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THE BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 
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 STRENGTH 
 
 Sermons for Boys and Girls from 
 a letter by St. Paul 
 
 BY 
 
 8, 
 Rev. HENRY HOWARD 
 Author of “The Threshold,’ “The Peril of Power,” ete. 
 MINISTER OF THE FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN 
 CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY 
 
 NEW (a0 YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1926, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 
 — A — 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 These junior sermons mark a distinct ad- 
 vance in the development of preaching to the 
 boys and girls of the church. In the first place, 
 they are distinctly expository. The author has 
 attempted to bring to his young congregation 
 the real meaning of the passage of scripture, 
 and is not satisfied by merely telling an inter- 
 esting and instructive story. 
 
 A second feature is the continuity of the 
 sermons. The entire volume is based on nine 
 verses from the sixth chapter of Ephesians. 
 They are in the order in which Dr. Howard 
 used them in the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
 Church, New York, beginning each week where 
 he left off the week before. His success with 
 this type of preaching would justify other min- 
 isters in their attempt to make the children’s 
 minutes in the church service a period of real 
 
 Bible instruction. 
 Wes biol. 
 
Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his 
 might. 
 
 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may 
 be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 
 
 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
 against principalities, against powers, against the 
 rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiri- 
 tual wickedness in high places. 
 
 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of 
 God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil 
 day, and having done all, to stand. 
 
 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about 
 with truth, and having on the breastplate of 
 righteousness ; 
 
 And your feet shod with the preparation of the 
 gospel of peace; 
 
 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith 
 ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of 
 the wicked. 
 
 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword 
 of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 
 
 Praying always with all prayer and supplication 
 in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all 
 perseverance, 
 
 Ephesians VI: 10-18. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Be Strong 
 The Beauty of ne 
 Power to Stand . 
 Cleaving Power 
 Controlling Power . 
 The Secret of Strength . 
 The Uses of Temptation 
 The Gardle . 
 
 The Breast Plate 
 
 The Sandals 
 
 The Shield . 
 
 The Helmet . 
 
 The Sword . 
 
 Praying . 
 
 Watching 
 
 21 
 31 
 Al 
 ral 
 61 
 7A 
 87 
 99 
 107 
 119 
 Uy, 
 135 
 143 
 153 
 

 
7 
 
 Be Strong 
 

 
THE 
 BEAUTY OF STRENGTH 
 
 I 
 
 Be Strong 
 
 This is a letter from prison, written by the 
 Apostle Paul. He was in prison for doing 
 what was right. You know, people used to be 
 sent to prison because they were good. How 
 thankful you ought to be that those times have 
 passed. If they hadn’t, why, you would all be 
 in prison now—perhaps! Anyhow, Paul had 
 done no harm. He was put in jail for doing his 
 duty. It was not the first time, either. He had 
 been in several jails, once or twice in Jerusalem, 
 and then at Cesarea, then again in Philippi, 
 before this imprisonment at Rome. He must 
 have got quite used to it by this time, and was 
 now in for a two years’ term in Rome. Well, it 
 was while he was a prisoner in Rome that he 
 
 wrote this letter to the Ephesians. He was 
 13 
 
14 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 very fond of them, for he had spent three 
 years with them; and you will see in the twen- 
 tieth chapter of the Acts how very fond they 
 were of him, and how broken-hearted they all 
 were when they had to say good-bye. Paul 
 never forgot the kindnesses that were shown 
 him by the people to whom he had preached. 
 He thought of them and prayed for them night 
 and day, and although writing letters was not 
 nearly so easy a thing as it is to-day, and send- 
 ing them was harder still, he managed to send 
 these beautiful letters along to help and comfort 
 the friends that he loved. 
 
 Now, you would expect a letter written in jail 
 by a prisoner to his friends to be very sad. I 
 have seen letters written by prisoners and they 
 have been full of longing to get out. Some- 
 times they have had complaints in them about 
 the food, or the treatment, but very seldom, be- 
 cause every letter before it comes away is care- 
 fully read by one of the officers, who draws his 
 pen through everything he thinks ought not 
 to be written, and blots it out. Still, even when 
 all the blotting out has been done, there is al- 
 ways a tone of sadness and discontent about a 
 jail letter that makes it anything but cheerful 
 
Be Strong 15 
 
 reading to the prisoner’s friends. But if you 
 read Paul’s jail letters, you will not find a single 
 word of complaint. He never asks for sym- 
 pathy. He never whimpers or whines. In this 
 very chapter he asks the Ephesians to pray for 
 him. But what for? That he may get out soon 
 or have nicer food and more of it? Oh, no; 
 nothing like that. But that he may be brave- 
 hearted and not afraid to speak for Jesus boldly 
 when he gets the chance. He is so anxious 
 about other people’s happiness that he never 
 thinks about his own. His joy is so full that it 
 runs over and flows out like a river of comfort 
 to gladden the hearts not only of those who 
 lived hundreds of miles away, but also of us 
 who are distant from him many hundreds of 
 years. Fancy jail-letters carrying comfort 
 to millions of people for nearly two thousand 
 years! Why, that is the last thing that you 
 would expect. You would just as soon think 
 of going into a sickroom to be cheered up if 
 you were down in the dumps, as to get bright- 
 ened by a letter from a friend in jail. 
 
 And yet, what do you think? I know a dear 
 girl who for years and years has been lying 
 on her back perfectly helpless, and often in 
 
16 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 great pain. Yet her room is the brightest and 
 jolliest in the whole house. She supplies the 
 sunshine and good temper for all the family, 
 and a good many others besides. Whenever 
 any of her friends get “humpty doo,” as they 
 call it, they have only to go into her room, and 
 they are cured. It is like stepping into a gar- 
 den on a bright spring morning when the dew 
 is sparkling and the air is filled with the fra- 
 grance of flowers and the music of singing 
 birds. Care cannot live in that room. There 
 is a light on that pale, patient face that does 
 not come from the sun that you and I can see. 
 But it is a light before which sorrow spreads its 
 wings and flies away, complaining grows dumb, 
 and sighing is turned into song. And the 
 reason of it all, is just this: Jesus is there, and 
 wherever He is, it is heaven. So it was with 
 Paul. Wherever he went, he took Jesus with 
 him, and that made all the difference. You see, 
 he had not done wrong, and a clear conscience 
 and a clean heart will turn the darkest dungeon 
 into a drawing-room. But the most beautiful 
 palace becomes a stifling prison when con- 
 science has been wronged and the heart is sick 
 with sin. Paul had gone to prison for Christ’s 
 
Be Strong 17 
 
 sake, and so Christ went to prison for Paul’s 
 sake, putting peace in his mind and joy in his 
 heart and songs on his lips. 
 
 But I must not forget to tell you that Paul 
 was never left by himself, either when he was 
 in the prison or while he was taking his exercise. 
 Always, night and day, sleeping and waking, 
 he was chained by the wrist to a Roman guard. 
 Every three hours the guard was relieved, and 
 another took his place. 
 
 Now, I think it was seeing these guards every 
 day, as well as others, who would be standing 
 sentry at their different posts, that made Paul 
 think and speak so much about strength and 
 armour. You must remember that these Roman 
 soldiers were splendidly made men. They were 
 pretty well all muscle. They could box and 
 fence and wrestle and run. When they were 
 off duty they spent most of their time in the 
 gymnasium, so that they were always fit and in 
 form. 
 
 Now, Paul would often get talking to these 
 men, and get them to talk to him about the 
 countries they had seen, and the battles they 
 had fought. When you get him in the mood, 
 which however is not often, a soldier will thrill 
 
18 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 you with stories about the wars through which 
 he has passed. Men who have been through the 
 Great War have wonderful experiences to 
 relate, and I have listened all night to tales of 
 hair-breadth escapes amid hissing bullets and 
 screaming shells. And so Paul would get quite 
 interested as his different guards would tell 
 him how with the sword they had smitten down 
 this foe and that, or turned the weapons of 
 others with their trusty shields, or, it may be, 
 received this scar or lost that finger through un- 
 watchfulness or want of skill. And there were 
 the very swords that had done the deeds, and 
 the very shields battered and dented with the 
 shocks of war. What wonder that Paul 
 thought of other battles that had to be waged, 
 of right against wrong, of truth against false- 
 hood, of light against darkness, and then of 
 that other armour and that other sword with 
 which alone those battles could be fought! 
 How he turned his Roman guards, with their 
 helmets and boots, their swords and shields, 
 into texts for sermons to his Ephesian friends, 
 you will see as you read. 
 
I] 
 
 The Beauty of Strength 
 

 
II 
 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His 
 
 might.” 
 EPHESIANS vl. I10 
 
 Be Strong! Why, that’s what every boy 
 wants. I do not know much about girls, but, 
 from what I do know, it would seem that they 
 mostly want to be beautiful, rather than strong. 
 Of course, there is a sort of strength in beauty, 
 but it is not the kind that can lift heavy weights, 
 and go long journeys without feeling tired. 
 Beauty generally gets other people to do these 
 things for it. Indeed, it is just wonderful how 
 much a boy will do for a pretty girl, even if 
 she is not his sister, and just because she is 
 pretty! | 
 
 But it is not about the strength of beauty that 
 I want to speak. It is about the beauty of 
 strength. Some other day we may have a talk 
 
 about the other thing, and then as girls are 
 2! 
 
22 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 very fond of recipes, I will try and give you one 
 for making the very plainest face beautiful, 
 with a beauty that no age can wither, and no 
 power destroy. 
 
 Every boy then longs to be strong. He looks 
 forward impatiently to the time when he will 
 be as strong as his father so as to cut all the 
 wood for his mother, and carry all the parcels 
 for his sister. If there is one thing more than 
 another that grieves a boy, it is to see his sister 
 carrying her own parcels, or, when his father is 
 away from home to hear his mother chopping 
 wood. It is lovely to be strong, to be able to 
 climb high mountains, and swim broad rivers, 
 and take long walks without knowing what it 
 is to feel tired. But it is a wretched thing to 
 feel weak, and to see other fellows doing things 
 that you can’t do. Sometimes a boy of this 
 kind comes down to the football ground, look- 
 ing very pale and thin. He walks about very 
 slowly watching the fellows practise. His eye 
 brightens, and his breath comes fast with ex- 
 citement, as he watches the rough and tumble 
 of the game, in which he is too shaky to take 
 part. Now and then some big strong fellow, 
 who “makes a mark,” gives him the ball and 
 
The Beauty of Strength 23 
 
 lets him have a kick. He feels half ashamed of 
 the weakness which makes the fellows so kind 
 to him, but he takes the kick all right, and 
 smiles back his thanks. All the same though, 
 he wishes he were strong enough to earn his 
 own kicks, instead of getting them on the 
 cheap. 
 
 If you have ever been sick, you will perhaps 
 remember what a delicious thing it was to feel 
 yourself getting stronger every day. Have you 
 ever had the measles? I have. I was always 
 reckoned a very slow boy at our school, but I 
 was fast enough to catch the measles. The 
 doctor came and said that I must stay in bed, 
 and that the room must be kept dark, and a 
 ereat many other things that I forget, but I do 
 remember that I had a very good time. I got 
 things to eat and drink during measles that I 
 never got any other time, and then, best of all, 
 there were no lessons to learn, no exercises to 
 do, and no maps to draw; so that I felt inclined 
 to say “good old measles!’ But one day came, 
 when the doctor pulled up the blind, and after 
 he had looked at me, I heard him say, “He may 
 get up to-day.” Wasn't I glad! I heard him 
 and mother going downstairs, so I thought I 
 
24 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 would get up straight away, and put on my 
 things. 
 
 Nothing could be easier, so slipping out of 
 bed I made for the middle of the room, when 
 the funniest thing happened that you ever knew. 
 Everything in the room commenced to run rings 
 round me, they all seemed so glad to see me 
 better, and able to get up. The washstand 
 chased the dressing-table, and the dressing- 
 table ran after the chest of drawers, and even 
 the solemn looking old bed, which was always 
 as steady as a rock, frisked round like a kitten 
 after a string. Just when I was in the middle 
 of enjoying all the fun, the ceiling seemed to 
 fall with a crash, and the floor jumped up with 
 a bang, everything got suddenly dark, and the 
 show was over! The next thing that I knew 
 was lying in the bed, which had settled down 
 again to its old quiet ways. Then they told 
 me that I had fainted through weakness, and 
 that all this had happened because I was not 
 strong enough to get out of bed myself. 
 
