The Chocolate Soldier

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The Chocolate Soldier, by C. T. Studd

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Title: The Chocolate Soldier Heroism--The Lost Chord of Christianity
Author: C. T. Studd
Release Date: August 16, 2007 [EBook #22331]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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The Chocolate Soldier
By C. T. Studd
Christian Literature Crusade Fort Washington, Pennsylvania
"THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER" or "Heroism--The Lost Chord of Christianity"
HEROISM is the lost chord; the mission note of present-day Christianity!
Every true soldier is a hero! A SOLDIER WITHOUT HEROISM IS A CHOCOLATE SOLDIER! Who has not been stirred to scorn and mirth at the very thought of a Chocolate Soldier! In peace true soldiers are captive lions, fretting in their cages. War gives them their liberty and sends them, like boys bounding out of school, to obtain their heart's desire or perish in the attempt. Battle is the soldier's vital breath! Peace turns him into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again, and gives him the heart, strength, and vigor of a hero.
EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN IS A SOLDIER--of Christ--a hero "par excellence"! Braver than the bravest--scorning the soft seductions of peace and her oft-repeated warnings against hardship, disease, danger, and death, whom he counts among his bosom friends.
THE OTHERWISE CHRISTIAN IS A CHOCOLATE CHRISTIAN! Dissolving in water and melting at the smell of fire. "Sweeties" they are! Bonbons, lollipops! Living their lives on a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little delicate constitution.
Here are some PORTRAITS OF CHOCOLATE SOLDIERS taken by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
"He said, 'I go, sir,' and went not"; he said he would go to the heathen, but stuck fast to Christendom instead.
"They say and do not"--they tell others to go, and yet do not go themselves. "Never," said General Gordon to a corporal, as he himself jumped upon the parapet of a trench before Sebastopol to fix a gabion which the corporal had ordered a private to fix, and wouldn't fix himself, "Never tell another man to do what you are afraid to do yourself."
To the Chocolate Christian the very thought of war brings a violent attack of ague, while the call to battle always finds him with the palsy. "I really cannot move," he says. "I only wish I could, but I can sing, and here are some of my favorite lines:
"I must be carried to the skies On a flowery bed of ease, Let others fight to win the prize, Or sail thro' bloody seas.
Mark time, Christian heroes, Never go to war; Stop and mind the babies Playing on the floor.
Wash and dress and feed them Forty times a week. Till they're roly poly-- Puddings so to speak.
Chorus: Round and round the nursery Let us ambulate Sugar and spice and all that's nice Must be on our slate."
"Thank the good Lord," said a very fragile, white-haired lady, "God never meant me to be a jelly-fish!" She wasn't!
GOD NEVER WAS A CHOCOLATE MANUFACTURER, AND NEVER WILL BE. God's men are always heroes. In Scripture you can trace their giant foot-tracks down the sands of time.
NOAH walked with God, he didn't only preach righteousness, he acted it. He went through water and didn't melt. He breasted the current of the popular opinion of his day, scorning alike the hatred and ridicule of the scoffers who mocked at the thought of there being but one way of salvation. He warned the unbelieving and, entering the ark himself, didn't open the door an inch when once God had shut it. A real hero untained by the fear of man.
Learn to scorn the praise of men. Learn to lose with God; Jesus won the world thro' shame! And beckons us His road.
ABRAHAM, a simple farmer, at a word from the Invisible God, marched, with family and stock, through the terrible desert to a distant land to live among a people whose language he could neither speak nor understand! Not bad that! But later he did even better, marching hot foot against the combined armies of five kings, flushed with recent victory, to rescue one man! His army? Just 318 odd fellows, armed like a circus crowd. And he won too. "He always wins who sides with God." What pluck! Only a farmer! No war training! Yet what hero has eclipsed his feat? His open secret? He was THE FRIEND OF GOD.
MOSES--the man of God--was a species of human chameleon--scholar, general, law-giver, leader, etc. Brought up as the Emperor's