run." You can't play fair with a minute after it has gone, but you can be fair with the ones that are here and that follow. 180 TELLING TIME i8i Longfellow too writes about time in that poem, "The Old Clock on the Stairs," which you may have read. Do you remember this stanza? — "Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Through days of death and days of birth, Through every swift vicissitude Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood. And as if, like God, it all things saw It calmly repeats these words of awe Torever — never Never — ^forever.' '* You can become your own clock, measuring time in the value of what you do; saying "Forever'' as you choose what is immortal and godlike and saying "Never" as you put aside all that is unworthy. As you think of the old clock as a symbol of these things you may like to memorize a Bible verse for your "time" prayer. "So teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom." LESSON 29 THE TIME BANK When you were little did you have a toy bank for saving money? Perhaps you have a little bank of some kind now, or an account in a real bank. Perhaps you bought Thrift Stamps, or are putting part of your money into some other kind of savings plan. The more expe- rience you have had in these things, the better you will understand about the time bank that everybody uses. Each day every one of us has twenty-four hours' worth of opportunity to live, placed to our account in the bank of time. What do we do with it? We draw checks on it for different things. Some checks are very large. Suppose i82 CITIZEN, JR. now, you begin to make out what the business people and the governments call a budget. This is an estimate of the amounts needed for carrying on work, for recreation, savings, etc. You can make first a day's budget and see what checks you will have to draw on the bank of time for different purposes. Since the day begins at midnight you may as well start to count there, going along through the whole twenty- four hours. And since you usually are sleeping then, your first item in the day's budget can be for sleep. How many hours for that? Then for getting up and for dressing. Breakfast? Going to school? Now that you have the idea, go ahead through the day and see for what you are using your life money. After you have put down the items for the different hours and have reached midnight again, begin adding up, all the sleeping checks, and the eating ones, the helping ones, the study ones, etc., in order to see just about how much they make. When you have done this you will be ready to work out some other things besides amounts. You will examine your budget to see whether you are using your life money wisely in the kind of investments that bring good returns which you can deposit in another department of the Bank of Time in a savings account. Take up the items one by one. You may as well begin with sleep again. Here are some questions to ask your- self. What is sleep for? Am I getting as much as I need? If not, why not? Am I getting too much so that I am growing lazy? Do I go to sleep at once on going to bed, or do I waste part of the time in twisting and turning or in thinking of to-day or to-morrow? Is my body quiet and relaxed, or are my hands clenched and my knees drawn up tensely with every bit of me feeling strained TELLING TIME 183 and tightened up? Have I overloaded with food, and is my body still carrying a lot of waste that will poison me through the night and tire me out by the tightened-up condition it causes? How do I wake up; cross and tired, or rested and full of "pep"? When you have thought out the answers to these questions you can see how much of the value of your sleeping-time money is being lost and how much is being invested so that you will be stronger, healthier, and more ready to have a good time out of living. Then go on to the other items and ask yourself ques- tions about them. For example: Do I take more time than I need for dressing? Do I dawdle and dream while fastening my shoes or combing my hair? Am I in a wild hurry and scramble? Why haven't I enough time? Does my dressing time really get me ready for the day or does it wear me out and tire me? How does this investment stand? Eating. Too much or too little? Am I gaining or losing in weight? Do I crave candy and eat it between meals and then not want good food? Do I rush through my meals without courteous sharing in family life? What do I do to make the meal time happy for everybody? Think up other questions to test whether you are getting full value from eating time. Study, Do I do it with all my might, or with one eye out of the window and both ears listening to somebody who is talking? With half my mind wandering off to something else? Do I have a lot of fun in really exploring my lessons and mastering them,or doldream and dawdle? School, There are lots of interesting things that you might ask yourself here. Recall the lessons on school citizenship and check up your own time accoimt from what you have learned. Ask yourself now whether i84 CITIZEN, JR. you are getting so much that is really satisfying there, that you enjoy going? If not, do you know