 Very soon they fixed me up, and carried me 
 downstairs. They sat me out in the sunshine, 
 where I could see the fowls in the back yard, 
 and hear the birds singing in the trees. Then, 
 
The Beauty of Strength 25 
 
 by and by, they sent me away into the country 
 to stay at a farm, and it was just lovely always 
 to have one’s pockets full of apples, to fish 
 for eels and blackfish in the creek, to tumble 
 about among the new-mown hay, to have bread 
 and cream and honey a dozen times a day, 
 and best of all, to feel oneself growing stronger 
 almost every hour. Who wouldn’t be strong! 
 
 But what is the use of telling people to be 
 strong as though they could if they liked? No- 
 body would be weak if they could help it, and it 
 seems a cruel thing to talk about strength to a 
 weak man, and to fill him up with discontent. 
 What would you think of anyone who would go 
 to a hospital and walk up and down between 
 the rows of white beds and pale faces saying, 
 “Now then, be strong! Look at me how strong 
 I am, what are you lying in bed for? Get up 
 and jump round!’ I don’t know how you 
 would feel but I would like to punch a fellow’s 
 head who talked like that. And what would the 
 patients feel? Why it would hurt them almost 
 as much as did the doctor’s knife. 
 
 It is always a cruel thing to taunt people with 
 their weaknesses. No true gentleman or lady 
 ever does. If a gentleman happened to meet a 
 
26 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 cripple in the street, he would not seem to see 
 his crutches or in any way hurt his feelings 
 for the world, by appearing to notice his lame- 
 ness. Although all the time he is just aching 
 with sympathy for him, he smiles cheerfully as 
 though nothing was the matter, and puts him 
 perfectly at his ease. As to reminding him of 
 his trouble or mocking him by rallying words to 
 be strong and fling away his crutches, he would 
 rather die than be so mean. Now Paul, who 
 wrote the words of our text, was a gentleman, 
 and if the people to whom he wrote had been 
 weak in body, he never would have written in 
 the way he did. But this was not their trouble. 
 They were a very hearty lot of folk—a strong, 
 busy, hard-working and money-making people. 
 They were rich and powerful in many ways. 
 They had a lovely city on the seashore. Ships 
 were always coming and going to and from 
 their harbour, heavily laden with beautiful silks 
 of all colors, stacks of sweets of every kind— 
 figs and dates, almonds and raisins—dainties 
 and wines. If you could only have seen them 
 when this letter was being written, buying and 
 selling in their bazaars, jostling one another in 
 their markets, gossiping in the streets, or play- 
 
The Beauty of Strength 27 
 
 ing in the games, you would have thought that 
 they were going quite strong enough for any- 
 thing and that there was no need for Paul to 
 urge them to be strong. 
 
 But it was just because Paul had been living 
 with them for so long and because he had 
 mixed up with the crowd and knew them all 
 perhaps better than they knew themselves; be- 
 cause he knew that they fancied themselves with 
 all their money and their power, and although 
 strong in body and in brain they had not 
 strength to say “No” when a temptation had te 
 be faced, or “Yes” when a duty had to be done, 
 that he told them to “Be strong.” 
 
 This is the kind of strength that we all need, 
 and unlike the physical power of which we have 
 been speaking, it can be had for the asking. It 
 may be no fault of yours if you are weak in 
 body, you may not always be able to help that, 
 though sometimes of course it may be brought 
 about by your own practice or neglect, but you 
 can always help being too weak to say “Yes” 
 to what is right and “No” to what is wrong. 
 
 Now, if you will look at the text again you 
 will see that there are three words here which 
 mean pretty much the same thing: “Strong,” 
 
28 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 “Power,” “Might.” If I said of a man that 
 he was “strong,” and then that he was “pow- 
 erful,” and then again that he was “mighty,” 
 you would very likely say, “Well, you have said 
 the same thing about that man three times, al- 
 though each time you have used a different 
 word.” That is true about these three English 
 words, but this letter was not written in Eng- 
 lish, but in Greek. ~ Behind these three English 
 words that mean nearly the same thing there 
 are three Greek words that mean very different 
 things. There are really three kinds of power 
 spoken of in this verse, Power to stand, Power 
 to cut your way through difficulty and Power 
 to hold your power under fine control. It is 
 about these that I want to speak to you, be- 
 cause I want you to build up an all-round man- 
 hood and womanhood that will enable you to 
 stand in the evil day, and having done all, “to 
 stand.” Every boy has his own temptation, 
 and so has every girl. If you are going to get 
 it under your feet instead of letting it get you 
 underneath its, you must know what it means 
 to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of 
 His might.” 
 
[I 
 
 Power to Stand 
 

 
Ill 
 
 Power to Stand 
 
 First of all then you want the power to 
 “stand.” You have seen the great cliffs on the 
 sea-coast, that lift themselves up so grandly for 
 hundreds of feet above the shore, and look out 
 so fearlessly across the waves, as if scorning 
 their power, and challenging them to do their 
 worst. Let us suppose that some afternoon the 
 wind and the sea get talking together, and that, 
 like some people we know, instead of speaking 
 kindly of others, they talk against them, behind 
 their backs. 
 
 Presently the wind says, “Have you ever 
 noticed the bold look on that cliff? It does not 
 seem to care for anything! It has been star- 
 ing out here for I don’t know how many thou- 
 sand years, as much as to say:— ‘Well, here I 
 am, and here I am going to stay till all the 
 foundations of the earth give way.’ ”’ 
 
 “Oh, yes,” says the sea, “I know all about 
 
 it. I’m iust sick and tired of its stubborn, 
 31 
 
32 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 solid look. And then it is so proud, too! . If 
 there is one thing I hate in this world more 
 than another, it is pride.” 
 
 “Vou are quite right there,” says the wind, 
 “and if you will just listen a moment, I have 
 a suggestion to make.”’ So the sea curls its ear 
 round to catch what the wind has to say, for, 
 I am sorry to tell you, the sea always listens to 
 the wind, and does: whatever it says; and, as 
 the wind is always changing its mind, the sea 
 and those who use it, never know what is go- 
 ing to happen next. 
 
 “Now, if you are listening,” says the wind, 
 and it died down to a whisper, “if you like, 
 we will work together to-night, and put an end 
 to the cliff. I will come along just after dark, 
 and we will give the whole night to the job. 
 Then, in the morning, we will see whose turn 
 it is to look proud.” 
 
 Of course the sea was just delighted, and 
 found it almost impossible to keep calm with 
 such a secret locked up in her breast. However, 
 she waited till the sun went down, and kept 
 herself all ready for the wind. By and by he 
 came, and the great waves, like giant horses, 
 arched their necks at his coming, and lent them- 
 
Power to Stand 33 
 
 selves to his might, and all night long he drove 
 them with thundering crash against the poor 
 old cliff. But what did the cliff do? Why! he 
 never moved. He just stood there smiling, 
 and did not even trouble so much as to wipe 
 his face. By and by, when the sun rose, there 
 he stood, majestic as ever, “his brave brows 
 brightening through the grey, wet air.” But 
 where were his enemies? Why the waves were 
 smashed into millions of atoms, and churned 
 up into foam, and you might have seen and 
 heard them hissing and squirming like a lot of 
 broken-backed serpents at his feet; while, as 
 for the wind, it was a hundred miles away, 
 snorting with disappointment, and taking its 
 revenge by blowing the hats off little boys’ 
 heads, and turning old ladies’ umbrellas inside 
 out. 
 
 But what was the secret of the cliff’s vic- 
 tory? Just this, he knew how to stand. His 
 feet reached deeply down into the living rock, 
 and he could fearlessly lift up his forehead to 
 the sky. This, then, is the first kind of power 
 you need. Temptation will come up against 
 you, sometimes like a mighty flood, and your 
 feet must be firmly fixed on the “Rock of Ages,” 
 
34 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 if you are to withstand its shock and hurl it 
 back broken and destroyed. 
 
 It is a dreadful feeling to have no foothold, 
 Sometimes at places where there is a very strong 
 undertow, as it is called, bathers find it very 
 difficult to get back to shore. They try to stand, 
 but the outrunning current sucks away their 
 feet, and drags on to their legs, so that they 
 have to fight for bare life, digging their toes 
 into the shifting sand, or else be swept clear 
 out to sea. 
 
 But when Paul said, “Be strong,” and then 
 went on to speak about “standing,” he was 
 thinking of a wrestling match. If you look at 
 the chapter from which the text is taken, you 
 will see that he goes on to speak in the next verse 
 but one about wrestling. This was a thing that 
 he had seen a great deal of. He must have 
 been very fond of watching the games when a 
 boy, because he so often speaks of them in his 
 letters. The Greeks and Romans of his time 
 were great wrestlers, and would train for ten 
 months of the year before a match. They be- 
 came very strong, and their muscles stood out 
 all over their bodies in rolls and ridges. If you 
 go into almost any sculpture gallery you will 
 
Power to Stand 35 
 
 see statues in marble of the Greek and Roman 
 athletes. There is one splendid piece called 
 “The Wrestlers,” which you ought to see the 
 next time you go. Now, the great thing in 
 wrestling is to keep on your feet. I have seen 
 two prize wrestlers struggling with each other, 
 and their feet seemed glued to the floor. They 
 seemed to grip the boards with their toes. This 
 requires very great strength; but it also re- 
 quires knowledge. There is a trick in it that 
 it is not my business to explain in a talk like 
 this, but a wrestler must know it, and do it, to 
 win. You should see how two wrestlers watch 
 one another, lest either should gain the ad- 
 vantage, and trip the other up. 
 
 Now, Paul says, “Be strong,” because “we 
 wrestle.” Every boy, and every girl too, has 
 been entered for a wrestling match. There is 
 no escape. Everyone must come into close grip 
 with the enemy, and either throw or be thrown. 
 This is why Paul keeps on saying “stand’”’ so 
 many times within so short a space. He uses 
 the word four times in three verses. It is the 
 one important thing which, if we forget all 
 else, we must remember. 
 
 But he goes on to tell us that there is one 
 
36 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 great disadvantage which we suffer in this 
 struggle, and that is, that while our enemy can 
 see us, we cannot see him. We have to wrestle 
 with an unseen foe. Why, it generally takes a 
 boy all his time to win a fight, even when he 
 can see the other fellow. But just fancy hav- 
 ing to fight someone that you can neither see 
 nor feel. What chance would you have? and 
 how would you know how the thing was going, 
 and whether you were getting the best or worst 
 of it? 
 
 I remember a fight that I had when about 
 twelve years old. I did not “owe it” to the other 
 fellow, and he had nothing against me that I 
 knew of. But then, there hadn’t been a fight 
 at the school for a long time, and that was felt 
 to be a bit of a disgrace. So some of the bigger 
 boys arranged that two of us should perform 
 for the honor of the school. We agreed, and 
 on the following afternoon we gathered on a 
 green. The two of us which were selected 
 slipped off our coats and vests, that we might 
 the more easily punch one another for the sake, 
 as we foolishly thought, of the school’s good 
 name. All the fellows stood round us in a ring, 
 and told us to “go to it.” After a time we just 
 
Power to Stand 37 
 
 followed one another watchfully round and 
 round with a gentle sparring movement, and at 
 a quite safe distance. This, however, did not 
 satisfy the ring. It wasn’t what they had come 
 for. They wanted to see some “fun,” as they 
 called it, and closing in upon us, they forced us 
 to close in upon each other. Presently, I got a 
 surprise, and upon recovering from it, my left 
 eye, which was in good working order a mo- 
 ment before, seemed too big for its socket. 
 While I was thinking about this my nose sud- 
 denly required attention; and altogether, what 
 with a singing in my ears, and a sort of “tired 
 feeling” all over, it seemed time to go home and 
 feed the fowls. 
 
 Just then, however, I saw with a thrill that 
 the other fellow began to look damaged, and his 
 nose began to bleed, and his lip began to swell 
 and quiver. The sight of this filled me with a 
 strange joy. I forgot my own troubles, and, 
 romping in, I won that fight in the next round. 
 
 Now, that all this was very wicked, I need not 
 remind you. I only tell it to you that you may 
 see what an advantage a boy has in fighting 
 when he can see his foe. I was just giving in, 
 
38 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 because I was getting the worst of it, when 
 really I was on the road to victory. 
 
 And so it has often happened, in our struggle 
 against sin. If we had only held out a little 
 longer, instead of losing heart, we should have 
 taken a clean fall out of our adversary, and got 
 him under our feet. 
 
