What comes from the Kingdom of God?  Again we must refer to our Guide-book.  Turn to Romans, and we shall find what the Kingdom of God is.  I will read it:  “The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy”—­three things.  “The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy.”  Righteousness, of course, is just doing what is right.  Any boy who does what is right has the Kingdom of God within him.  Any boy who, instead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with the other boys, has the Kingdom of God within him.  Any boy whose heart is filled with joy because he does what is right, has the Kingdom of God within him.  The Kingdom of God is not going to religious meetings, and hearing strange religious experiences; the Kingdom of God is doing what is right—­living at peace with all men, being filled with joy in the Holy Ghost.

Boys, if you are going to be Christians, be Christians as boys, and not as your grandmothers.  A grandmother has to be a Christian as a grandmother, and that is the right and the beautiful thing for her; but if you cannot read your Bible by the hour as your grandmother can, or delight in meetings as she can, don’t think you are necessarily a bad boy.  When you are your grandmother’s age you will have your grandmother’s kind of religion.  Meantime, be a Christian as a boy.  Live a boy’s life.  Do the straight thing; seek the kingdom of righteousness and honor and truth.  Keep the peace with the boys about you, and be filled with the joy of being a loyal, and simple, and natural, and boy-like servant of Christ.

You can very easily tell a house, or a workshop, or an office where the Kingdom of God is not.  The first thing you see in that place is that the “straight thing” is not always done.  Customers do not get fair play.  You are in danger of learning to cheat and to lie.  Better a thousand times to starve than to stay in a place where you cannot do what is right.

Or, when you go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy, and ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, some of the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and the whole feel of the place miserable and unhappy.  The Kingdom of God is not there, for it is peace.  It is the Kingdom of the Devil that is anger, and wrath and malice.

If you want to get the Kingdom of God into your workshop, or into your home, let the quarreling be stopped.  Live in peace and harmony and brotherliness with everyone.  For the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of brothers.  It is a great Society, founded by Jesus Christ, of all the people who try to live like Him, and to make the world better and sweeter and happier.  Wherever a boy is trying to do that, in the house or on the street, in the workshop or on the baseball field, there is the Kingdom of God.  And every boy, however small or obscure or poor, who is seeking that, is a member of it.  You see now, I hope, what the Kingdom is.