why? Play Times. Ask yourself. Do I truly get a lot of fun from them, or do I just "fool in the time'' aimlessly, at one thing after another? Does my play tire me out or give me more "pep'7 Do I try to stretch my play times so that they use up minutes and hours that belong to something else? If so, what is wrong with my play time account in the Time Bank? Can I overdraw this way and be a first-class banking-citizen? Helping Times, Am I "too busy" to do my share, or to grant a favor? How much responsibility does my family find that I am worthy and able to carry? If I say that 1 will do a thing, can I be depended on? If I am asked to do something, am I friendly and accommodating or impatient and cranky? When I go on errands do I dawdle and play, or have I learned to go promptly? Do I accomplish the errand in an efficient, satisfactory way, or do I "forget" things? When I have something to do, do I do it "any old way, just so I get through," or do I invent new schemes and better ways of doing it? Are my helping times a real help to me and to the family or is my account in bad condition here? Odds and Ends of Time. What do you do with these? Throw them away? They are like the pennies in your purse. A lot of them saved up turn into dimes and dollars. Do you know of anybody, or have you read or heard of anybody who got ahead in life and made a success by utilizing these odd scraps of time? What can you think of to do in such odd times? Is there any tinkering that you can do around the house that would help develop your mechanical ability as well as be of home-making value? Have you a corner of your own or a place where you do a bit of experimenting? Is there a TELLING TIME 185 book that you can read, a little at a time, and think over between whiles? Do you knit or sew, and have you something of this kind on hand at which to work? Can you not learn some nice poetry or a cooking rule, or some Bible verses, or a scrap of your lessons in some of these fragments of time? ^'Gather up the broken pieces that notJiing be lost," you remember. How about the phrase, ^*I haven't time"? If you really want very much to do something, don't you "find time" for it. Look out for your "want to" and your "oughts." They can help you to keep this account in fine shape. Sacred Times. How much of the day's time do you think it is fair to set apart especially for God? In how many definite ways can you employ it? Are you ever still to look at the stars or the sunset, and to get the feel- ing of the presence and power of God as you do so? Do the hills tell you of his strength around and within you? Do the sunshine and the blue sky and the moonlight tell you anything of him? On a rainy day have you noticed the beautiful colors that show where a spot of oil or gasoline has dropped and the water is spreading it? And do little lovelinesses of this kind, in common, everyday things, show you something of his glory in human Kves? If you live on the prairie, as you look out across the spaces of sky and earth; or if you live by the lake shore or the ocean, do you ever think of lines from a beautiful hymn? — "There's a wideness in God's mercy Like the wideness of the sea." "For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man's mind, And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind." i86 CITIZEN, JR. Have you the habit of quick thoughts of the presence of God as you go through the day — brief, holy times of prayer and lovingness that go with whatever happens? Do you give God more than these odds and ends of time? Have you a while for seeking him specially, day by day? Do you read and study your Bible and prepare your special lessons in a part of the day that you set aside as God's share? If not, why not? If you want to be with your chum, you can make the time for it, so why can you not plan for such times with God and keep them lovingly and faithfully? Now that you have thought over your time accounts, see what the investment is going to be worth in another way. You might think ahead ten years or more and see whether what you are doing now is going to bring you something worth having then; something that will be the interest on your savings account in God's Bank of Time. Think carefully and see what changes might bring you greater value for your time-money as a citizen of God's great kingdom. Here is a Bible verse for you to think over as you work out these accounts. Galatians 6: 9. And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. When do you think that the reaping time — the interest gathering time — should begin? Test Work Ask yourself these questions to see what you have learned: Do I understand the meaning of the expression, "Time is money"? When I am ten minutes late in keeping an appointment, do I steal somebody's time? What habit shall I make to prevent this? TELLING TIME 187 If I promise to do something at a definite time, what is the quality of my citizenship if I neglect to do as I promised? What practice will I undertake to avoid this inferior citizenship ? If I waste the time of a teacher, or of someone at home, by dawdling and the like, what facets of my citizenship diamond am I chipping and