IV 
 
 Cleaving Power 
 
. . Mee 
 vans 
 . eur % 
 
 
 
IV 
 
 Cleaving Power 
 
 We have spoken about the power of “‘stand”’; 
 we are now going to discuss the subject of 
 “cleaving power,’ or the “power to cut your 
 way through difficulty.” 
 
 Perhaps some of you thought that there was 
 not much in just being able to stand. But, after 
 all, it is the man who shows himself able to 
 “withstand in the evil day, and having done all 
 to stand,” that will surprise you by the power 
 to cut and cleave that he has thus made his own. 
 Years ago there were anchored in the beautiful 
 harbor of Samoa quite a number of German 
 warships, and other vessels together with an 
 English man-of-war, the “Calliope,” com- 
 manded by Captain Kane. Suddenly there were 
 signs of a coming storm. So fiercely did the 
 wind blow that the only safety for the ships 
 was to get out of the harbor, and make for the 
 open sea. This they tried to do, but before the 
 
 German vessels could get under way, they were 
 41 
 
42 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 flung high and dry upon the shore, where they 
 cracked like walnuts on the rocks. But the 
 grand old “Calliope” stood out with her nose in 
 the very teeth of the gale. It blew so hard that, 
 although her engines were working at full speed 
 ahead, she never made a single inch for a solid 
 hour. She just stood still against the awful 
 tempest, measuring all her splendid strength 
 against the force -of the hurricane, with her 
 pistons plunging, and her screw whirring and 
 all her pulses throbbing as if her heart would 
 break with the strain. Fora full hour she kept 
 this up, without moving an inch forward, but 
 she never moved back! She just stood. Then, 
 gradually, she forged ahead just a shade, then 
 a little more, till by and by she steamed victori- 
 ously out till even the doomed and drifting Ger- 
 mans could not keep back a cheer. 
 
 Now, it was because the “Calliope” was able 
 to ‘‘stand” through the black blast of that aw- 
 ful hour, that she saved herself and all on 
 board. There will come times in your lives 
 when you will be able to do nothing more than 
 simply stand against the forces of evil. But to 
 stand in such a case will mean what it meant in 
 the case of the “Calliope.” You will be able 
 
Cleaving Power A3 
 
 to forge ahead and not only save yourselves, 
 but others too. Now, it is this power to forge 
 ahead that we have to deal with to-day. You 
 have often seen a football match. Of course, it 
 is a fine thing to be able to stand in football. 
 Sometimes you will see a player cleverly take 
 the ball, and make a run for goal. Just then 
 one of the other side comes tearing across the 
 field with all his might to upset him and get 
 the kick. But the holder of the ball sees him 
 coming, and just at the right moment gathers 
 himself together, digs his heels into the ground, 
 ducks his head, stiffens his shoulder, and just 
 stands. The next thing you see is the other 
 fellow bouncing off him like a tennis ball, and 
 tucking himself up on the ground as if he were 
 trying to sit on his head some twenty feet away. 
 But, then, no football match was ever won 
 by fellows who only knew how to stand. A 
 player needs the power to cut his way through 
 all difficulties, and plant the ball between the 
 posts. And so, in the great battle of life, we 
 need power, not only to stand, but to cleave, and 
 cut, and thrust our way through every foe. 
 You have heard of dynamite. It is one of 
 the most powerful explosives known. It can 
 
A4 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 burst and blast its way through anything. Or- 
 dinary gunpowder is very powerful, but it is 
 only a baby compared to dynamite. If you 
 were to put a pound of gunpowder on the top 
 of a rock and fire it, it would only puff off in 
 smoke, and leave the rock unhurt. But if you 
 put a very much smaller quantity of dynamite 
 there, and let it off, it would go down through 
 the rock and shatter it into atoms. It is not 
 afraid of difficulty or resistance. It rather likes 
 it. Gunpowder chooses the easiest direction in 
 which to explode. Dynamite goes every way at 
 once. 
 
 Now, this word “dynamite” is not English, 
 but Greek. It means “power.” It is one of the 
 words for power used by Paul in our text. 
 “Dynamite” is what Christ promised to His dis- 
 ciples before He left them. He knew all the 
 resistance they would meet, the enemies that 
 would attack them, and all the forces of evil 
 with which they would have to struggle, and so 
 He said to them, in Acts i.8: “Ye shall receive 
 power (dynamite), after that the Holy Ghost 
 is come upon you.” That meant victory for 
 them all along the line. 
 
 If you have ever been down a mine you will 
 
Cleaving Power A5 
 
 have seen the awful difficulties that the miners 
 have to conquer that they may get the gold. 
 Sometimes they are up against a solid face of 
 rock, as hard as iron, and they must get 
 through. You would wonder how they could 
 ever manage it. But if you asked them, they 
 would only smile, and say “Dynamite!” That 
 is the magic power that can rend and tear its 
 way through granite gates that try in vain to 
 guard the yellow metal from the hand of man. 
 You remember the story of Ali Baba and the 
 forty thieves in the ‘Arabian Nights,” and how, 
 when he whispered “Open Sesame,” the door 
 suddenly flew back, and all its wonderful 
 wealth was at his hand. Now dynamite is the 
 “open sesame” that flings back all the great 
 doors which guard the gold, and silver, and 
 precious stones that fill the treasure caves of 
 earth. It does not matter even if it is a moun- 
 tain that has to be removed, it is all the same to 
 dynamite as if it were a doll’s house. 
 
 Very often, in preparing the track for a rail- 
 way, and making it straight, mountains have to 
 be pierced and cut in two. But this is as easy 
 to dynamite as falling off a bike is to you. 
 When the workman has plenty of dynamite, 
 
46 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 he does not care how many difficulties lie in 
 his way. The more the merrier. He is con- 
 fident of success, because he is certain of his 
 power. 
 
 Now, this is the second kind of power we all 
 need. The power to “prepare the way of the 
 Lord, and to make His paths straight.” The 
 prophet tells us that “every mountain and hill 
 shall be laid low, that the crooked shall be made 
 straight, and the rough places smooth.” All 
 this means that there are difficulties to be over- 
 come and enemies to be conquered, and to do 
 this we are in need of power. We want power, 
 not only to stand, but to cut our way through all 
 opposition, and put to flight the foes of God 
 which, of course, are our foes too. Intemper- 
 ance, gambling, and all the black host which, 
 under their captain, the Prince of Darkness, 
 are fighting against the Kingdom of God. 
 
 There is simply no end to the power we may 
 have just for the asking, to fight the battles of 
 God. The more we ask the better will God be 
 pleased. But, remember, it must be used, we 
 cannot keep it stored. If you don’t use it, you'll 
 lose it. It must be spent to be kept. This 
 sounds wrong; but it is right just the same. Of 
 
Cleaving Power 47 
 
 course, if you have a dollar and spend it you 
 have not got it, but if you have power for the 
 service of God and spend it, you increase it. 
 Suppose now, you take your dollar to a shop 
 and ask for a dollar’s worth of chocolate 
 creams, and when you put your money down 
 you get a pound of chocolates and two dollars in 
 change! “My word,” you say, “that is a store 
 I would like to deal at.”” Well, that is the sort 
 of store that God keeps. If you go on spending 
 the power He gives you in working for Him, 
 He will keep on doubling it. But if you do not 
 use it up He will take it away. The only way 
 to make it last is by using it up as fast as you 
 can in battling for the truth. God wants sol- 
 diers. Now, when a country wants soldiers, it 
 offers them all they want to eat, and drink, and 
 wear, as well as giving them a place to live in, 
 but it cannot offer them strength. They must 
 come supplied with that, and without it they 
 are of no use to their country. That is why 
 those in authority always pick the strongest 
 men, and reject the weak ones. Now, our Cap- 
 tain never rejects recruits because they are not 
 strong. Christ invites the weak; indeed, some- 
 times He prefers them, and uses them to con- 
 
48 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 found the mighty because they trust more fully 
 in His power, instead of relying on their own. 
 All we have to do is to come just as we are in 
 all our weakness, and He supplies the power 
 to conquer the demon within and the foes with- 
 out. Isaiah tells us that “He giveth power to 
 the faint; and to them that have no might He 
 increaseth strength.” It does not matter then 
 in the least how weak you feel you are, Christ 
 will enrol you, and make you wise to know, and 
 strong to do His will. He has a wonderful way 
 of coming into lives, and doing things through 
 them that they could not have done by them- 
 selves. But that this may happen, we must lay 
 our lives open to Jesus Christ. He will not 
 come in uninvited, but waits at the door of 
 every life. If you will but open He will enter, 
 and make you strong in His might. When He 
 tells you to be strong, He means to make you 
 strong, for a command of His becomes a prom- 
 ise when we make up our minds to obey. 
 
V 
 
 Controlling Power 
 

 
V 
 
 Controlling Power 
 
 Text: “Be strong in the Lord,’ etc. 
 EPHESIANS vi. 10 
 
 But there is a third kind of power which you 
 need, and wuich is quite as important as either 
 of the two we have already named. You have 
 seen that you need power to “stand,” and power 
 to ‘‘cleave’’; but power to cleave may do more 
 harm than good, if not rightly guided and con- 
 trolled. Power is a very dangerous thing un- 
 less properly managed. It is not enough for 
 us to have great force. The important thing is 
 how we are using it. It makes all the difference 
 whether a keg of dynamite is in the hands of a 
 wise man or a fool. 
 
 If you were going to let off a gun, the most 
 important thing would be the direction in which 
 it was pointed. Suppose you were not sure as 
 to which end it would go off, whether at the 
 breech or at the muzzle; how would you like to 
 
 handle it? It would be no use telling you not 
 51 
 
52 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 to be afraid because the charge in the gun was a 
 very powerful one. You would say at once 
 that the very powerfulness of the charge was 
 what made you afraid, and unless you were 
 quite sure of the direction in which it would 
 explode, you would rather leave it alone. The 
 direction, then, in which power is used, is 
 the most important thing. There are some men 
 who have every power but the power rightly to 
 direct and control their power. Such men work 
 more mischief than good. Of course, power, 
 as you have been already told, must be used; 
 but it must not be spilt about and wasted. The 
 greatest care must be taken against spending 
 it for nothing. This is the mistake that a lot 
 of people make. They are always busy; but 
 then they are busy about the wrong thing, or 
 at the wrong time, or else in the wrong way. 
 They have any amount of power, but it is not 
 rightly used. I saw a horse the other day, and 
 he had any amount of power to pull a buggy- 
 load of people, but he was putting it all into 
 his hind legs and using it up in kicking out 
 the dash-board, and smashing up things gen- 
 erally. The horse-power was there all right, 
 but it was not under control, and was going to 
 
Controlling Power 53 
 
 waste, through being delivered at the wrong 
 end. But it was not only wasteful, it was dan- 
 gerous, 
 
 Power is always a dangerous thing unless 
 under proper direction. What is it that makes 
 men settle themselves so comfortably in a rail- 
 way carriage, and read their papers, or tuck 
 themselves round with rugs, and go to sleep 
 with such a feeling of safety. Certainly not 
 the thought of the tremendous power of the 
 engine on in front; but the thought that all that 
 power is so carefully and cleverly managed by 
 the driver, who holds his hand on the lever that 
 the whole train can be brought up standing in 
 less than its own length. Let someone tell a 
 carriageful of dozing travellers when the en- 
 gine is plunging forward at the rate of sixty 
 miles an hour that there is neither a driver nor 
 a fireman on the footplate, and that the engine is 
 going entirely on its own, and there will be no 
 more dozing. In the place of comfort there 
 will be at once the wildest and whitest terror, 
 and desperate leaps for life from every door. 
 So you see that something more than going 
 power is needed; slowing power is wanted too. 
 It really is better to have no power at all than 
 
54 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 not to have it well in hand. If I were to ask 
 you to name the most important thing in a 
 watch, you would most likely say the main- 
 spring; but this would be quite a mistake. It is 
 perfectly true that the mainspring supplies the 
 working power of the watch, but that power 
 has to be kept in check if it is to tick off the 
 seconds correctly and measure the minutes and 
 hours. 
 
 Now the little thing that does this is called the 
 “balance-wheel,’ and it is far and away the 
 most important part of the watch. It controls 
 the power of the spring, and measures that 
 power off in equal beats. If you hold a watch to 
 your ear you will notice how evenly it ticks. 
 Now, if it were not for the balance-wheel, there 
 would be no regularity, and the watch would 
 be useless for telling the time. 
 
