True Words for Brave Men: A Book for Soldiers' and Sailors' Libraries

There, my friends—there is one of the blessed laws of the kingdom of Heaven, that in a free country (as this, thank God, is) the only sure way to get power and influence over people, is by making friends of them, by behaving like Christians to them, making them trust you and love you, by pleasing them, giving way to them, making yourself of service to them, doing what they like whenever you can, in order that they may do to you, as you have done to them, and measure back to you (as the Lord Jesus promises they will), with the same measure with which you have measured to them.  In short, serving men, that you may rule them, and stooping before them that you may conquer them.

And if any of you are too proud to try this plan, and think it fairer to drive men than to lead them, I can tell you of two persons who were not as proud as you are, and were not ashamed to do what you are ashamed to do—and yet they are two persons, before the least of whom you would hang your head, and feel, as I am sure I should, a very small, and mean, and pitiful person if I met them in the road.

For the first, and by far the least of the two, is St. Paul.  Now St. Paul says this was the very plan by which he got influence over men, and persuaded and converted them, and brought them home to God, by being himself a servant to all men, and pleasing all men, being a Jew to the Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks, and all things to all men, if by any means he might save some.  Giving up, giving way, taking trouble, putting himself out of the way, as we say here, all day long, to win people to love him, and trust him, and see that he really cared for them, and therefore to be ready to listen to him.  From what one can see of St. Paul’s manners, from his own Epistles, he must have been the most perfect gentleman; a gentle man, civil, obliging, delicate minded, careful to hurt no one’s feelings; and when he had (as he had often) to say rough things and deal with rough men, doing it as tenderly and carefully as he could, like his Master the Lord Jesus Christ, lest he should break the bruised reed, or quench the smoking flax.  Which of us can read the Epistle to Philemon (which to my mind is the most civil, pleasant, kindly, gentlemanlike speech which I know on earth), without saying to ourselves, “Ah, if we had but St. Paul’s manners, St. Paul’s temper, St. Paul’s way of managing people, how few quarrels there would be in this noisy troublesome world.”

But I said that there was one greater than St. Paul who was not ashamed to behave in the very same way, stooping to all, conciliating all.  And so there is—One whose shoes St. Paul was not worthy to stoop down and unloose—and that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—who ate and drank with publicans and sinners, who went out into the highways and hedges, to bring home into God’s kingdom poor wretches whom men despised and cast off.  It was He who taught St. Paul to behave in the same way.  May He teach us to behave in the same way also!  St. Paul learnt to discern men’s spirits, and feel for them, and understand them, and help them, and comfort them, and at last to turn and change them whichever way he chose, simply because he was full of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, proceeding both from the Father and the Son.

For St. Paul says positively, that his reason for not pleasing himself, but taking so much trouble to please other people, was because Christ also pleased not Himself.  “We that are strong,” he says, “ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let every man please his neighbour for his good unto edification, for even Christ pleased not Himself,” (Rom. xv. 1-3.)  And again, “We have a High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” (Heb. iv. 15).  So it was by stooping to men, that Christ learned to understand men, and by understanding men He was able to save men.  And again, St. Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, and equal with God,” yet—“made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” (Phil. ii. 5, 9, 10).

There, my friends—there was the perfect fulfilment of the great law—Stoop to conquer.  There was the reward of Christ’s not pleasing Himself.  Christ stooped lower than any man, and therefore He rose again higher than all men.  He did more to please men than any man; and therefore God was better pleased with Him than with all men, and a voice came from Heaven, saying—This Person who stoops to the lowest depths that He may understand and help those who were in the lowest deep—this outcast who has not where to lay His head, slandered, blasphemed, spit on, scourged, crucified, because He will help all, and feel for all, and preach to all; “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” (Matt. iii. 17).  “The brightness of my glory,—the express image of my person,” (Heb. i. 3).

