Five Young Men Part 2

The man who saves his life for his own personal gratification will soon find that he has no life to save. That which makes life life is gone.

It is the habit of self-control, the spirit of self-surrender to the will of G.o.d, the purpose of self-dedication to the highest ends in sight, which puts power into the thrust of each man's effort.

The circular letter which Lord Kitchener, head of the War Office, sent to every British soldier when the English troops were ordered to the Continent reads like a cla.s.sic:

"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King. The honour of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. You have a task to perform which will need courage, energy, and patience. Be on your guard against excesses. You will find temptation both in women and in wine. Resist both and do your duty bravely. Fear G.o.d. Honour the King.

"(Signed) KITCHENER."

Hang those great words up in your mind! Hang the picture of that strong, stern, brave man in your heart that you too may wear the cross of honour.

If it is good for men to be sober and clean in war time, why not at all times? Have we not sore need of these same qualities in the more exacting pursuits of peace? Every man who is worthy of the name of man is set to guard some sacred interest, though he carries neither gun nor sword.

Here is the everlasting fight being waged three hundred and sixty-five days in the year--and it is waged year in and year out for there is no discharge in that war--against hunger and cold, against disease and death, against poverty and crime! Why not have men at their best in the mill and in the mine, on the farm and in the factory, in the counting-room and in the places of trade? The armies which are sent forth to save, to feed, and to clothe men's lives, no less than the armies of bloodshed have need of the same high discipline. They, too, are crippled and broken, they are driven back and hurled to defeat by those moral foes which march under the banner of self-indulgence.

Here is an evil traffic which flaunts its wares in our faces in every city block where the forces of righteousness have not risen in strength to cast it out. But we have fallen upon times when the economic forces are lining up solidly with the verdict of medical science and the power of religion in a relentless opposition to the use of alcohol as a beverage. In these days the man who thinks more of his job than he does of his grog has the floor.

The wise railroad managers know full well that a tippler in the cab of an engine or at the flagman's post means sooner or later a frightful accident with loss of property and life. The owners of intricate and delicate machinery in the great factories know that placing in control men whose brains have been clogged and drugged with liquor is as foolish as throwing sand into the ball bearings. "Safety First" means "Sober First." The taxpayers are becoming no less insistent--they have learned that the open saloon means added crime and poverty where they must foot the bills. Decent people have grown tired of cleaning up the muss and the dirt occasioned by the rum sellers. The moral forces of the community recognize the fact that the liquor business allies itself openly with immoralities of every sort. The people are saying in state after state, in country after country, "Time's up! You have failed to show your right to be! You will have to go." The habit of indulgence in that which robs men of strength, of intelligence, of conscience, finds every good man's hand against it.

We read in this strange story that Samson's strength was in his hair.

When his locks were cut away by the fair and false hand of evil he was as weak as a woman.

How much of sober history and how much of poetic allegory there may be in these glowing statements it is not easy to say. But the moral content of this record is clear. When those slender and delicate lines of contact which, as he believed according to his vow as a Nazarite, bound him in loyalty to the source of all strength, were broken, then his splendid prowess was no more. "It is that little half-inch rim of the tree where the sap runs up to the sun that makes the tree alive or dead." However you phrase it in the clearer light of this twentieth century of ours, guard with all diligence those lines of communication between your own inner life and the life of G.o.d. Maintain within yourself that faith and hope and love which will bring to you your own full measure of strength and joy.

The dull, sad picture of this defeated man is not wholly unrelieved by any brighter touch. When he was shorn of his strength, robbed of his honour, stained in the quality of his manhood, we read, "Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shorn."

It was only a gleam of hope, but it was a gleam. It was a far-off promise of that divine redemptive process which has become the basis of our trust. His claim upon the divine favour and his hold upon the sources of strength were not utterly forfeited by his acts of evil-doing. His hair began to grow again and a hope of moral recovery was begotten in his heart. "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves; but if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Let me close with this plain, straight word of appeal as strong as I can make it! You need G.o.d in your life. You need Him not as a philosophical belief touching the origin and ground of all finite existence; not as a mere dogma to be written at the head of your Confession of Faith; not as a name to be introduced into some liturgy which you may occasionally employ. You need G.o.d as a present, personal and profound experience. To know Him is to live, and to live well.