 From all this I want you to see how impor- 
 tant it is, not only that you should have power, 
 but that it should always be under control, and 
 wisely guided. It is this third kind of power 
 we need if we are going to be what God wants 
 us to be and do what He wants us to do. If 
 you possess this power, you will be saved from 
 wasting your strength. Such a lot of strength 
 
Controlling Power 55 
 
 goes to waste through not being under proper 
 control. There are some horses which, if not 
 held in firmly when driven, will knock them- 
 selves up in a few miles, but which, if properly 
 handled, will travel all day, and finish at night 
 as fresh as paint. Now, there are men like that 
 who do not live half their days, because they 
 wear themselves out through badly managing 
 their strength. Then again, if you have this 
 kind of power, you will be saved from going 
 just by fits and starts. You will be more even 
 in your going, like a watch, and other fellows 
 will be able to look at you, and regulate their 
 lives by yours. One good clock in a town fixes 
 the time for all the rest, and one good life 
 makes the pace for other lives. Here, then, 
 there are these three kinds of power,—stand- 
 ing power, cleaving power, and controlling 
 power,—and you need them all. But the ques- 
 tion is where are you to find them, and the text 
 gives you the answer, “In the Lord.” You are 
 to be strong ‘in Christ.” 
 
 But, some boy says, “How can I be strong in 
 someone else?” Why, easily! Here is a fellow 
 comes in from school, and flings his books 
 down, when his mother, hearing him, calls out 
 
56 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 “George! I want you to go a message for me 
 to the post office.” But George remembers that 
 there is a fellow down by the post office that 
 “owes it to him,” and threatened the next time 
 he came that way he would thump his nose. 
 Of course he does not want to go, and suggests 
 that his sister shall be sent instead. But his 
 mother says that he must go himself. Now, 
 it would take only five minutes to go to the post 
 office from George’s house by the shortest cut. 
 But that would lead straight past this fellow’s 
 gate, and as he is not game to meet him because 
 he is not strong enough to fight, he must track 
 round by the back streets and take a quarter 
 of an hour. But next day George’s big brother 
 is going to the post office, and he calls out 
 “George! George! I am going down the town; 
 would you like to come?” Oh yes, George 
 wants to go; what boy doesn’t want to go with 
 his big brother? But, then, he has to go right 
 past that fellow’s house. Well, what of that? 
 He has got his brother with him now. He has 
 confidence in his brother. He knows that all 
 his brother’s strength, and all his brother’s 
 walking stick too, will be on his side if any one 
 tries to touch him. And so he walks on cheer- 
 
Controlling Power 57 
 
 fully. He would like to meet the other fellow 
 now, just to let him see how strong he is. And 
 sure enough just as they turn the corner, there 
 he is swinging on his gate. But George just 
 slips his hand into his brother’s and pulls a face 
 at the boy as much as to say: “Come on now 
 if you dare,” and he wishes that he would. 
 
 Now Christ is your Elder Brother. In Him 
 you can do all things and need not be afraid of 
 anything or anyone. Just slip your hand into 
 His, and walk with Him along your way, and 
 you will be able to laugh to scorn the Devil’s 
 power while by your Saviour’s side. 
 

 

 
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VI 
 The Secret of Strength 
 
 For three or four chapters we have been 
 speaking of “‘power,”’ and you have seen that if 
 you are to stand against temptation, and put 
 it under your feet, Jesus Christ must come into 
 your life. This is the very thing He wants to 
 do. The door through which He comes is your 
 will, and that door must be opened by you. If 
 ever we are beaten by temptation it just serves 
 us right; for the power to win is at our door, 
 knocking and asking to come in. 
 
 But if you say, “We do not understand how, 
 by just saying, ‘I will’ to Jesus Christ, He can 
 come into our lives, and make us strong!’ No 
 more do I, but that does not matter as long as 
 He does it. When you come in hungry from 
 school and your mother cuts you a thick slice 
 of bread and butter, you do not say, “I will not 
 eat this till I understand how taking this food 
 into my mouth and then swallowing it takes 
 
 away my hunger, and makes me feel strong.” 
 61 
 
62 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 You just eat it and ask no questions as to 
 “How.” And even if someone explained the 
 whole thing to you, the bread and butter would 
 not do you a bit more good. If you never took 
 any more food till you understood how it got 
 turned into strength of body and mind you 
 would very soon starve. Sometimes people take 
 it into their heads that they will not eat, and 
 doctors have to pump food into them to keep 
 up their strength. But then such people are 
 mad, and cause great grief and anxiety to their 
 friends. Now it is just as mad a thing to keep 
 Christ out of our lives because we cannot un- 
 derstand how His coming in makes us strong. 
 Those who have let Him in know that He does 
 it; and they do not bother. about the “how.” 
 One day I was invited to join a party of 
 about thirty doctors to watch a professor of 
 mesmerism perform some of his wonderful 
 feats. The professor had invited the doctors 
 to a private exhibition of his power. We all 
 gathered round him in a ring, and he took four 
 men who gave themselves up to his will. The 
 first thing he did was to “will” them to go to 
 sleep, and in an instant they were all in the 
 land of dreams. The profesor then told the 
 
The Secret of Strength 63 
 
 doctors that they might examine them to see 
 whether they were ‘‘shamming” or not. So Dr, 
 Neild, one of the cleverest and most honorable 
 of Melbourne doctors, tested them one after the 
 other, and declared them to be truly asleep. 
 After this the professor “willed” that they 
 should feel no pain, no matter what was done 
 to them. Then he took a long darning needle 
 threaded with coarse thread, and, drawing out 
 the tongue of the first man, as he lay upon the 
 floor, he put the needle clean through it, and 
 drew the thread through, with which he then 
 bobbed the man’s head up and down on the 
 platform. It looked a very cruel and painful 
 thing; but the professor told us that the man 
 felt nothing, and when the doctors examined 
 him, and felt his pulse, they said it was per- 
 fectly true. After doing quite a number of 
 very wonderful things that I have not time to 
 tell you of now, he took one of the men and 
 “willed” him to be stiff. He then got two of the 
 doctors to lift him up and put the back of his 
 head on the back of one chair, and his heels on 
 the back of another, so that he was stretched 
 out between the two chairs like a log of wood. 
 If you try to put yourself in such a position 
 
64 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 you will find how hard it is. Well, he not only 
 made him bear himself up in that position, but 
 he asked one of the heaviest doctors present to 
 come and sit astride him. A well-known doc- 
 tor stepped out and sat across his waist. The 
 weight made the man arch downwards like the 
 letter C on its back. But then the most won- 
 derful thing happened. The professor just 
 stood and spread his hands over the head of 
 the doctor, as he sat there, and slowly but surely, 
 before our eyes, the man arched up like the 
 letter C on its face, with the heavy doctor on 
 him all the while! Somehow, the strength of 
 the professor passed into the man, and made 
 him strong. How, nobody could tell. The doc- 
 tors asked the professor how he did it, and he 
 confessed that it was all a mystery to him, and 
 that he had asked them, as clever men, to come 
 and explain it if they could. They all gave it 
 up. But there was no denying it, for they had 
 seen it with their own eyes, and touched it 
 with their own hands. In some way that can- 
 not yet be explained, the professor’s strength 
 entered through the door of their will into 
 these men’s bodies, so that they were able to do 
 what, without him, would have been impossible. 
 
The Secret of Strength 65 
 
 Now, how Jesus Christ can so come into our 
 lives and make us do what would be otherwise 
 impossible I cannot tell you. But He does it 
 in thousands of lives every day, that just give 
 up their wills to His, and He will do it for you 
 if you will let Him. Unless you do, you have 
 no chance of success against temptation. It is 
 not as though you could refuse to face your 
 temptation. You have to fight; and it is no use 
 running away. Wherever you go you have to 
 wrestle; and one of two things must always 
 happen. You must either get temptation under, 
 or it will get you under. This fight never ends 
 in a “draw.” You must win or lose; and it 
 will make all the difference in character here, 
 and in destiny hereafter, as to which of these 
 you do. 
 
 Do not be deceived by the thought that the 
 sin you indulged in was only a little one. Of 
 course I do not say that sins are all equally 
 ereat, but they all belong to the same family, 
 and have a habit of introducing one another. 
 Little sins, as we call them, open the door to 
 big ones. Have you read “Oliver Twist,” by 
 Dickens? I hope so; but if you have not, read 
 it at once. Oliver was a little half-starved 
 
66 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 work-house boy, who fell into the hands of a 
 big, burly burglar named Bill Sikes, who used 
 to “‘crack cribs” as he called it, that is, to break 
 into people’s houses, and steal all their gold, 
 and silver and precious jewels. Well, one day 
 Bill Sikes saw a beautiful house that he was 
 sure was worth breaking into. But the win- 
 dows were all bolted and the doors were barred, 
 and the servants were all honest, so that it 
 looked as if there were no chance at all of get- 
 ting in. But suddenly, he saw a little tiny win- 
 dow belonging to a pantry at the back of the 
 house. This was enough for him, and he chuck- 
 led away to himself as he thought out his 
 plan. He could not get in through this small 
 window himself, but Oliver could. So one dark 
 night he took Oliver by the hand, and with one 
 of his “‘pals,’ Toby Crackit, he came to the 
 house. He lifted Oliver up and pushed him 
 through the little window, and he had to slip 
 quietly along the passage and pull back the bolts 
 of the big hall door, and let in the two burg- 
 lars who would be waiting at the front. But 
 if you have read the story you will remember 
 that it did not come off, but something else did, 
 very much to Bill Sikes’ surprise. 
 
The Secret of Strength 67 
 
 Now, the thing that failed that night has too 
 often succeeded with you and me. There has 
 been some little half-starved sin, which we have 
 only fed, perhaps, about once a month, and it 
 has been allowed to creep into our hearts un- 
 noticed, but it has slipped the bolts for the big 
 sins that were waiting outside, and they have 
 come trooping in to rob us of all our moral 
 wealth, and lay our houses desolate and waste. 
 Then, too, do not be fooled by the thought that 
 it is only one sin that you commit, and that it 
 doesn’t matter much. How many diseases does 
 it take to kill a man’s body? Why, only one! 
 A man does not need to have disease of the 
 heart, and inflammation of the lungs, and ty- 
 phoid fever, be shot through the head, and fall 
 out of a sky-scraper window and break his neck, 
 in order to die. If any one of these troubles 
 has its own way with him, it is a case. And 
 just as one disease will kill the body, so one sin 
 indulged in will kill the soul. 
 
 Now, I suppose most of you think that if 
 it were not for temptation, you could be very 
 good. It is the temptations that upset us, You 
 get up in the morning, and sit on the edge of 
 your bed, and as you pull on your socks you say 
 
68 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 to yourself, “I did a mean thing yesterday, and 
 had a bad time. I won’t do it any more.” And 
 you mean it too; but your resolution has just 
 been made when up comes a temptation, and 
 down you go. You know all about it, so do I, 
 and so does everyone, for we have all been 
 there. “Well,” you say, “why, if God wants 
 us to be good, does He allow us to be tempted?” 
 The answer to this is that temptations are the 
 only means through which goodness can get 
 practice, and, through practice, get perfect. 
 But suppose we leave that for the next chapter, 
 when we will discuss some of the uses of temp- 
 tation, 
 
Vil 
 The Uses of Temptation 
 
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 The Uses of Temptation 
 
 Temptation finds you out. No one knows 
 what sort of a fellow a boy is until he has been 
 tempted. Indeed, he does not know himself. 
 Temptation tries him. It gets at his heart. One 
 of the words for temptation in the Bible means 
 to pierce, to get through the covering of things, 
 and find out what lies beneath. This is just 
 what temptation does. It takes no notice of fine 
 clothes, or a pleasant face. It pushes its way 
 behind all these, and wants to know what lives 
 there, and bring it to the front. It gives us 
 many painful surprises, sometimes, by what it 
 discovers and brings out. No one would dream 
 of all the mean and horrid things that lie hid- 
 den in our hearts, till temptation stirs them up 
 and makes them creep out. 
 
