Courage goes without saying. If a man expects to be beaten, and to do nothing by his Christian witness but clear his conscience, he deserves nothing else than what he will get, viz, that his expectation will be fulfilled and he will do nothing else but clear his conscience, and that imperfectly. That is why so many preachers and Sunday-school teachers never see any conversions in their congregation or classes, because they do not expect any ; because they go to their work without the enthusiastic boldness which would give power to their utterances.
I suppose concentration, too, goes without saying. When a man is on the battlefield with the swords whirling about his head, and the bayonets an inch from his breast, he does not go dreaming of scenes a hundred miles off, or think anything else than the one thing, how to keep a whole skin and wound an enemy. If Christian men will do their work in the dawdling, half-interested, and half-indifferent way in which so many of us promenade through our Christian service as if it was a review and not a fight, they are not likely to bring back many trophies of victory. You must put your whole selves into the battle. I said we must subdue ourselves ere we begin to fight. That is no contradiction to what I am saying now, for, as we all know, there is a distinction between the two selves in us, the self-centred self, which is to be crucified, and the God-centred self, which is to be nourished. You must put your whole selves into the battle.
There must, too, be discipline. One difference between a mob and an army is that the mob has as many wills as there are heads in it, and the army has only one will, that of the commander. He says to one man Go!' and he goes, and gets shot; and to another one Come!' and he comes; and to a third one Do this!' and, no matter what it is, straightway he goes and does it. So if we are soldiers we have to take orders from headquarters, and to be sure that we pay no attention to any other commands. Suppose a man is set at a certain post by his captain, and a corporal comes and says, You go and do this other thing ; never mind your post, I will look after that,' to obey that is mutiny. If Jesus Christ tells you to do anything, and any others say "Do not do it just yet!"neglect them, and obey Him. If your own heart says, Stop a little while and try something other and easier before you tackle that task,' be sure of the Captain's voice, and then, whatever happens, obey, and obey at once. Warfare is a diabolical thing, but there is a divine beauty in one aspect of it,
Their's not to make reply,Their's not to reason why,
even if it mean' to die.' Thus let us wage warfare.