My friends, this may seem to you a strange sermon, which began by talking of railroads and steamships, and ends by talking of the death and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; and you may ask what has the end of it to do with the beginning?

If you want to know, recollect that I began by saying that there was but One wisdom for earth or heaven, for man and for God; and that is the wisdom which lies in stooping to conquer, as the Lord Jesus Christ did.  Think over that, and behave accordingly; and be sure, meanwhile, that whenever you feel proud, and self-willed, and dictatorial, and inclined to drive men instead of leading them, and to quarrel with them, instead of trying to understand them and love them, and bring them round gently, by appealing to their reason and good feeling, not to their fear of you—then you are going not God’s way, no, nor man’s way either, but the devil’s way.  You are going, not the way by which the Lord Jesus Christ rose to Heaven, but the way by which the devil fell from Heaven, as all self-willed proud men will fall.  Proud and self-willed men will not get done the things they want to be done; while the meek, those who are gentle, and tender, and try to draw men as God does with the cords of a man and the bands of love, will prosper in this world and in the next; they will see their heart’s desire; they will inherit the land, and be refreshed in the multitude of peace.

XIX. IT IS GOOD FOR THE YOUNG TO REJOICE

“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”

—Ecclesiastes xi. 9.

Some people fancy that in this text God forbids young people to enjoy themselves.  They think that the words are spoken ironically, and with a sneer, as if to say,

“Yes.  Enjoy yourself if you will.  Go your own way if you wish.  Make a fool of yourself if you are determined to do so.  You will repent it at last.  You will be caught at last, and punished at last.”

Now, I cannot think that there would be in Scripture or in any word of God a sneer so cruel and so unjust as that.  For surely it would be unjust of God, if after giving young people the power to be happy, He then punished them for being happy, for using the very powers which He had given them, obeying the very feelings which He had implanted in them, enjoying the very pleasures which He had put in their way.  God cannot be a tempter, my friends.  He does not surely send us into a world full of traps and snares, and then punish us for being caught in the very snares which He had set.  God forbid.  Let us never fancy such things of God the heavenly Father, from whom comes every good and perfect gift.  Let us leave such fancies for soured and hard-hearted persons, who make a god in their own likeness—a god of darkness and not of light—a grudger and not a giver.  And let us take this text literally and plainly as it stands, and see whether we cannot learn from it a really wholesome lesson.

“Rejoice! oh, young man, in thy youth.”

The Bible tells you to rejoice, therefore do so without fear.  God has given you health, strength, spirits, hope, the power of enjoyment.  And why, save but that you may enjoy them, and rejoice in your youth?  He has given you more health, more strength, more spirits, than you need to earn your daily bread, or to learn your daily task.  And why?  To enable you to grow in body and in soul.  And that you will only do if you are happy.  The human soul, says a wise man, is like a plant, and requires sunshine to make it grow and ripen.  And the heavenly Father has given you sunshine in your hearts that you may grow into hearty, healthy-minded men.  If young people have not sunshine enough, if they are kept down and crushed in youth by sorrow, by anxiety, by fear, by over-hard work, by too much study, by strict and cruel masters, by dark and superstitious notions about God’s anger, by over-scrupulousness about this and that thing being sinful, then their souls and minds do not grow; they become more or less stunted, unhealthy, unhappy, slavish, and mean people in after-life, because they have not rejoiced in their youth as God intended them to do.

Remember this, you parents, and be sure that all harshness and cruelty to your children, all terrifying of them, all over-working of them, body or mind, all making them unhappy by requiring of them more than the plain law of God requires; or by teaching them to dread, not to love, their Father in heaven—All these will stunt and hurt their characters in after-life; and all are, therefore, sins against their heavenly Father, who willeth not that one little one should perish, and who will require a strict account of each of us how we have brought up the children whom He has committed to our charge.  Let their hearts cheer them in the days of their youth.  They will have trouble enough, anxiety enough hereafter.  Do not you forestall the evil days for them.  The more cheerful their growth is the more heart and spirit they will have to face the trials and sorrows of life when they come.