 I remember once having to buy a cheese. A 
 plump and cheery-looking storeman, with a 
 lovely white apron, came up smilingly as I en- 
 
 tered the shop. ‘There were cheeses every- 
 71 
 
72 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 where, on the floor, on the shelves, on the 
 scales, and on the counter. Walking up to a 
 row of respectable looking cheeses, which were 
 nicely arranged where everyone could see them, 
 I said, “‘One of these will do for me.’”’ And the 
 man in the white apron smiled a broad, good, 
 natured smile, and twinkled knowingly with his 
 merry eyes as he chortled in his joy. I asked 
 him what he was laughing at, and he said, 
 “They are not cheeses at all, just hit one of 
 them with this,” and he gave me a bright steel 
 thing, which he called a “trier.” I did what he 
 told me, and the thing I thought was a cheese 
 was only a tin dummy, and gave out a sound 
 like a cracked bullock-bell. Didn’t he laugh, 
 though! “Now,” he said, reaching to an upper 
 shelf and lifting down a heavy fellow to the 
 counter, “‘this is the sort of thing you want; just 
 lend me that trier for a moment, please.” Then 
 he took it and plunged it right into the heart of 
 the cheese, and after giving it a turn round, 
 pulled it out again, and put what he got on a 
 sheet of white paper. But, O my! it gave me 
 the creeps to see it. It would not stay on the 
 paper, we had to keep on bringing it back. It 
 was the liveliest bit of cheese I had ever seen. 
 
The Uses of Temptation 73, 
 
 It was playing leap-frog and fly-the-garter all 
 over the place. If I had taken it home, I am 
 sure it would not have stayed there; it would 
 have scampered off into the back-yard. It 
 wasn’t the kind of cheese I wanted at all. Some 
 people prefer that kind, I know, but I like a 
 cheese that will stay at home and that hasn’t 
 to be chained up and watched all the time, for 
 fear it should wander and get lost. But you 
 see, I would not have known what it was like 
 inside only for the “trier” that went to its heart. 
 
 Now temptation is a “trier.” It finds you out. 
 Temptation puts a strain on you. It tests your 
 strength. What is the first thing a boy does 
 when he picks up a piece of string? Why, he 
 tries to break it. I never saw a boy yet pick 
 up a bit of string without testing it; that is, 
 “tempting” it to see how strong it is. You 
 watch the next boy you see picking up string, 
 and you will see him twist it round his hand 
 and pull. If it doesn’t break, a look of satisfac- 
 tion comes into his face, and he tucks it into the 
 pocket of his knickers. When he gets home, 
 he hunts all round the house for his mother, and 
 when he finds her he wants her to make some 
 paste. What does he want with paste? Why, 
 
74 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 he is going to make a kite, of course. and it 
 does not in the least matter what his mother is 
 doing. She may be entertaining visitors in the 
 drawing-room, or ironing his father’s white 
 shirts in the kitchen, but she has to drop every- 
 thing and go into the paste business, if only 
 for the sake of peace. Presently you see my 
 noble out on the back verandah with newspa- 
 pers, scissors, sticks, and his pot of paste. Then 
 in a very little while there is paste everywhere, 
 on the floor, on the wall, on the verandah posts, 
 all over the door handle, down the front of his 
 blouse, and in his very hair. He stands in it, 
 sits in it, kneels in it, wallows in it to his heart’s 
 content. Indeed, it is just wonderful how far 
 a boy can make a little paste go when he really 
 makes up his mind to it, But never mind, there 
 lies his shapely kite only waiting for its fixings, 
 when into his pocket goes his hand, and out 
 comes the piece of string which he is going to 
 work in for the band of his kite. It is just the 
 very thing he wants, not too thick, but very 
 strong. He knows, because don’t you remem- 
 ber he tested it on the way home! But just as 
 he is fixing it on, his mate comes round the side 
 of the house, and looking at the thinness of the 
 
The Uses of Temptation vA 
 
 string, says, “I say, Bill, that there bit of string 
 ain’t any good for a band! it’s too thin!’ “No, 
 it isn’t,” says Bill. “How d’yer know?” says 
 his mate. ‘Because I tried it,’ says Bill, “and 
 I know what this bit of string can do.” “Well, 
 I don’t think it’s strong enough,” says his mate 
 still unsatisfied. “Well now, look here,” says 
 Bill, “whose kite is this, yours or mine?” “Oh 
 well, I suppose it’s yours.” “ATI right, you just 
 leave me alone, see! I know what I’m doing.” 
 
 And so he does, and by and by, when he flies 
 that kite, the string he tested and trusted does 
 not disappoint him. He tested, tried, tempted 
 it, and because it came through all right and did 
 not break down, he gave it that most important 
 place in his kite. Now, that is just what God 
 does. He allows temptation to put a strain 
 upon you, and if you do not break down He 
 gives you some important place to fill and some 
 important work to do. People sometimes are 
 surprised at the work God calls quite young 
 people to do. Like Bill’s mate they don’t think 
 that this boy or that girl is quite up to what is 
 expected of them, and sometimes they say so. 
 But God knows His boys and His girls. He 
 has watched them during the testing time, and 
 
76 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 when He trusts them with some important task 
 they do not disappoint the expectation of His 
 love. 
 
 But supposing a bit of string breaks when a 
 boy tests it, does he throw it away? No fear! 
 I never saw a boy throw away a bit of string 
 yet. Why, a boy has need of all kinds of string. 
 Rotten string, strong string, blue string, white 
 string, thick string, thin string. Sometimes a 
 boy will fetch a whole heap of string out of his 
 pocket ; and if you happen to want a piece and 
 show him which, he will be sure to say he can’t 
 give you that piece. He has been saving it up 
 for something special for a long time. And it 
 would have been all the same whatever piece you 
 might have fancied. No, a boy never throws 
 away string, so if a piece breaks when he tries 
 it, he just ties a knot in it and puts it in the 
 other pocket to wait for its chance. Soon it 
 comes, for when that kite we were speaking 
 about is nearly finished, there is something else 
 that has to be put to it. What is that! Why 
 a tail, of course. A kite is of no use without a 
 tail! 
 
 So out comes the piece of string that broke 
 down under temptation; and as the boy looks at 
 
The Uses of Temptation rig 
 
 it he says, “Well, I couldn’t use you for a band, 
 you know, because you are not strong enough 
 and you broke down, but I’m going to work you 
 in for a tail; there won’t be so much strain on 
 you there.” And so the piece of string that 
 failed in the hour of temptation is not thrown 
 away, you see, but gets another chance. And 
 God does not throw us away because we break 
 down under temptation. No, He is very loving 
 and hopeful. Because His love is infinite, it 
 will not allow His hope in us to die. Some have 
 broken down very often, and God cannot per- 
 haps give them the place in His Church that He 
 would like to give them. They might have been 
 at the head, had they been faithful; but they 
 have broken down so often, that God has had to 
 work them into the tail. O that you who read 
 these pages may stand the strain of temptation, 
 and be thus fitted and chosen for high and hon- 
 ourable places in the Church and in the world. 
 And if anyone should happen to read this, even 
 among those who are not children, those who 
 have frequently failed at the testing points of 
 their history, and through unfaithfulness are at 
 the tail instead of at the head, then let me say 
 to you, Be a good tail! Do not disappoint God 
 
78 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 even in the lowly place. The tail is not unim- 
 portant. Many a cricket match has been saved 
 from defeat by the tail, and many a good en- 
 terprise has failed because at a critical moment 
 the tail dropped off. I remember as a boy hav- 
 ing a lovely kite, and about a hundred yards of 
 string, and I lost the kite, and nearly all the 
 string, because the tail dropped off down some- 
 one’s chimney. Wherever you are, then, 
 whether in the high or in the lowly place, be 
 faithful and do not disappoint the expectation 
 of your Heavenly Father’s heart. 
 
 Now we have seen that temptation tests us; 
 that it finds us out, and shows us what we are. 
 But it does more than this. It strengthens us; 
 that is, if we come through all right. 
 
 A piece of string is no stronger after it is 
 tested than it was before. Even if it does not 
 break down under the strain, it gains nothing 
 from it. It does not go on winning fresh 
 strength out of every trial. But we do. Every 
 temptation that we successfully resist makes us 
 stronger to meet the next. 
 
 Suppose that I have a gold piece which has 
 somehow got discolored, and, when I want to 
 change it, the man behind the counter objects, 
 
The Uses of Temptation 79 
 
 and won't believe that it is genuine. I tell him 
 that it is all right, but he shakes his head, rings 
 the coin two or three times on the counter, looks 
 doubtful, and refuses to pass it. Presently he 
 says, “I'll tell you what. There’s a chemist 
 next door; if you will let him test this coin 
 with a powerful acid, and it comes through all 
 right, I’ll pass it.” Of course, I agree, be- 
 cause I know it is a genuine coin. So in we go 
 to the chemist’s, and tell him our trouble. He 
 takes down a bottle of acid and looks very wise. 
 Just before he touches my coin with it, he tells 
 us that if it be a bad one it will immediately turn 
 green when the acid touches it; while, if it be 
 a good one, it will remain just the same. Then, 
 dropping a glass tube into the bottle, he touches 
 my coin with a drop of the acid, and we all 
 watch to see how it will behave. Everything 
 happens just as I expected. The coin is gen- 
 uine, and comes through the testing time with 
 credit. 
 
 But the question is, Is it any better now than 
 it was before? Nota bit. Can I get a little 
 more than its value for it now? Certainly not! 
 It is not worth a cent more after the test than it 
 was before. But, it is not so with us. If we 
 
80 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 come through the tests of temptation we are 
 worth more. We become stronger, and nobler, 
 and purer; we are better able to face the temp- 
 tations of to-morrow, when we have overcome 
 the temptations of to-day. Do you know that 
 there was a belief among the aboriginals who 
 used to run wild about Australia, that whenever 
 they killed a man in fair fight they inherited his 
 strength? That is to say, if one of these fellows 
 killed another, all the strength of the man that 
 was dead passed into the man that killed him, 
 and so, of course, the more fellows he killed, 
 the stronger he became. Now, that is all non- 
 sense about these aboriginals; but it is sober 
 truth about temptations. Every temptation that 
 you master and get beneath your feet will make 
 you so much stronger than ever you were be- 
 fore. 
 
 This is why God allows us to be tempted, that 
 we may win out of our temptations a finer and 
 more enduring strength. Temptation does for 
 our souls what the gymnasium does for our 
 bodies; it fetches up our moral muscle. I used 
 to think like you do that if I only had God’s 
 power, I would put temptation clean out of the 
 world, and thus make it easy for people to be 
 
The Uses of Temptation 81 
 
 good. I don’t think so now; for temptation is 
 the school for training out our strength, and 
 not only our strength, but our beauty too. 
 There was a little girl in Australia who was 
 very fond of collecting butterflies and beetles. 
 If you went into her room you would see all 
 sorts of creeping and flying things. Some alive, 
 and others dead and pinned to the wall, or fixed 
 in glass boxes. If you opened a box on the 
 mantelpiece out would creep a centipede; if you 
 lifted a tumbler that was turned upside down, 
 out would come a tarantula, you never knew 
 what you were going to find in that girl’s room. 
 Well, one day she was at the Museum when the 
 curator was unpacking and fixing some very 
 beautiful butterflies in their cases. She had 
 never seen any as lovely in color before, and she 
 went into ecstasies of delight. The curator 
 knew her a little, for he had seen her there 
 often; so he said that if she liked she might 
 have one of these butterflies for herself, but it 
 would be in its chrysalis state, and she must 
 take it home and wait for it to come out. Of 
 course she was delighted, and thanking him 
 warmly she started home with her prize. She 
 put it on the mantlepiece, and waited for its 
 
82 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 coming out for more than a week. When one 
 morning she went to look, there to her delight, 
 the butterfly was out of his prison, and flutter- 
 ing away on the top of the empty chrysalis. 
 She could not see the beauty of the wings, be- 
 cause they were fluttering so fast. 
 