spoiling? What good thing will I choose instead? When I am late in getting up in the morning, how many persons have their time budgets disturbed by me ? What will I do about this? Is it any more important to be on time to catch a train than it is to be on time for meals ? How can I live up to this standard? How many points have I scored this week by a fine and careful use of time? Make records of these things in your notebook if you really think them important and want to have them as reminders. LESSON 30 "A MOUSE IN THE CLOCK" **Hickory Dickory Dock! The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one; The mouse ran down. Hickory Dickory Dock." Here is a conundrum. When is a good time not a good time? The nursery rime that you just read joined with the title of this lesson gives the answer: "When there is a mouse in the clock." Can you guess what that means? Want a hint? — When there is something in the good time that should not be there because it does not belong; something that interferes with citizenship or spoils it in some way. i88 CITIZEN, JR. In the old rime, when the clock struck "one" the mouse ran down, and things were all right again. What can striking "one'' be in the good-time clock? Is it finding out what spoils things and makes a poor kind of fun? If so, then when you choose the better way, "The mouse runs down." Suppose we look for the mouse in the kind of good times that certain sorts of citizens enjoy. Probably they are not your good times, but still it will be worth while to see. How about the sort of fun that means cruelty to animals? You may have seen boys, and maybe girls, laughing at a dog with a tin can tied to its tail. Somebody else teases the cat or plays tricks on a horse. Have these people progressed beyond the savage state? They find fun at an animal's expense. What truly pleasant thing can you suggest as a substitute for these things if you see them done — something that will make the animal and everybody around feel better? Next think about unkind April Fool jokes, and "comic" Valentines, such as hurt people's feelings. Recall the lesson about the "Street of the Golden Mile," and see if there is, after all, any true fun here. What spoils the citizen value of such "good times"? You probably have known of folks that thought them very funny. Why were they mistaken? Making fun of an unfortunate person : imitating a lame one, poking fun at the deaf, laughing at a drunken per- son, etc. Suppose it were you or your father or mother or sister? WTiat are the opposite things that would make the clock strike "one" and the mouse run down, and give the people a real good time? Tormenting a playmate by calling names, and laugh- ing at him. Why does this spoil citizenship? What could TELLING TIME 189 be done instead, the sort of thing that folks would wish to have done to them if they were in the other person's place? Teasing the girls. Does this make courteous citizens? Why do boys think it is funny? Are they right? Doing something to "bother" folks and to get them "fussed" just for fun. Is there a "mouse" here? "Getting even" by doing something mean to someone who has been cranky and disagreeable, or who has angered and displeased another. Is citizenship helped or degraded by this? Is it real fun? Why? Some citizens who are growing up thought of some different things when they were asked about what a Junior Citizen thinks is a good time. See whether you agree with them, and if you can add to the list. 1. No work to do. 2. Movies. 3. Games. Those three items have lots of interesting things in them for us to think about. We'll take them up one at a time. First: "No Work to Do." Are even little children happy if they have "nothing to do"? Don't they love to be active and to accomplish something? If they cannot think of something themselves, aren't they always asking, "What shall we do now?" Perhaps you think there is a difference between having no work to do and having nothing to do, because the children are asking what they shall play and not what work they may do? Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Isn't the difference between work and play mostly in the way we think about it? Let's think of older boys and girls a little and see whether play and work are never mixed up until you couldn't tell the difference between them. Think of the amount of good I90 CITIZEN, JR. hard "work" required in some kinds of play; building a playhouse, fitting up a wireless station, gathering berries, climbing trees to shake down nuts, sawing and hammer- ing, etc., in order to make something to "play with." Do those things, and others like them that you may think of, take more or less than the amount of effort that would be needed to mend something around the house, or to put coal into the furnace, or to carry out ashes, or many other things? A girl has a happy time making fudge or perhaps a cake. Why can't she have as much real fun getting supper once in a while to give mother a vacation? A boy is too tired or too "busy" to go on errands or to help with something that mother needs or father wants, yet he can play baseball for an hour and a half if the chance comes to