But further, the text says to the young man, Walk in the ways of thy heart.  That is God’s permission to free men, in a free country.  You are not slaves either to man or to God; and God does not treat you as slaves, but as children whom He can trust.  He says, Walk in the ways of thine own heart.  Do what you will, provided it be not wrong.  Choose your own path in life.  Exert yourselves boldly to better yourselves in any path you choose, which is not a path of dishonesty and sin.

Again, says the text, Walk in the sight of thine eyes.  As your bodies are free, let your minds be free likewise.  See for yourselves, judge for yourselves.  God has given you eyes, brains, understanding; use them.  Get knowledge for yourselves, get experience for yourselves.  Educate and cultivate your own minds.  Live, as far as you can, a free, reasonable, cheerful, happy life, enjoying this world, if you feel able to enjoy it.  But know thou, that for all these things, God will bring thee into judgment.

Ah! say some, there is the sting.  How can we enjoy ourselves if we are to be brought into judgment after all?

My friends, before I answer that question, let me ask one.  Do you look on God as a taskmaster, requiring of you, as the Egyptians did of the Jews, to make bricks all day without straw, and noting down secretly every moment that you take your eyes off your work, that He may punish you for it years hence when you have forgotten it—extreme to mark what is done amiss?

Or do you look on God as a Father who rejoices in the happiness of His children?—Who sets them no work to do but what is good for them, and requires them to do nothing without giving them first the power and the means to do it?—A Father who knows our necessities before we ask for help and a Saviour who is able and willing to give us help?  If you think of God in that former way as a stern taskmaster, I can tell you nothing about Him.  I know Him not; I find Him neither in the Bible, in the world, nor in my own conscience and reason.  He is not the God of the Bible, the God of the Gospel whom I am commanded to preach to you.

But if you think of God as a Father, as your Father in heaven, who chastens you in His love that you may partake of His holiness, and of His Son Jesus Christ as your Saviour, your Lord, who loves you, and desires your salvation, body and soul—of Him I can speak; for He is the True and only God, revealed by His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and in His light I can tell you to rejoice and take comfort, ever though He brings you into judgment; for being your Father in heaven, He can mean nothing but your good, and He would not bring you into judgment if that too was not good for you.

Now, you must remember that the judgment of which Solomon speaks here is a judgment in this life.  The whole Book of Ecclesiastes, from which the text is taken, is about this life.  Solomon says so specially, and carefully.  He is giving here advice to his son; and his doctrine all through is, that a man’s happiness or misery in this life, his good or bad fortune in this life, depend almost entirely on his own conduct; and, above all, on his conduct in youth.  As a man sows he shall reap, is his doctrine.

Therefore, he says, in this very chapter, Do what if right, just because it is right.  It is sure to pay you in the long run, somehow, somewhere, somewhen.  Cast thy bread on the waters—that is, do a generous thing whenever you have an opportunity—and thou shalt find it after many days.  Give a portion to seven, and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be on the earth.  Every action of yours will bear fruit.  Every thing you do, and every word you say, will God bring into judgment, sooner or later.  It will rise up against you, years afterwards, to punish you, or it will rise up for you, years afterwards, to reward you.  It must be so, says Solomon; that is the necessary, eternal, moral law of God’s world.  As you do, so will you be rewarded.  If the clouds be full of rain, they must empty themselves on the earth.  Where the tree falls, there it will lie.  As we say in England, as you make your bed, so you will lie on it.  That does not (as people are too apt to think) speak of what is to happen to us after we die.  It speaks expressly and only of what will happen before we die.  It is the same as our English proverb.