 Well, that little thing kept on fluttering so 
 long that she got tired of seeing it, and began 
 to wonder why it did not stop. Presently she 
 saw that it was not quite free, it seemed held by 
 a tiny little thread to the chrysalis shell. “Ah!” 
 she said, “that is it! The poor little thing can’t 
 get loose, and that is why it is struggling so. 
 I'll soon put that all right.” So running over to 
 her work-box she took out a tiny pair of scis- 
 sors and just snipped the thread that held the 
 butterfly captive to the shell. Presently feeling 
 itself free, it settled down, and its wings be- 
 came perfectly still. But what was her disap- 
 pointment to find, when she looked, that it was 
 not nearly so beautiful as the ones she had seen 
 at the museum. So she made up her mind to 
 tell the curator the very next time she saw him. 
 It was not long after that she met him, and he 
 said, “Well, how did your butterfly turn out?” 
 So she looked at him in a very dissatisfied way 
 
The Uses of Temptation 83 
 
 and said, “I don’t think you’re a bit nice, you 
 told me that it was going to be as beautiful as 
 those you were putting in the cases, and it isn’t 
 nearly as pretty.” ‘“Oh,” said he, ‘what did 
 you do to it?” “TI never did anything.” “Oh, 
 yes, you must have, or it would have been just 
 the same. Come, now! What did you do?” 
 “Why, I didn’t do any harm, I only helped it a 
 little.’ “Helped it! What do you mean?” 
 “Why, the poor thing was struggling so hard 
 and so long that I felt quite sorry for it.” “You 
 surely didn’t set it free to stop its struggles?” 
 “Yes, I did.”” “Oh, you silly girl, no wonder it 
 is not so beautiful as mine. Why, don’t you 
 know that when the butterfly comes out of the 
 chrysalis first, its wings are all crumpled up and 
 weak, and the colors are all dull; but it is so 
 fixed by that tiny thread that it has to struggle 
 for freedom, and in these struggles the wings 
 erow in strength and beauty. You have 
 ‘helped’ the butterfly; but, ah! you have for- 
 ever spoiled its beauty.”’ 
 
 That is why temptation comes into our lives, 
 that we may have to struggle, and through 
 struggle, grow in beauty and in strength. God 
 wants to make us strong and beautiful, with a 
 
84 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 strength and a beauty that will outlast the stars. 
 He wants to bring out the best that is in us, and 
 so He has set us where we shall have to 
 struggle and wrestle. But do not be afraid. 
 You need never be beaten. All God’s power 
 is at your back. The devil can do a great many 
 things; but he can never cut off our supplies. 
 He can never tempt us above what we are able 
 to bear nor come’ between us and our Great 
 Captain Christ. Always fall back on your 
 Saviour’s strength, and you will find that in 
 every struggle His arm will sustain you, and 
 His presence will cheer. 
 
Vill 
 The Girdle 
 

 
VIII 
 
 The Girdle 
 
 “Having your loins girt about with truth.” 
 EPHESIANS vi. 14 
 
 We are now to see how Paul took the Roman 
 soldier’s armour piece by piece and found a 
 moral meaning in every part of it, with its les- 
 son for you and me. Now although the girdle 
 is the first thing he mentions it was really the 
 last thing, which after putting on his armour 
 he buckled round his waist. It held all the other 
 pieces together, and kept them in place. With- 
 out the girdle, they would shift about while he 
 fought, and thus make him both uncomfortable 
 and unsafe. You know what an uncomfortable 
 thing it is to have things loose and uncertain 
 about the waist. Why, even girls have been 
 known to tighten up round the waist, and they 
 don’t have to fight. Somehow, we all like to 
 have a feeling of togetherness round the loins, 
 especially when there is any work to be done. 
 
 Now, that is the feeling which the girdle gave to 
 87 
 
88 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 the Roman soldier. It sort of braced him up 
 and kept him together. The other parts of the 
 armour were valuable only as they were kept 
 in their proper place, and this is what the girdle 
 did. You know that in football or cricket or 
 in running a race, it is a wretched thing to have 
 your belt too loose. You cannot do half as well 
 as when it is tightened up. You have a centre 
 to work from, and feel quite fit when you have 
 taken it up a hole or two. Now, Paul knew all 
 this about the girdle, and what an important 
 part it had to fill in fixing up the soldier for the 
 fight. So he began to wonder what thing that 
 was, which like the Roman soldier’s girdle, must 
 be worn by the Christian soldier if he too is 
 to feel comfortable and secure. It does not take 
 him long to find that out. The one thing that 
 can gird a man round with strength and safety 
 is truth, and so he says, “Stand, therefore, hav- 
 ing your loins girt about with truth.” 
 
 Now, the word “truth” has many meanings. 
 In this text it may mean either or all of three 
 things: Something to be known, something to 
 be spoken, something to be done. We speak of 
 knowing the truth about a thing. This gives a 
 feeling of comfort. There is never any com- 
 
The Girdle 89 
 
 fort in doubt. Suppose you live half an hour’s 
 walk from the railway station, and that you 
 have to catch a train to-morrow morning; but 
 you don’t know whether it starts at six or seven. 
 You have not taken the trouble to find out the 
 truth about the train, and it worries you before 
 you go to bed, because you don’t want to over- 
 sleep yourself, and yet you don’t want to get 
 up tooearly. At half-past five you wake witha 
 start, and scramble into your clothes anyhow. 
 A lovely little breakfast is ready for you of 
 toast and eggs, for your mother has been up 
 since before five. But you feel too anxious to 
 want to eat, for you are not sure as to whether 
 you have time. So with your shoes only half 
 fastened, and your vest fixed up with the bot- 
 tom button in the second button-hole, you try 
 to take your coffee standing, only to scald your 
 tongue in your hurry, and then, snatching up a 
 piece of bread in one hand and your bag in the 
 other, you coast off to the station as hard as 
 you can tear, only to find when you get there 
 at six that you have an hour to wait, for your 
 train doesn’t start till seven. There is not time 
 to go back and get your breakfast, and so you 
 sit there, hungry, hurried, and shaken up gen- 
 
go The Beauty of Strength 
 
 erally, while other people quietly walk on to the 
 platform at five minutes to seven, looking com- 
 fortable and happy, for they have had their 
 breakfast without being rushed, because they 
 knew the truth about the train. Then you 
 think about your eggs and toast, and what a 
 time you would have had if you had only known. 
 But then you didn’t know, and so you have had 
 all this worry and hurry just to sit hungry and 
 miserable on the platform and cool your heels 
 for an hour, when you might have been as 
 happy as a king! 
 
 It is a grand thing to know the truth about a 
 thing, even if it is only a time-table. It gives 
 you such a feeling of safety, and saves you from 
 being bustled out of breath. The Bible says: 
 “He that believeth shall not make haste.” This 
 is true even about everyday things. But Paul 
 was thinking and speaking about other and 
 higher things than those of earth and time. He 
 was thinking of the truth about God being our 
 Father, and Jesus being our Saviour, and 
 Heaven being our home. Whatever else you 
 may be tempted to doubt, hold fast to this. It 
 is a truth you can always be sure of, whatever 
 else may be uncertain, and the knowledge of it 
 
The Girdle gl 
 
 will gird you round with strength; it will save 
 you from hurry and worry, and will brace you 
 up to bear the burdens and to fight the battles 
 of your life. The man who is not sure about 
 things can never be happy or safe. Certainty 
 is the only thing that can give comfort. Don’t 
 you see that to be certain in your mind is the 
 only way to be certain in your actions? You 
 must be sure in your thinking to be sure in your 
 working. You know how true this is in sums. 
 If you are working out a new example in arith- 
 metic, and you come to a place where you are 
 not certain as to whether you ought to multiply 
 or divide, all that you do will be doubtful be- 
 cause of the doubt in your mind. Of course, 
 you may chance to do the right thing, but then, 
 you don’t know that it is right, so that for all 
 the comfort it is to you, it might as well be 
 wrong. 
 
 If you have ever lost your way in the bush, 
 you will know what this feeling is. You can- 
 not walk along comfortably or confidently when 
 you are not sure whether you are getting nearer 
 home, or whether every step is taking you far- 
 ther away. Have you ever seen a dog lose the 
 scent when he has been after a hare? He runs 
 
Q2 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 round and round, with his nose to the ground; 
 then he doubles back on his tracks; then he 
 stops, and, lifting one of his paws from the 
 ground, holds it up in doubt, and raises his nose 
 in the air, as if he were trying to sniff which 
 way to go from the wind; then off again, work- 
 ing round and round in circles, and trying to 
 pick up the trail of his game. That is a very 
 unhappy moment for a dog. He is uncertain 
 in his mind, and, of course, he is uncertain in 
 his running. Paul, in one of his letters to the 
 Corinthians, tells them that he does not run like 
 that. He knows where he is going. He does 
 not waste any time fooling round. “So run I 
 not as uncertainly’’—not like a dog that has lost 
 the scent, but like a hound that is hot on the 
 trail. But this fine going came of knowing. 
 Paul’s knowledge of the truth braced him up to 
 do his very best, and saved him from wasting 
 his strength. It kept him well together. No 
 strength was spent in worry because of doubt; 
 every ounce went into his work. 
 
 What knowledge of the truth did for him it 
 will do for you if you get it and gird yourself 
 with it. But this is a kind of truth that you 
 must get to know for yourself. A truth that 
 
The Girdle 93 
 
 you get to know for yourself becomes yours in 
 a way that it could never become by only hear- 
 ing it from someone else. Take, for example, 
 the truth about that train I spoke of just now. 
 If you had such an experience, you would not 
 require a time-table in future to tell you that 
 it started at seven o’clock. You found it out 
 for yourself, and you never forget a thing you 
 learn like that. Of course, there are some truths 
 that you had better not get to know for your- 
 self. It is wiser and safer to take another per- 
 son’s word for them. If the chemist puts a 
 “poison” label on a bottle of liniment that comes 
 into your house, that is the truth about it: but 
 you had better not set about knowing it for 
 yourself, unless you wish to give your friends 
 a half-holiday to attend your funeral. You 
 will find that it saves a lot of trouble, and ex- 
 pense, too, to take the chemist’s word for it in 
 such a case. But there are other truths that 
 you must get to know for yourself if you are to 
 be girt about with strength to “stand in the 
 evil day, and having done all to stand.” 
 
 Every boy and girl may get to know that 
 God is their Father, that He knows them each, 
 and calls them each by name. This is the great- 
 
94 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 est truth in the world. It is the truth that 
 Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth to 
 teach. He came to tell us the truth about God, 
 to let us see into His heart, and to show us 
 that we each have a place there, that no one else 
 can fill. When you have got to know this for 
 yourself, when you are able to look up into His 
 face and say “My Father!’ and hear Him say 
 to you “My Child,” you will find yourself cir- 
 cled round with a strength and comfort that 
 nothing else can give. Because if God is your 
 Father, that means that all His power and wis- 
 dom and love will be for you whenever you 
 need them, and that is always. His power to 
 protect you, His wisdom to guide you, and His 
 love to caress you and fold you to His heart. 
 But truth is not only something to be known; 
 it is also something to be spoken and done. To 
 be truthful and honest in speech and action, 
 will give you a feeling of security and fearless- 
 ness that nothing can destroy. I have not time 
 to speak about these things. Some other day, 
 and under another text, we may have a talk to- 
 gether along these lines. But be truthful and 
 thorough, no matter what it costs. Have noth- 
 ing to do with make-believes. Mere pretence 
 
The Girdle 95 
 
 may seem to succeed, but it is only for a time, 
 and the pretender is always in fear and trem- 
 bling lest he should be bowled out. There is no 
 security in anything but the truth, whether in 
 thinking or speaking or doing. Above all things 
 else then be thorough, and sincere. 
 
 ‘“Whatsoe’er you find to do, 
 Do it, boys, with all your might! 
 Never be a little true, 
 Or a little in the right. 
 Trifles even 
 Lead to heaven, 
 Trifles make the life of man. 
 So in all things, 
 Great or small things, 
 Be as thorough as you can. 
 
 “Let no speck their surface dim— 
 Spotless truth and honor bright! 
 I'd not give a fig for him 
 Who says any lie is white! 
 He who falters, 
 Twists, or alters 
 Little atoms, when we speak, 
 May deceive me; 
 But, believe me, 
 To himself he is a sneak!” 
 

 
EX 
 The Breastplate 
 

 
IX 
 
 The Breastplate 
 
 “Having on the breastplate of righteousness.” 
 EPHESIANS vi. I4 
 
 Last time we had to do with the girdle of 
 truth, or right-thinking. To-day we have to 
 deal with the breastplate of righteousness, or 
 right doing, 
 
 The Roman soldier wore the breastplate to 
 protect his heart. You will remember that the 
 girdle held the breastplate in its place and kept 
 it from shifting round. That means that right- 
 thinking is necessary to right-doing. It is not 
 enough to know what is right. Most of you 
 know well enough what you ought to do; it is 
 the doing it that tangles you up. It is not 
 through want of knowing better that you so 
 often get into trouble; but through want of do- 
 ing what you know. Now, to know without do- 
 ing is like going into battle with the girdle on, 
 but no breastplate. What is the use of know- 
 
 ing that school begins at half past nine if you 
 99 
 
100 ‘The Beauty of Strength 
 
 don’t turn up till ten? Don’t you see that it 
 makes things all the worse when you know the 
 right and yet do the wrong! If you didn’t 
 know, you might be excused. I say “might be,” 
 because it all depends upon whether you could 
 have known or not. Where it is possible to 
 know it becomes wrong to be ignorant. Sup- 
 pose you go up to the Zoo some day, and com- 
 mence to annoy the birds and animals, and when 
 you are caught you say you didn’t know it was 
 wrong! Do you think you would be let off, 
 even if it were true ? Not much! Because you 
 should have known, for just at the entrance 
 there is a big board telling you the things you 
 must not do, so that in such a case ignorance is 
 no excuse. 
 
