A Dog Which Ate The Bible

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Title:     A Dog Which Ate The Bible
Author: Howard J. Chidley [More Titles by Chidley]

[Christian story -- From: Fifty-Two Story Talks to Boys and Girls]

I heard an amusing story sometime ago about a savage in Africa who came to a missionary very much excited and told him that his dog had been completely spoiled as a watch-dog because he had chewed up and eaten a small New Testament he had happened to get hold of. He said that the dog would never be of any more use because the New Testament which he had swallowed would take all the fight out of him, and he could no longer keep wild animals away from the sheep.

That seems a strange notion for a grown-up man to get into his head, doesn't it? And yet, boys and girls, I run across some young people even here in America that think if they let Christ into their hearts it will make them sort of "wishy-washy" and "goody-goody," and not strong and rugged people.

It is true that to be a Christian does take some of the fight out of a person, but it is the quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of one. But when you come to read history you will find that some of our bravest soldiers were Christians. John Havelock, a British general who fought in India for the sake of his country, was called "The Christian Warrior." Sir Oliver Cromwell, who had to lead an army in England against the king, who was ill-treating the people, had a body of soldiers under him who were Christians, and they were such good soldiers and so hard to defeat that they were called "Cromwell's Ironsides." Sometimes just before battle these soldiers used to sing hymns and then pray on the battlefields. And because they were Christians it made better and braver soldiers of them.

And so the truest kind of courage that any boy or girl can have is the kind that Christ gives. Paul tells all of us Christians to be "good soldiers." The Bible takes the wrong kind of fight out of you and puts the right kind of fight into you, the fight for noble things.

[The end]
Howard J. Chidley's short story: Dog Which Ate The Bible

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