E-text prepared by Emmy, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE BOOK OF COURAGE * * * * * _THE SUNRISE INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS_ THE FIRST VOLUME THE BOOK OF COURAGE By JOHN T. FARIS Volumes on other subjects in preparation for this series [Illustration] _OTHER BOOKS_ By JOHN T. FARIS SEEING PENNSYLVANIA Frontispiece in color, 113 illustrations and 2 maps THE ROMANCE OF OLD PHILADELPHIA Frontispiece in color and 101 illustrations OLD ROADS OUT OF PHILADELPHIA 117 illustrations and a map [Illustration] By JOHN T. FARIS and THEODOOR DEBOOY THE VIRGIN ISLANDS OUR NEW POSSESSIONS AND THE BRITISH ISLANDS 97 illustrations and five maps * * * * * THE BOOK OF COURAGE by JOHN T. FARIS Author of "The Victory Life," "Making Good," "Old Roads Out of Philadelphia," "Seeing Pennsylvania," Etc. [Illustration] Philadelphia & London J. B. Lippincott Company 1920 Copyright, 1920, by J. B. Lippincott Company Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company At the Washington Square Press Philadelphia, U. S. A. _FOREWORD_ A TEACHER has told of the greatest moment of discouragement that ever came to her. At cost of great labor she had fitted up a room for the use of children, placing pictures on the walls, plants in the windows, goldfish on the table, and a canary in a cage. But the night before the day when she planned to welcome the children to the room there was a cold snap, and the janitor let the fire go out. In the morning she looked on broken radiators, frozen goldfish, drooping plants, and what she feared was a dead bird. In her despair she was about to decide that she would never make another effort to have things pleasant for the children, when the bit of fluff in the bird-cage, roused from stupor by the noise made by the discouraged woman, lifted its voice in song. That song told her that she had reached once again the point that comes to everyone, times without number, the point that separates the life of conquest from the life of defeat, the life of cowardice from the life of courage. She was at the crossroads, and she took the turning to the right. The bird's song marked for her the end of discouragement. "I can sing, as well as the bird," she said to herself. And at once she began to make plans for her charges.