Therefore, he says, do not look too far forward.  Do not be double-minded, doing things with a mean and interested after-thought, plotting, planning, asking, will this right thing pay me or not?  He that observeth the wind, and is too curious and anxious about the weather, will not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.  No; just do the right thing which lies nearest you, and trust to God to prosper it.  In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, this or that, or whether they shall both be alike good.  Thou knowest not, he says, the works of God, who maketh all.  All thou knowest is, that the one only chance of success in life is to fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

He does not say only that God will bring your evil deeds into judgment.  But that He will bring your good ones also, and your happiness and good fortune in this life will be, on the whole, made up of the sum-total of the good and harm you have done, of the wisdom or the folly which you have thought and carried out.  It is so.  You know it is so.  When you look round on other men, you see that on the whole men prosper very much as they deserve.  There are exceptions, I know.  Solomon knew that well.  Such strange and frightful exceptions, that one must believe that those who have been so much wronged in this life will be righted in the life to come.  Children suffer for the sins of their parents.  Innocent people suffer with the guilty.  But these are the exceptions, not the rule.  And these exceptions are much more rare than we choose to confess.  When a man complains to you that he has been unfortunate, that the world has been unjust to him, that he has not had fair play in life, and so forth, in three cases out of four you will find that it is more or less the man’s own fault; that he has deserved his losses, that is, earned them for himself.  I do not mean that the man need have been a wicked man—not in the least.  But he has been imprudent, perhaps weak, hasty, stupid, or something else; and his faults, perhaps some one fault, has hampered him, thrown him back, and God has brought him to judgment for it, and made it punish him.  And why?  Surely that he may see his fault and repent of it, and mend it for the time to come.

I say, God may bring a man’s fault into judgment, and let it punish him, without the man being a bad man.  And you, young people, will find in after-life that you will have earned, deserved, merited, and worked out for yourselves a great deal of your own happiness and misery.

I know this seems a hard doctrine.  People are always ready to lay their misfortunes on God, on the world, on any and every one, rather than on themselves.

A bad education, for instance—a weakly constitution which some bring into the world, with or without any fault of their own, are terrible drawbacks and sore afflictions.  The death of those near and dear to us, of which we cannot always say, I have earned this, I have brought it on myself.  It is the Lord.  Let Him do what seemeth Him good.

But because misfortunes may come upon us without our own fault, that is no reason why we should not provide against the misfortunes which will be our own fault.  Nay, is it not all the stronger reason for providing against them, that there are other sorrows against which we cannot provide?  Alas! is there not misery horrible enough hanging over our heads daily in this mortal life without our making more for ourselves by our own folly?  We shall have grief enough before we die without adding to that grief the far bitterer torment of remorse!

Oh, young people, young people, listen to what I say!  You can be, you will be, you must be, the builders of your own good or bad fortunes.  On you it depends whether your lives shall be honourable and happy, or dishonourable and sad.  There is no such thing as luck or fortune in this world.  What is called Fortune is nothing else than the orderly and loving providence of the Lord Jesus Christ, who orders all things in heaven and earth, and who will, sooner or later, reward every man according to his works.  Just in proportion as you do the will of your Father in heaven, just so far will doing His will bring its own blessing and its own reward.

Instead of hoping for good fortune which may never come, or fearing bad fortune which may never come either, pray, each of you, for the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of right-doing, which is good fortune in itself; good fortune in this world; and in the world to come, everlasting life.  Fear God and keep His commandments, and all will be well.  For who is the man who is master of his own luck?  The Psalmist tells us, in Psalm xv., “He that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from his heart.”  “He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.  In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord: he that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.  He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.”

Whoso doeth these things shall never fall.  And as long as you are doing those things, you may rejoice freely and heartily in your youth, believing that the smile of God, who gave you the power of being happy, is on your happiness; and that your heavenly Father no more grudges harmless pleasure to you, than He grudges it to the gnat which dances in the sunbeam, or the bird which sings upon the bough.  For He is The Father,—and what greater delight to a father than to see his children happy, if only, while they are happy, they are good?