do it. What's the matter, and how can you make the clock strike to scare the mouse away? Junior Citizens who want to do only whatever they please and then call it play, call it "work" if it is some- thing that they are asked to do. Funny, isn't it? Are you one of the folks who think that a good time is doing just as you please? Can you not get your clock to strike by choosing to do what is best for everybody, and so scare the mouse of selfishness away until you find that you can have real good times out of what you called work as well as in play? You know how fine you feel when you've made something, even though it "took a lot of work" to do it. Can you not find just as much fun in doing the same work for somebody besides yourself? Isn't the fun found in accomplishing things as well as in being free? The second thing was "movies." Why do you like them? Because they're exciting? Because you feel as if you'd been away off from the scenes and the people that you are accustomed to? Because it all happens without TELLING TIME 191 your having to do anything but watch, and yet you feel as if you'd taken part in what happens? You escape from the things that are unpleasant and sit there enjoy- ing what goes on? Perhaps you are a "regular movie fan" and want to go as often as possible. You don't like it if somebody says that it isn't good for you to do so? Why do you suppose they feel that way about it when you enjoy it so much? It isn't so very hard to understand if you just get hold of the idea. Did you ever try to live for a whole week on a diet of chocolate peppermints, mince pie, and cake? You probably are fond of each of them, but a week of them would sicken you and give you no benefit at all. How about the movie feasts? What do you get out of the excitement? Does it make you a lot stronger "to be, to love, and to do" — the three big hungers that humans have to satisfy? Perhaps some movies count somewhat with you in such ways. To that degree a good time there is a really good time. Otherwise there is a mouse in the clock. Then time is wasted, your precious store of life energy is gnawed at by the excitement, and you are less ready to live than before. Besides, no effort of yours has earned the pleasure you have had. This is baby living, and life becomes a mere dream instead of something you have earned. Lots of citizens who go to the movies begin to do all kinds of "monkey living" as a result. When you go after this you will have a fine chance to test what you have learned about citizenship and to watch that you do not do any silly imitating of what you see there. You can watch what the people in the play are doing, and see whether their thinking and doing follow the rules of the best citizenship. You can have interesting times discuss- 192 CITIZEN, JR. ing your impressions and conclusions with your chums or your family or whoever goes with you, or somebody who has seen the film you saw. Then you will find that you are having a real "good time/' one that has no mouse in it, and you will have so much to think about that you will not be ready for another movie for quite a while. You'll have to take time to digest this one before you want another. Games. My, but this is an interesting thing! Have you ever thought what games are for, why you like them, what different kinds there are, and what they do to you? Suppose you see how well you know games by trying to name some. Here are words describing different kinds: you tell what games belong with each one: Exercise. SkiU. Quiet. Thinking. Guessing. Comradeship. Alertness. Achievement. Observation. Team Play. Now we'll think about what games can do to citizen- ship. How do cheating and unfair actions spoil both games and citizens? Are things like those the mouse in the clock? What can you learn through games that will help you to grow as a citizen? Now let's see if we know how to test for a really good time. There are two things that we want, and we must say "A little of both, if you please," as Kitty did when the Ruggles family were practicing for their Christmas dinner in the story, "The Bird's Christmas Carol." TELLING TIME 193 1. Pleasure: That is, real fun, amusement and recrea- tion. 2. Profit: Something worth while as a result, some- thing gained, accomplished, or benefiting others. Surely, you can expect fun that will be wonderful, in your good times as you build for citizenship while you enjoy them. You may like to think about Paul's interest- ing remark about "redeeming the time" or "buying up the opportunity" as the margin reads in Ephesians 5: 16. Doesn't this fit in beautifully with what we have studied? If you aren't having fun, and plenty of it, in your every- day doings, right now, something must be wrong with you or with your citizenship. Look for the mouse in your clock, and let the clock strike "one" so that the mouse will scamper away. Special Work You have a "mental movie" when you ^'daydream." Think back to the lesson in "Finding Wisdom" and see if you find the mouse that is in both kinds of movies. What makes a good movie? Is work ever play? When? Ask yourself these questions: Can I have fun as I work and yet not spoil the