 Of course, wrong-headedness cannot always 
 be helped. The best-intentioned people may 
 make blunders. But to know what is right and 
 to go straight away and do the wrong is wrong- 
 ness of heart and is not to be excused. The 
 trouble with most of us is not with our heads, 
 but with our hearts. Righteousness, then, is 
 a matter of the heart; that is why it is called 
 the breastplate. Now, it is the heart that rules 
 the life. Unless, therefore, it is put right and 
 
The Breastplate 101 
 
 kept right, it is of no use trying to make hands 
 or feet or tongue behave. Suppose that the 
 hands of my watch keep going wrong, so that 
 when I look for the time I am never sure as to 
 whether it is telling me the truth. What is to 
 be done? It is no use dealing with the hands; it 
 is not their fault. I may twist them round and 
 put them right to the very second with the post 
 office clock; but what’s the use of that? They 
 will commence immediately to go wrong again. 
 The trouble is deeper. The watch is wrong at 
 heart. It must be dealt with at its centre. So 
 I take it to the watchmaker. He opens it up, 
 puts a strong magnifying glass to his eye, and 
 looks inside. After peering and poking for a 
 few minutes, he says “Ah!” and if you heard 
 him you would think he was very sorry for me, 
 by the tone of his voice; but you would be mis- 
 taken for that is only a little way that he’s got. 
 As a matter of fact, he is very glad, but you 
 would never gather it from his manner. He 
 looks very serious, and says that he must keep 
 it for a week or two, for there is something very 
 wrong inside, which may or may not be true. 
 But then, you see, he could not very well charge 
 me three or four dollars for what would take 
 
102 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 him only half a minute to do. So he has to 
 keep up appearances, and in order to make up 
 for the wrong of overcharging me, he inflicts 
 a further wrong by keeping me without my 
 watch for a fortnight longer than he ought. As 
 the trouble, however, is internal, and I cannot 
 deal with it myself, I have no choice but just 
 to leave it with him. 
 
 Now, supposing him to be a man who under- 
 stands his business, and does it, when I get that 
 watch back it will have been so changed in- 
 wardly that outwardly it will be right; whereas 
 before it used to deceive and mislead, now it will 
 tell the truth. It has been put right at heart; 
 and as the hands are ruled by the heart, when 
 it is made truthful, so are they. Now, truly as 
 the hands of a watch are governed by its heart, 
 so are yours. That is why the Bible attaches 
 so much importance to the heart being right. 
 It never troubles about mere appearances. It 
 pushes past all that is outward, taking no notice 
 of fine clothes or fine looks. It takes the rich 
 man, clothed in purple and fine linen, and holds 
 him up to shame and everlasting contempt, be- 
 cause his heart was mean and narrow and self- 
 ish; while it shows Lazarus, in spite of poverty 
 
The Breastplate 103 
 
 and rags, and because his heart was pure, being 
 borne to heaven, attended by an angel guard. 
 
 The great thing, then, is to be right at heart. 
 Now, just as the watch that is inwardly wrong 
 must be taken to the watchmaker, so the heart 
 that is wrong must be taken to the heartmaker. 
 God says to every lad and girl: “My son, my 
 daughter, give me thine heart.” If you will but 
 let Him, He will set you right, and keep you 
 right. The other day the tuner came to fix our 
 piano. He has to come about once every three 
 months to tone things up and keep the instru- 
 ment in tune, because the changes in the weather 
 make changes in the strings. Now, suppose 
 that the next time that he comes, I could put 
 him inside the instrument and keep him there, 
 why, it would not matter then what sort of 
 weather it was, he would always keep the thing 
 in tune. Now, that is just what Christ prom- 
 ises to do. He offers to come into the heart, to 
 live there, to put it in tune, and keep it in tune, 
 until by and by its music shall blend with the 
 deep, full music of the skies. Such a righteous- 
 ness as Jesus thus works in the heart becomes 
 a breastplate, protecting it from harm. The 
 best defence from attack is right-doing. It is 
 
104 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 not enough to be doing no harm, because that 
 would lay the heart open to assault. The boy 
 or girl that isn’t doing anything, is always in 
 danger. It is a terribly risky thing to be un- 
 employed. The devil is always looking after 
 people who are out of work, and offering them 
 a job. The best safeguard from doing wrong 
 is doing right. Doing right is always in sea- 
 son. It does not go out like football and cricket. 
 You know how you get “out of form’ in a 
 game because it “goes out” as we say, and it 
 takes some time at practice to get your hand 
 and eye in at the beginning of the season. Now, 
 don’t get out of practice in doing right; keep 
 it up all the year round. It is a game you can 
 always play, winter and summer, night and 
 day, and it will weave a breastplate of safety 
 around you that all the darts of the devil will 
 never be able to pierce. 
 
xX 
 The Sandals 
 

 
x 
 The Sandals 
 
 “Having your feet shod with the preparation of 
 
 the Gospel of peace.” 
 EPHESIANS Vi. 15 
 
 The Roman soldier wore boots, or sandals, 
 the soles of which were thickly studded with 
 big-headed nails, to keep him from slipping and 
 sliding about. It is very important, even in a 
 game, to keep on your feet; but in a battle it 
 may prove a matter of life or death. To slip 
 is to give the other side a great advantage. 
 Then, again, in marching, a soldier needs all 
 his strength, and there is nothing that so wastes 
 strength as to be slipping about and finding no 
 certain foothold from which to spring your 
 step. You soon get exhausted in walking on a 
 wet day and on greasy soil if your feet can 
 get no firm hold of the ground. Those of you 
 who live in cities know how hard it is even for 
 horses—and they have four legs to your two— 
 
 to keep their footing on the wooden blocks or 
 107 
 
108 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 asphalt after a shower. Either they have to 
 be shod specially, to keep them from falling, or 
 else sand has to be sprinkled about, so that 
 they can get a grip of the road. While those 
 of you who live in the country will know that 
 in some parts at any rate, where the soil 1s very 
 rich, horses need shoes specially made with 
 heels, or they could not get along. It takes a 
 lot more out of a horse if he slips about and 
 cannot get firm foothold when he pulls. One 
 mile of that sort of thing would leave him — 
 more knocked out than five of straight-forward 
 pulling when every ounce of strength goes into 
 his work. Why, even a locomotive must not 
 be allowed slip on the rails, or it will strain all 
 its parts. That is why every engine carries a 
 sand-box, from which a little pipe leads down 
 on to the lines, so that on wet or frosty morn- 
 ings when the rails are greasy the driver can 
 trickle out sand in front of the driving wheel 
 and get a grip of the road. An engine-driver 
 told me that, one frosty morning, in travelling 
 with a heavy load of steel rails, his engine com- 
 - menced to slip—that is, the wheels went round 
 and round without gripping, and it threw such 
 an extra strain on the left-hand side-rod that 
 
The Sandals 109 
 
 it broke. This gave the right-hand rod more 
 to do than it could manage, and so it broke also, 
 and his disabled engine had to lie up for re- 
 pairs. 
 
 You can always tell when an engine is slip- 
 ping, for instead of the steady and regular 
 “puff, puff, puff,” you hear it going “puff-puff- 
 puff puff”; while all the time it stops about the 
 same place. This shows that sand is needed on 
 the rails to give grip to the wheels; and unless 
 this is done, the slipping will strain and perhaps 
 break either cranks or rods. Now, if a dead, 
 dumb thing of wheels and pistons and cranks 
 can thus suffer through not getting proper 
 foothold, is it any wonder that living creatures 
 should be worn out and lose their strength when 
 they can find no proper hold for their feet? 
 But firm foothold not only saves your strength, 
 it gives a sense of safety. If you are not 
 sure as to whether you can stand up and keep 
 your feet, you feel afraid, and when you feel 
 afraid you can never do your best, either in 
 the examination-room or the playground. You 
 know what it is to get into what’s called a 
 “funk * when you are batting. A bowler is put 
 on who knows your weak spot, and always gets 
 
110 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 your wicket. While the field is changing over, 
 you hitch up your flannels, look nervously 
 round, and ask for “‘block.’”’ Then a film comes 
 over your eyes, your heart beats fast, you feel 
 that, somehow, there is not enough air to go 
 all round so that everyone can have a share. 
 Anyhow, you cannot get a deep, full breath, and 
 when the umpire calls “Play,” something tells 
 you that the end is come. You have made up 
 your mind before the ball is delivered (always 
 a bad thing) that you will play “forward,” then 
 just as it leaves the bowler’s hand you change 
 your mind and determine to play “back”; but 
 at the last moment you get so flurried that you 
 do neither; the ball slips in between your legs 
 and the bat, and your leg stump goes for a 
 walk! It was just as you expected, and it hap- 
 pened largely because you expected it. Then 
 when you are taking off your pads the fellows 
 come up and want to know whatever made you 
 go out for such a soft thing as that, when you 
 had already played a hundred much more dif- 
 ficult balls. Well, there’s only one word that 
 can express it, and that is “funk.’”? You were 
 afraid the bowler would get you, and that is 
 why he did. If you had only made up your 
 
The Sandals 111 
 
 mind not to be afraid, you might have carried 
 out your bat. You must have confidence, 
 whether you are playing a game, or parsing a 
 sentence, or fighting a battle. 
 
 Anything that can add to this feeling of con- 
 fidence in a soldier is important, because in 
 battle a “funk” has a wonderful way of spread- 
 ing till it becomes a panic, so that the whole 
 company, without knowing why, will break up 
 and run, when, if they had only confidently 
 stood their ground, they might have had an 
 easy win. 
 
 The Roman soldier’s boot, then, was so made 
 as to give him firm standing, that he might 
 have every advantage that could be got from 
 a solid footing when he met his foe. I wish 
 that I could give you a picture of these mili- 
 tary sandals—‘“calige,” the Romans called 
 them—but you have perhaps seen spiked shoes 
 such as cricketers or tennis players wear who 
 play on turf, and that will give you some idea 
 of the thing that’s meant. Now, Paul says that 
 the thing that will do for you what the Roman 
 soldier’s sandals did for him is the “prepara- 
 tion of the Gospel of peace.” This is the thing 
 
112 #The Beauty of Strength 
 
 with which you must be shod or in which your 
 feet are to find footing that cannot be moved. 
 The English word “preparation” in our text 
 does not make Paul’s meaning very clear. I 
 think I have told you before that this letter 
 was written in Greek. Now, you know that a 
 word in English, without changing its spelling, 
 may have quite a number of different mean- 
 ings. Well, it is just the same in Greek, and 
 sometimes you can find out what is meant only 
 by a very careful study of everything that has 
 been said before, and by comparing the dif- 
 ferent uses of the word by different men. Now, 
 it is a word of this sort that Paul uses, and 
 which has been translated ‘preparation.” 
 Even very great scholars have been puzzled as 
 to what he meant. Bishop Ellicott, one of the 
 cleverest of Greek scholars, says that the word 
 Paul uses does not mean in this place ‘“‘prepara- 
 tion,’ but “foundation,” or “‘base,” just as we 
 should speak of the “foundation” of a house 
 or the “base” of a mountain, by which we 
 should mean something very firmly set and 
 solid. This is what it means in the Greek copy 
 of the Old Testament, in Psalm Ixxxix. 14: 
 “Righteousness and judgment are the ‘founda- 
 
The Sandals 113 
 
 tion’ of Thy throne’; and in Ezra iti. 3, “And 
 they set the altar upon his ‘base.’ ” 
 
 What Paul wanted to say, then, was this, 
 that our feet must be placed on the solid foun- 
 dation of the Gospel, just as the Roman soldier’s 
 feet were solidly planted on and strapped to 
 his sandals, if we are to find firm footing in 
 our struggle against sin. But what is this Gos- 
 pel? The word “Gospel” is short for ‘“God’s 
 spell,” or good-spell. “Spell” is the old Eng- 
 lish word for “story.” So that the Gospel is 
 God’s story—that is, the story of God’s love for 
 you and me and all mankind! This is the story 
 that Jesus came to tell, and that He died to 
 prove. When we believe it and receive it with 
 all our hearts, we find firm rock beneath our 
 feet, though all around may be sinking sand. 
 