It was Phillips Brooks who said once to an audience of Harvard men, "Here is the last great certainty, be sure of G.o.d! By simple, loving wors.h.i.+p, by continual obedience, by keeping yourself pure even as He is pure, creep close to Him, keep close to Him, and in the end nothing can overthrow you."

III

The Young Man Who Became King

In some wise way when the door of opportunity opens upon a trying situation there comes forth a man of sufficient size to perform the task. When the time is ripe for the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther is ready and walks in. When the day arrives for Napoleon Bonaparte to be sent to St. Helena and the peace of Europe restored, the Duke of Wellington, representing British tenacity, is ready. When the hour has struck for American slavery to be destroyed by words and laws and grape-shot, William Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant are ready. Back of every emergency G.o.d waits. He has His great right hand full of men and when the fullness of time is come He brings upon the scene His own appointed man.

Here in a very old book is the story of the greatest king that Israel ever had! The House of Tudor in England, the House of Hohenzollern in Germany or the late House of the Romanoffs in Russia, never had such a hold upon the popular imagination and affection as did "the house and lineage of David" upon the hearts of the Hebrews. The One who was to be born "King of kings and Lord of lords" to reign forever and ever was to come from "the house and lineage of David."

But how was this country boy with rough hands and all the marks of toil upon him to become king? He was no Crown Prince--Jonathan was the eldest son of the reigning monarch. He was neither the eldest nor the favourite son of any man. He was the youngest son of a farmer named Jesse and because he seemed less promising than his older brothers he had been given the care of the sheep. Anybody with eyes in his head and feet to walk about can watch sheep. The boy did not seem at first glance to have his foot on the ladder nor to possess the elements of royalty.

He became king because he had these five qualities: First of all he showed fidelity in the ordinary duties of every-day life. Here is the summing up of his method--"And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways and the Lord was with him." If a bunch of sheep became his field of opportunity he would do his work in such fas.h.i.+on that no one could do it better. He would lead them in green pastures and by still waters so that they should not want. His rod and his staff would protect them. He would learn the use of sling and stone so that "he could sling," as the record says, "at a hair's breadth and not miss." If a wolf or a bear should attack his flock, he would be able to drive them off.

The simple ordinary duties which belong to keeping sheep or to getting one's lessons at school, to meeting one's obligations in some modest position in office or store, or in doing one's best in a factory or on a farm, become a kind of dress rehearsal for the larger duties which lie ahead. If a man knows his lines and can take his part effectively upon the narrower stage of action he is in line for promotion to a more important role. You will find whole regiments of young fellows who drag along, scamping their work and slighting those opportunities which are right at hand. They are saving up their energies to do something splendidly effective week after next. But week after next never comes to such men. It is always to-day, and to-day in their eyes seems ever small.

If those men were already on the quarterdeck as captains of great ocean liners; if they were already bank presidents sitting in handsome offices of their own; if they were already journalists of the first rank writing editorials for metropolitan dailies, they would do what their hands and their minds found to do with their might. But in this day of small things they feel that fidelity and skill would be thrown away. They have mixed up the words of the promise--they think it reads, "You have been unfaithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over everything." When a man is going up-stairs he must put his foot first on the step which is at the bottom and then take the other steps in order. The same rule holds in the great business of living a man's life and doing a man's work in the world.

The young man who was to become king showed courage and high resolve in the face of danger. There came a day when the Israelites and the Philistines were lined up in battle array on the opposite sides of a valley. The Philistines had their champion fighter in the person of a huge fellow named Goliath. His armour weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. His spear was like a weaver's beam. He stood roaring out his defiance against the armies of Israel, "Choose you a man! Let him come down to me and fight. If he kills me, we will be your servants. If I prevail against him then ye shall be our servants."

After the manner of the Iliad he stood ready to let the issue of the campaign turn upon the result of a solitary combat between himself and any Israelite they might put up against him. Saul, the king of Israel, had offered to enrich with great wealth the man who would fight that huge Philistine. He had promised to give him the hand of his own daughter, the fair young princess, in marriage, and to make his father's house forever free in Israel. But no Israelite had dared to fight the terrible Goliath.