quality of what I am doing? How? Do I make my own good times, or do I want them made for me? What do my good times bring to me? Leam this citizen prayer about time. "So teach us to ntmiber our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom." GROUP XVI Lessons 31 and 32 IN HIS NAME Names are interesting. Take your own, for example. You have at least two — a first name and a last name. The last shows the family line on your father's side, to which you belong, while the first one tells which of the family you are. Whenever these names are used you know that you are meant. They belong to you and represent you. When they are spoken or written you and others know that they stand for you. Your name means you, in a way. The Jewish people used the name of their God not only in prayer but in giving a blessing. When the divine name was spoken over a land, or a place or a thing, it indicated that the place or thing had come into special relation to God, and represented him. So the ark bore Jehovah's name (2 Samuel 6:2), "the ark of God, which is called by the Name, even the name of Jehovah of hosts." Solomon dreamed after he had built the temple and set it apart as a holy place. He thought that God said to him, I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there forever (i Kings 9:3). 194 "IN HIS NAME" IN HIS NAME 195 The ark and the Temple became places where God made himself specially known. They represented him and were holy. This may help you to get the meaning behind the words, "In His Name," that are the keys for these last lessons of your citizenship book. As citizens of the King- dom of the Good we are called by the name of Christ. We are consecrated and dedicated to God. Time after time throughout these lessons you have come to the thought that you are the temple of the Spirit of God. You have learned that the great thing for a citizen to do is to reveal God, to glorify him, to shine with his life and power and beauty. Jesus Christ, the one who made the great revelation of God, that makes ours possible, told his disciples to pray in his name, and he said of them in a prayer of his own (John 17: 26) : I made known unto them thy name, and will make it known; that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them. He taught them to pray and he gave them "The Lord's Supper," which now is often called the communion. So in these lessons you will look for how we can pray and how we can join in the communion "in his name"; how we may find and reveal God through them. The church calls the communion a sacrament, a name that came from a Roman word sacramentuniy which meant "sacred oath." The gladiators and the soldiers took this oath to pledge their loyalty. You may like to have a translation of the words that they used. Then as you renew your vows at communion time and rededicate yourself as a citizen of the kingdom of God, those old- time words can become your Christian prayer to God. 196 CITIZEN, JR. Here they are, so that you may learn them by heart to have them ready to use when you want to pray them. Sacramentum — The Sacred Oath To thee, Master, submitting myself wholly to be and to do whatsoever thou commandest — ^to thee subject most religiously, body and soul, for- ever. LESSON 31 "OUR FATHER" Because this is a lesson on prayer you may share in a secret about the making of this book that you are studying. From the very beginning — the first ideas and plans — it has been made through prayer. Some of the prayers were through long periods of silence, alone in the presence of God; sometimes they were the quick-as-a- breath kind that came when other people were talking and planning. Some were happy prayers of thankfulness because some thought had come that seemed just right for the book, and others were quiet, earnest prayers during times when progress was slow and writing difficult. As you notice, the prayers were of different kinds. But there was one single thing that made them all alike, the thought of Our Father, from whom all power comes. When Jesus was asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray he gave them the prayer beginning "Our Father," which we all know so well. With those opening words he took them straight to this innermost secret of prayer and showed them the intimate contact with God which makes prayer possible. In the rest of the prayer he showed them that they might turn directly to God in all they thought or experienced. Every now and then through these lessons of ours we IN HIS NAME 197 have referred to different parts of the prayer and have found citizen meanings for them. Now, suppose you begin at the beginning and go through item by item, trying to discover ways in which it is truly a Citizen's Prayer. As you think it out, bit by bit, from what you have learned you can make from it a special prayer of your own words. Here is one, just as a sample, to think over and compare with the one that you make for your- self. A Citizen's Prayer Our Father who art in the world of holiness, may thy name be reverenced among us; may thy kingdom of joy and happiness and glory be re- vealed in us and in our dealings with others. May thy will be ours as we