XX. GOD’S BEAUTIFUL WORLD.—A SPRING SERMON

“Bless the Lord, O my soul.  O Lord my God, thou art very great: thou art clothed with honour and majesty.  Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind.”

—Ps. civ. 1-3.

At this delicious season of the year, when spring time is fast ripening into summer, and every hedge, and field, and garden is full of life and growth, full of beauty and fruitfulness; and we look back on the long winter, and the boughs which stood bare so drearily for six months, as if in a dream; the blessed spring with its green leaves, and gay flowers, and bright suns has put the winter’s frosts out of our thoughts, and we seem to take instinctively to the warmth, as if it were our natural element—as if we were intended, like the bees and butterflies, to live and work only in the summer days, and not to pass, as we do in this climate, one-third of the year, one-third of our whole lives, in mist, cold, and gloom.  Now, there is a meaning in all this—in our love of bright, warm weather, a very deep and blessed meaning in it.  It is a sign to us where we come from—where God would have us go.  A sign that we came from God’s heaven of light and beauty, that God’s heaven of light and beauty is meant for us hereafter.  That love which we have for spring, is a sign, that we are children of the everlasting Spring, children of the light and of the day, in body and in soul; if we would but claim our birthright!

For you must remember that mankind came from a warm country—a country all of sunshine and joy.  Adam in the garden of Eden was in no cold or severe climate, he had no need of clothes, not even of the trouble of tilling the ground.  The bountiful earth gave him all he wanted.  The trees over his head stretched out the luscious fruits to him—the shady glades were his only house, the mossy banks his only bed.  He was bred up the child of sunshine and joy.  But he was not meant to stay there.  God who brings good out of evil, gave man a real blessing when He drove him out of the garden of Eden.  Men were meant to fill the earth and to conquer it, as they are doing at this day.  They were meant to become hardy and industrious—to be forced to use their hands and their heads to the utmost stretch, to call out into practice all the powers which lay ready in them.  They were meant, in short, according to the great law of God’s world, to be made perfect through sufferings, and therefore it was God’s kindness, and not cruelty, to our forefathers, when He sent them out into the world; and that He did not send them into any exceedingly hot country, where they would have become utterly lazy and profligate, like the negroes and the South Sea islanders, who have no need to work, because the perpetual summer gives them their bread ready-made to their hands.  And it was a kindness, too, that God did not send our forefathers out into any exceedingly cold country, like the Greenlanders and the Esquimaux, where the perpetual winter would have made them greedy, and stunted, and stupid; but that He sent us into this temperate climate, where there is a continual change and variety of seasons.  Here first, stern and wholesome winter, then bright, cheerful summer, each bringing a message and a lesson from our loving Father in heaven.  First comes winter, to make us hardy and daring, and industrious, and strips the trees, and bares the fields, and takes away all food from the earth, and cries to us with the voice of its storms, “He that will not work, neither shall he eat.”  “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: who layeth up her meat in the summer, and provideth her food against the time of frosts.”  And then comes summer, with her flowers and her fruits, and brings us her message from God, and says to us poor, slaving, hard-worn children of men, “You are not meant to freeze, and toil, and ache for ever.  God loves to see you happy; God is willing to feed your eyes with fair sights, your bodies with pleasant food, to cheer your hearts with warmth and sunshine as much as is good for you.  He does not grieve willingly, nor afflict the children of men.  See the very bees and gnats, how they dance and bask in the sunbeams!  See the very sparrows, how they choose their mates and build their nests, and enjoy themselves as if they were children of the spring!  And are not ye of more value than many sparrows? you who can understand and enjoy the spring, you men and women who can understand and enjoy God’s fair earth ten thousand times more than those dumb creatures can.  It is for you God has made the spring.  It is for your sakes that Christ, the ruler of the earth, sends light and fruitfulness, and beauty over the world year by year.  And why?  Not merely to warm and feed your bodies, but to stir up your hearts with grateful love to Him, the Blessed One, and to teach you what you are to expect from Him hereafter.”