Then David appeared upon the scene. He had been sent down by his father with ten loaves of fresh bread, with ten cheeses and a supply of parched corn for his brothers who were at the front. He saw this huge Goliath stalking up and down the picket lines between the armies. He cried out in his resentment at the apparent cowardice of his own countrymen, "Who is this uncirc.u.mcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living G.o.d!" David was informed that even the promise of high reward offered by the king had not induced an Israelite to face the Philistine.

Then spoke out the voice of faith from the heart of unstained youth!

"Let no man's heart fail because of him--thy servant will go and fight this Philistine." The king remonstrated with him. He pointed out the folly of sending an untrained youth to meet the disciplined man of war.

But David insisted that his rough experiences with the lions and the bears which attacked his flock had furnished him the necessary training. The king then offered him his own armour, which would naturally be the best suit of armour in the camp, that the stripling might in some measure be protected. But after trying on this suit of mail David put it aside. "I cannot go with these," he said, "for I have not proved them." He refused the conventional modes of defense, relying upon those weapons which had been tested by experience. He took his sling and five smooth stones from the brook and announced that he was ready for the combat.

It seemed a contest most unequal when the princ.i.p.als were put forth with the Israelites and the Philistines ranged up on either side of the valley to watch the outcome. Goliath was enraged when he saw the boy they had sent against him. "Am I a dog?" he said. And then he cursed David by all his G.o.ds and threatened to feed his flesh to the beasts of the field before an hour had pa.s.sed. Like many a modern combatant Goliath was mighty with his mouth. His tongue was like a weaver's beam.

The young man was not disturbed. His weapons were taken from the armoury of experience, and his courage came from the same reliable source. "The Lord who delivered me out of the paws of the lion and the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." The moral triumphs of those early years when a boy keeps his life clean and strong become the earnest of the larger victories he is set to win in his mature manhood. The growing boy who disdains to lie or to cheat, to stain his life with dirt or to show himself a coward, will know how to bear himself when the harder tests of middle life a.s.sail him.

The young man's religious faith contributed to his courage. It was moral strength pitted against brute force. It was the scornful self-confidence which trusted in a coat of bra.s.s and a huge spear measuring itself against the spirit of faith which became the source of a finer form of valour. "Thou comest to me with sword and spear,"

David cried, as he saw his foe advancing. "I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts whom thou hast defied." His trust in G.o.d kept his nerves steady so that he was still able in the presence of that roaring giant to sling stones at a hair's breadth and not miss. His moral pa.s.sion as he went forth to lift that reproach from the banner of his nation gave strength to his right arm.

The huge Philistine came on, brandis.h.i.+ng his spear and roaring out his wrath. David saw the unprotected spot below the visor of the man's helmet. He took one of his five smooth stones and slung it with such force and precision as to strike Goliath full in the forehead, knocking him senseless. He then ran forward and took the huge sword of his enemy and cut off his head holding it aloft as a trophy of his courage.

When the Philistines saw their champion fall they fled in terror and the Israelites pursuing them won a notable victory.

How splendid is the quality of moral courage! How kingly is the man who can face all manner of danger undaunted because he knows that his heart is right and his cause is just! He deserves to be crowned. The battle is the Lord's in the last a.n.a.lysis and He saveth not alone with sword and spear.

There are sentiments and principles which become deep-rooted in a nation's life mightier by far than the heaviest battalions. There are habits of thought and long-cherished convictions which const.i.tute a more reliable form of defense than all the ramparts and battlements devised by strategists. A nation of Davids will in the final outcome outmatch any nation of Goliaths with all their swords and spears. And in one's personal life the clear conscience and the heart of faith will bring any man off from any field where he may be sent more than conqueror through Him who loves us.

This young man showed also a fine capacity for friends.h.i.+p with men.