seek only that which is best. Day by day all our power of life and all that we need comes from thy life and thee, for in thee we live and move and have our being. May our courage be strong in thee, that we may not be overcome by childish or savage desires, but in- stead may overcome evil with good both in our- selves and in others. For thy kingdom of the good is our citizen's desire, that which we choose; and thine are the glory and power in which we and all the world are one. Amen. Our Indian brothers knew much of this secret of prayer, this going to God in thought and feeling that makes one with him. In a book called The Soul of the Indian, Dr. Charles Eastman, "Ohiyesa," a nephew of the famous old Sioux war chief, Sitting Bull, has written these interesting things: "In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty — the duty of prayer — the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. His daily devotions were more necessary to him than daily food. 198 CITIZEN, JR. He wakes at daybreak, puts on his moccasins and steps down to the water's edge. Here he throws handfuls of clear, cold water into his face or plunges in bodily. After the bath he stands erect before the advancing dawn, facing the sun as it dances upon the horizon, and oiffers his unspoken orison (morning prayer). His mate may precede or follow him, but never accompanies him. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone.'' Also this: ''Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt, the red hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime — a. black thundercloud with the rainbow's glowing arch above the mountain; a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge; a vast prairie tinged with the blood red of sunset — ^he pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship."^ Here is an interpretation of something from the Navajo Indians. It may say for you the unutterable things that you feel when you look at the mountains or the hills, or watch the rainstorms sweeping along. You will like the way that the Indian longs for this holy presence to make of him a superb character through the power that he feels, just as you long for things that you scarcely know how to express though you feel somehow, a holy presence. If you like it enough, you might memorize it. Prayer to the Mountain Spirit **Lord of the Mountain, Reared within the mountain, Young Man, Chieftain, Hear a young man's prayer! Hear a prayer for cleanness, Keeper of the strong rain Drumming on the mountain; 1 Used by permission, Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers. IN HIS NAME 199 Lord of the small rain That restores the earth in newness; Keeper of the clean rain. Hear a prayer for wholeness. "Young Man, Chieftain, Hear a prayer for fleetness, Keeper of the deer*s way, Reared amid the eagles, Clear my feet of slothness, Keeper of the paths of men, Hear a prayer for straightness. "Hear a prayer for courage, Lord of the thin peaks, Reared amid the thunders; Keeper of the headlands, Holding up the harvest, Keeper of the strong rocks, Hear a prayer for staimchness. "Young Man, Chieftain, Spirit of the Mountain!"* Now let us go back to the very important thing about prayer — realizing our oneness with God, and say it in a diflferent way. Prayer is something like turning on an electric light or connecting an electric sweeper or washer or an electric iron or an electric stove. You get into direct contact with the power that makes things happen. The power is always there, just as God is always there, although you have to connect up in your thoughts and feelings just as you have to connect up the electrical apparatus with the supply current. When you come to think more about it there will be » Permission to quote from The Path on the Rainbow, Boni & Liveright, pub- lishers. 200 CITIZEN, JR. some interesting comparisons between the things that you desire when you pray, and ways of using those electrical appliances. Let's see. You know about turn- ing on the electrical light of course, from an early lesson. That is when you pray to know how to shine with God in whatever you do. Using the electric sweeper and washer is like times when you want the power of God to clean up some wrong or mistaken ways in which you have been living. The electric iron is like the sort of prayer that brings the peace of God into troublesome things and smooths them all out and rests and refreshes you, bringing blessedness to you and to other people near you. And using the electric stove is like the prayers that seek the power of God to cause many kinds of things to happen that you want to do or achieve. By holding yourself still and dropping everything else from your thoughts, as the Indians did, as you think of God, you can ''connect up'' by wanting him to show you how to pray for whatever you wish or need. StiUness and desire to know — these are the important things to re- member. No matter if you do not understand how prayer can do all these things. Nobody knows just how the miracle happens. But if you will make a habit of trying it again and again, you will find out, as millions of other people have done, that wonderful things do result. As long as you live you can go on finding out more and more plainly that prayer means listening to God, waiting to know, just as much as it means making things happen. You can learn to pray all day long in little bits of prayers and make it such a habit that it will come as naturally as breathing or walking. You can pray about common, everyday things, lessons, letters, study, reciting, remem- bering, playing, working — just everything! Prayer is IN HIS NAME 20I finding our Father and bringing his heaven into this world. Review Section Have you worked out a citizen's prayer of your own? You need not show it to anybody unless you wish. Does prayer have to be in words? Must it be said aloud? How can it help you to grow? What is the most important thing for you to know about prayer? When you read over *'The Citizen's Prayer" in this lesson, how many times do you find something that compares with an earlier lesson that you have had? LESSON 32 IN REMEMBRANCE When this book of yours was being planned some citizens who are growing up were helping to decide what should be in it. They felt that you would like one of the lessons to be about the communion, for they said that they would have been glad of one themselves. They thought that although most Junior Citizens know in a way what the service means, many do not know very well how to find help in it. They had noticed that boys often feel bored and rest- less during the time of the service that seems so long and quiet. And they had noticed that girls sometimes are nervous and excited and find it hard to keep from giggling although wanting to be quiet. The excitement and the stillness and their not quite understanding how to take part sometimes makes the girls all wrought up until they scarcely know what to do. Then when they are feeling all tense, somebody giggles and the rest follow 202 CITIZEN, JR. although they do not want to do it. Then somebody older looks cross or scolds them so that the girls begin to dread the times that the service is held. They almost wish that they did not have to attend. Another person said that often Junior Citizens are puzzled because some of the older ones cry during the service, and that others who seem most solemn and reverent during the time of the celebration are cross and cranky even about little things after going home. That makes it seem as if the service didn't help much. Your teacher may wish to tell you many things in regard to the communion, but here in this lesson you can try to work out how using the service, "In His Name," can help with the difficulties that we have just spoken of. In addition you may find how to use it in wonderful ways. You know how glad you are when you are invited to diimer with friends. There is something about eating together that makes you feel closer to them. Usually people do not ask you very often to their table unless they know you well. So eating with people is, in a way, a sign of intimacy with them, a sort of sharing a part of their life with them. As you know, the communion is often spoken of as God's table. We all as friends and children of his, gather around to share in his life in a special and intimate way for a while. The bread and the wine that we use carry out the same idea of life that is shared. You remember that in the lesson on money we spoke of bread as a symbol of life. We eat bread to nourish our bodies. And so when we eat the consecrated bread at communion time we can realize that we partake of the life of God which made the life of Jesus what it was, a splendid revelation of God. As we think of his life-bring- IN HIS NAME 203 ing death and recall his words, "This is my body broken for you/' we can see again how he was offering us his very life to share the holy gift that he had from his Father and ours. Wine too is a symbol of life. The juice of the grapes, the life-giving substance of the vine, has made it. Jesus spoke of it as his blood, and blood, we know, is a symbol of life — the moving, quickening, circulating power that constantly builds up our bodies and brings them new life. We meet at God's table to remember Jesus and to share anew in God's life. No wonder it is a solemn, holy time. But how can it bring us this life? If we can answer this question, we can find help for restless, giggling and tearful people who are under so much strain, whose lives have not grown by their sharing at God's table. First of all, we must get ready before we partake. We must look at ourselves a little. Some churches have an order of service printed out, that is very helpful in this. In it are the test words, "Ye who do truly and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways." This gives several helps for getting into a right spirit. We can ask ourselves questions such as whether we truly and earnestly turn away from the wrong that we have done, whether we choose a loving attitude toward everybody, and whether we desire from now on to live as members of the kingdom of God, his family. A teacher in a church using such an order of service had a class that sometimes quarreled. When she saw this beginning she would arrange to have the class attend