"His soul was knit with the soul of Jonathan and he loved him as he loved his own soul." The fine friends.h.i.+p of a man for a man, or the gracious affection which a woman feels for a woman who is indeed her friend, becomes a n.o.ble form of human relations.h.i.+p. Those ties where the charm and power of the s.e.x-impulse has no place have in them a world of moral worth.

It is easy for any man to fall in love with some beautiful woman--it is as easy as rolling off a log, and ever so much more delightful. It is easy for any man to inhale the sweet incense which arises from the devotion of some affectionate woman's heart. But where a man loves a man in an unsullied, unselfish friends.h.i.+p until his soul is knit with the soul of that man in an interlacing and interlocking of interest, then you have that harder, rarer form of human relations.h.i.+p which is rich with promise.

The young chap who is never quite happy with his fellows, who must always have some adoring young woman present in order to be content, is not quite all there. He is a "softy." He is lath and plaster where there should be quartered oak. He has sentiment than principle; he has less muscle and more fat than go to the make-up of a virile manhood.

The very absence of the glamour and mystery which enters into all attachments between those of opposite s.e.x clears the air for the manifestation of some of those fine forms of fidelity and devotion which belong to friends.h.i.+p at its best.

Here the friends.h.i.+p was the more notable when we recall how the two men were placed. Jonathan was the eldest son of the king, the heir to the throne, the natural successor of Saul. But David by his military prowess had come to be highly esteemed. When he returned victorious from his wars against the enemies of Israel the proud and happy women had sung in the streets, "Saul has slain his thousands, but David has slain his tens of thousands." And David had been privately anointed by Samuel the prophet as a worthy candidate for the throne of Israel.

Jonathan, as the Crown Prince, had the least to gain and the most to lose by protecting the life and ministering to the well-being of this friend who might one day aspire to the throne. He made his affection a thing resplendent by its sheer unselfishness. He saw that David might increase while he would decrease, yet even so the sky of his affection was unclouded by a single touch of jealousy. How great is that love which envieth not.

And David in turn made his own adequate response to this magnanimous interest. He showed himself in his whole bearing a man worthy of the friends.h.i.+p of a prince of the blood. Heaven be praised for men who can find joy and satisfaction in the friends.h.i.+p of their fellows.

The young man who was destined to become king was generous to his enemies. Saul stood head and shoulders above his fellows, physically speaking, but in his mental and moral stature he was less than knee-high to the man who followed him upon the throne. When he heard the women singing David's praises, "Saul was very wroth--the saying displeased him and he eyed David from that day forward."

When the king saw the fine friends.h.i.+p between his own son Jonathan and the rising David his heart became as bitter as gall. "Thou son of a perverse, rebellious woman," he cried to the Crown Prince, "thou hast chosen this son of Jesse to thine own confusion." And when David increased year after year in stature, in wisdom, and in favour with G.o.d and men, Saul tried repeatedly to kill him. His soul cried out, "Let me feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him."

It is not easy for any man, especially a young man with hot, red blood in his veins and the sense of injustice rankling in his heart, to stand up in the face of hatred and malice and keep sweet about it. "Love your enemies. Bless them who curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for those who despitefully use you." If you are struck upon the cheek take a second blow upon the other cheek rather than strike back in resentment. If a man compels you unjustly to go a mile with him, go two miles rather than seek to be avenged. Take the rules of action constantly from within, from the best instincts of your own heart rather than have them furnished to you by the evil behaviour of wrong-doers. Allow no man's meanness to master you--allow rather your own n.o.bility to overcome that evil with good.

How easy it is to say it, but to do it--aye, there is the rub! It is so divinely hard to put these fine principles into practice. The soft answer may turn away wrath, but the hot retort comes more readily to the lips. The humane return of good for evil points the way of spiritual advance, but the desire to pay every man back in his own coin with a tip thrown in for good measure is often more natural. The more honour then to the man who has learned that greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.

When David had Saul within his power he refused to strike. There were months when the young man was hunted through the hills of Judea by the hirelings of the wicked king, as if he had been a mad dog. There came a night when Saul was sleeping in his barricade of wagons. He had around him the three thousand soldiers whom he had led into the mountains in his mad effort to capture David. The young man had been pursued until he had felt that there was only a step between him and death.