a celebration of the communion held early on Sunday mornings. That helped a great deal, for, as she explained 204 CITIZEN, JR. how they must be in a loving spirit, they would fi^d it easier to make up and then would share the service. Your church may not have this form of words nor the early communion, but the story may help you to see how getting ready can help. And you can memorize the words quoted so as to think them over and question yourself in preparation. This too is the time for the renewing of the vows of citizenship, for recommitting your life to God as you partake of the bread and wine. You can think, as you take the bread, "Yes, the very life of God, that was in Jesus, is now being shared by me.'' As you do so you can think of special ways in which you want to reveal the glorious life of God in your own. It may be a difiSculty that you want to work out. It may be a sin that troubles you, it may be a subject in school that is hard. No matter what it is, the important thing is to recognize that you are being connected by your prayer with the tremendous, infinite power of God, as we learned in the last lesson. Of course you can't say the words as if they were a magic incantation and expect results. It is the deep, quiet knowing that your life is from God that counts. When the wine is passed, you can receive it with a similar thought as you say to yourself, "Yes, the trans- forming power of the life of God is expressing itself in me, now, that I may do, or be, or become these things that will make me a finer citizen of God's kingdom." If there is a long wait, either before or after you have taken part yourself, you can be very busy with your prayers. One Junior Citizen worked out this plan — to pray specially at this time for people who were very dear, and for everybody that was in trouble or sick, or who had been unkind; for missionaries and the minister and for the Sunday-school teacher; that because of this IN HIS NAME 205 holy time in the presence of God, an extra benefit might come to them. Another helpful plan for the long waits is to repeat verses from the Bible, ones that you love, and think out their meaning — anything that will bring you near in spirit to God. With all these things to do, for yourself and for others, these ways of sharing God's life at his table, the time will often seem really short. You will not want to look around and stare at other folks, nor will you be restless nor giggling, and there need be no tears if the service is shared in the spirit of the quiet peace of God's presence. Instead there will be a quiet sweetness of temper and power for the quick overcoming of temptation if others are annoying. You will be nearer God in your thoughts. His power will show in your life. It is well worth while to try these plans and to make a habit of having something special that you take to the service for help or understanding or achievement. At first maybe you will get only small results, but as you build up the habit year after year you will find that more and more of the life of God will manifest in and through you. It is a superb spiritual achievement. So do not give up after an effort or two. Others who have practiced it have received results that were like miracles. There is no reason why you should not come to find them too, for "it is God that worketh in you." Here are questions that will help you to test your knowledge of this lesson. How are the bread and the wine used at the communion symbols of God's life? How can you get ready for the communion? If next Sunday were communion, what would you choose as a special thing to pray about? 2o6 CITIZEN, JR. In what ways can you keep in the spirit of prayer during the long waits? Closing We have come to the close of the lesson and to the end of our book with its studies in citizenship. Though it seems to be an end, if you have caught the real meaning of the lessons you can see that in a way, you are beginning. You are like a person who has taken a course in short- hand, typewriting, telegraphy, etc. A start has been made. Rules have been learned and practiced a little. What comes now is continued daily practice to become an expert. You imderstand, now, more about the diamond of your citizenship, with its many facets. You see how citizen- ship in the home, at school, in the community, nation, church, and world, are essentially one, part of the great citizenship of the good, God's kingdom. You have made a good start in applying what you have learned. From now on your success will depend on how you practice citizen- ship from day to day and year to year as you apply what you have learned. Prayer and the communion will be the greatest helps you can have. Like the members of the organization known as the IQng's Daughters and Sons, you will try to Hve your life *Tn His Name.'* And so you will live out the spirit of your sacred oath of citizenship. Sacramentum — The Sacred Oath "To thee. Master, submitting myself wholly to be and do whatever thou commandest — to thee subject most reUgiously, body and soul, forever." AN INITIAL FINE OF ^.^«=l?„ I V3 ..^ VB 22207 ■'•[hi 'yd BKRKiaEY, CALIFOPJSTTA 11' ii i wWi I I it r