 I wonder whether any of you have ever been 
 on a quicksand. I remember doing a very fool- 
 ish and dangerous thing, which nearly cost me 
 my life. I was on horseback, and not far from 
 the coast, and, hearing the roll of the waves, 
 thought I would give the horse a canter along 
 the beach and bathe his legs. But as soon as 
 I turned his head towards the shore, he got 
 stubborn, and did not want to go. That, of 
 
114 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 course, only made me more determined that 
 he should, for someone had told me that you 
 must never let a horse get the mastery, or it 
 will spoil him. I said that this horse should 
 not be spoiled by me, so I used the whip and 
 forced him to the edge of the sand. Then I 
 noticed that he was trembling all over, and in- 
 clined to crouch beneath me. Thinking it was 
 just fear of the salt water, I tried to encourage 
 him, told him that it was all right, called him 
 “old fellow,” and coaxed him to “get up.” Still 
 he stopped and trembled, till at last, getting im- 
 patient at what I thought was his cowardice, 
 I gave him some more whip, when, with a 
 bound, as much as to say, “All right, my young 
 master, if you want it, you shall have it, and 
 more than you like,” he plunged forward, when, 
 to my terror, no sooner were his forelegs placed 
 on the sand than down they went, right up 
 to the shoulders, nearly sending me over his 
 head. We were nearly gone altogether, and 
 it was only because his hind legs kept the solid 
 eround, that he was able, after one or two 
 struggles, to wheel round with a wild snort and 
 escape from what would have proved certain 
 death to us both. When I got home to the 
 
The Sandals 115 
 
 farm where I was staying and told my story, 
 the old farmer said: “My boy, th’ old horse 
 did knaw better than thee; and if he ’adn’t, 
 theest wouldn’t been here to tell thy tale.” 
 
 Then he told me dreadful stories of men and 
 horses that had been caught in that quicksand 
 and never got out alive, till my heart stood 
 still with fear. After he had finished, I went 
 out and told the horse how sorry I was for 
 what I had done, and as he held down his dear 
 old face for me to stroke he seemed to know 
 what I was saying, and to be making allow- 
 ances for a fellow who did not understand. 
 But I shall never forget the joy I felt at know- 
 ing that the solid ground was again beneath 
 my feet. 
 
 This is just the sort of feeling that the Gos- 
 pel of Jesus Christ gives you when you set 
 fairly on it with both your feet. But, re- 
 member, everyone must find his own footing 
 there. Just as each Roman soldier had to pos- 
 sess and stand in his own sandals, so everyone 
 has to find his own footing on the Gospel of 
 Christ. There is room for everyone, but each 
 for himself must come and find his place. Once 
 
116 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 you get both your feet on this solid rock, you 
 will be able to fight without fear of a fall. 
 
 In this struggle, then, don’t take your stand 
 upon the shifting sand of your own good reso- 
 lutions, or of what people will think or say, or 
 of what other lads or girls may do or may not 
 do; you will find no sure foothold in any of 
 these places. Stand with both your feet on the 
 “old, old story of Jesus and His love,” and 
 nothing can shift you. Here is Rock. All 
 beside is shifting sand. Then by and by, when 
 the last fight has been fought and the last vic- 
 tory has been won, and the hour has come for 
 you to die, you will be able to sing the words 
 and feel them true: 
 
 “His oath, His covenant, His blood, 
 Support me in the whelming flood, 
 When all around my soul gives way, 
 He then is all my hope and stay. 
 
 On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand, 
 All other ground is shifting sand.” 
 
XI 
 The Shield 
 
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XI 
 
 The Shield 
 
 “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith 
 ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the 
 wicked.” 
 
 EPHESIANS vi. 16 
 
 We do not know much about shields in these 
 days. We only see them in pictures. Some 
 day, when you go to dear old England, you 
 will visit the Tower of London. There you 
 will see the shields and all the armour of the 
 knights who used to clash their battle-axes in 
 the good old days of lance and tourney. These 
 shields belong to a bygone time of spears and 
 arrows, but are useless now, when we have 
 rifles that can pierce through wood, and even 
 iron, at a distance of a thousand yards. 
 
 Now, the Roman soldier of Paul’s time had 
 two kinds of shields. There was a small round 
 one, that he wore on his left arm in fighting; 
 and there was a large oblong one, 4 feet long 
 
 and 2 feet 6 inches broad, like a fair-sized door, 
 119 
 
120 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 which was used ina siege. It was usually made 
 of wood, across which were stretched several 
 folds of tough bullock hide. Now, you know 
 that in war it is a great thing, if possible, to 
 destroy the enemy’s supplies of food and am- 
 munition. This is a very old trick, and the 
 Romans knew it well; and so they provided 
 against it. There were, of course, no such 
 things as explosive’shells in those days, because 
 gunpowder was not known to the Romans. But 
 their enemies used to wrap around their spears 
 and arrows something that would burn easily, 
 like cloth soaked in oil or pitch. Then, after 
 lighting these, they would let them fly into the 
 camp, or on the tents and baggage, and burn 
 up the forage of the horses and the food of 
 the men. This is where the shields would come 
 in. It was the business of those who carried 
 them to catch these flaming brands before they 
 had time to fall, and put them out. You can 
 quite see that if a dart all blazing with lighted 
 pitch were to drop on to the stacked-up bag- 
 gage of the troops, there would soon be very 
 little left; and once the camp was burnt, sur- 
 render would be a matter of a very few days. 
 A great deal, then, depended on the smart- 
 
The Shield 121 
 
 ness of the soldiers in watching and quenching 
 these flaming darts. Now, we have an enemy 
 who would dearly like to interfere with our 
 supplies. If he cannot hurt us the next best 
 thing is to stop them. But then we too, have 
 a shield—something that can come in between 
 us and the darts of our foe, sheltering both 
 ourselves, and our supplies of grace and 
 strength from God. This shield or shelter, says 
 Paul, is our faith—that is, our faith in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Now, faith is a thing you often hear about. 
 Perhaps you may have wondered why so much 
 is made of it in the Bible. Everything seems 
 to depend on faith. Of course you know that 
 faith means belief, trust, confidence. You can- 
 not post a letter without faith. Suppose you 
 write to a friend in England, or Australia. It 
 requires faith to believe that by simply putting 
 on a stamp, and dropping it into a hole, it will 
 find its way across the ocean to the house of 
 your friend. But so it is, andif you didn’t be- 
 lieve, you would not do it. So that the com- 
 monest things we do every day depend on faith. 
 That slice of bread and butter you had for 
 
 breakfast came through faith. First of all, the 
 
122 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 farmer scattered the wheat all over the brown 
 and furrowed soil. That required faith, for if 
 there is anything that looks like wasting good 
 wheat, it is that of scattering it broadcast over 
 the face of the earth. Then, when it is reaped 
 and ready for the mill, the miller buys it be- 
 cause he believes that when he makes it into 
 flour the baker will want it. Then the baker 
 has faith when he makes it into bread that the 
 people will need it, and he leaves it at your 
 house every day, without waiting for the 
 money, because he has faith that some day your 
 father will pay him. So that even in common, 
 everyday things, you see, we could not get along 
 without having faith in one another. You 
 cannot even play a game with a fellow you 
 don’t believe in. There is no fun where there’s 
 no faith. If you have to be watching the other 
 chap all the time, to see he doesn’t cheat, it is 
 not good enough. There must be perfect con- 
 fidence or there will be no pleasure in your play. 
 
 Now, it is because faith is the thing we use 
 every day amongst ourselves that God wants us 
 to use it in our dealing with Him. He has made 
 the answers to our prayers depend upon our 
 belief and trust in Him. He does not promise 
 
The Shield 123 
 
 to do anything for the man who does not trust 
 Him; but there is almost nothing that He will 
 not do for the man who believes. It is your 
 faith in Christ that brings Him in between you 
 and the fiery darts of the enemy, so that they 
 fall blunted, quenched, and harmless at your 
 feet. Not faith in your own strength, remem- 
 ber, nor in your own smartness and cunning. 
 These can give you no shelter from attack. The 
 sooner we learn how altogether weak and 
 worthless is all our own armour, the safer we 
 shall be. We might as well expect a biscuit to 
 stop a rifle ball as expect that any good reso- 
 lutions of our own will shield us from the devil’s 
 darts. But calm, strong faith in Christ will 
 give us a charmed life amid all his fiery hail, 
 SO: 
 
 “Take the Name of Jesus with you, 
 As a shield from every snare. 
 When temptations round you gather, 
 Breathe that holy Name in prayer.” 
 

 
All 
 The Helmet 
 

 
XII 
 The Helmet 
 
 “And take the helmet of salvation.” 
 EPHESIANS vi. 17 
 
 The helmet of the Roman soldier was usually 
 made of brass, and was often beautifully 
 plumed and crested. It guarded the head from 
 attack, which was a most important matter, 
 for a crack on the skull may prove a most 
 serious thing. It takes very little to kill a man 
 if you only hit him in the right place on the 
 head. While, then, the helmet was as light in 
 weight as possible, it had also to be made very 
 strong, and fit very closely, lest an arrow should 
 pierce through a crevice and find its way to 
 the brain. Besides, a man wants all his wits 
 about him in a fight, and a knock on the head, 
 even if it did not kill him, might make him 
 do foolish things and fall into the hands of 
 the enemy. A man whose head is not right 
 
 cannot be trusted. He has to be carefully 
 I27 
 
128 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 watched, or he will get both himself and his 
 friends into trouble. You know we have to 
 put people away in asylums who are wrong in 
 the head, because the head does the thinking, 
 and wrong thinking leads to wrong-doing. 
 This is why the devil tries to put evil thoughts 
 into our minds. Because if he can only get us 
 thinking about evil, we shall very soon be doing 
 it. 
 
 Now, no helmet of steel or brass, however 
 close-fitting, can keep out evil thoughts. But 
 they must be kept out if we are going to win 
 in this fight, because thoughts presently pass 
 into wishes, and to wish to do wrong, Jesus tells 
 us, is the same as doing it. We must be saved 
 in our thoughts. We want a salvation that will 
 keep our heads from evil-thinking, and this is 
 the very salvation which Jesus came to give. 
 It is not enough that our feet be kept from 
 running down the broad way; our thoughts 
 must be kept from it, too. Sin always begins 
 in thought. It has first of all to be an inten- 
 tion. If you do not intend to do wrong, even 
 though you may do it, it is not sin. Everything 
 depends upon what you intend. Christ’s sal- 
 vation is like a helmet because it keeps the head 
 
The Helmet 129 
 
 sound, the judgment clear, the intentions right, 
 the thoughts pure. 
 
 Jesus Christ then clears the head as well as 
 cleans the heart. Indeed, it is just wonderful 
 how a clean heart makes for a clear head. Jesus 
 said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God.” But perhaps you will say, 
 “What has purity of heart got to do with clear- 
 ness of sight?” A very great deal. Even the 
 heart that you can feel beating in your breast 
 has to be pure if your eyes are to see clearly. 
 There is a disease of the heart to which doc- 
 tors give a very long name. If I were speaking 
 to you, I don’t think I should use it; but as I 
 am writing, perhaps it won’t hurt if I spell it 
 for you, and then you can look it up in the 
 dictionary for yourselves. It is called “ulcer- 
 ative endocarditis,’ and it means that on the 
 membranes in the cavities of the heart there 
 are little ulcers formed. Now, this is a sign of 
 an impure heart, and this impurity causes cer- 
 tain blood-vessels in the eyes to burst and dim 
 the sight, and, if not cured, to make them 
 totally blind. It would be no use in such a case, 
 you see, to treat the eyes; it is the heart that 
 must be made pure, and then the eyes will come 
 
130 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 right. Just as truly, then, as the bodily heart, 
 if impure, dulls the bodily eye, so the moral 
 heart, if unclean, will dim the moral eye. Jesus 
 always goes to the very root of the trouble, 
 and by healing the root, He cleanses the fruit. 
 That is why His salvation is so great. Just as 
 a skilful doctor would deal with a man’s eye 
 through his heart if he had the disease about 
 which I have spoken, so Jesus deals with our 
 sight and our hearing, and our thinking, too, 
 through our hearts. 
 
 Believe me, a great deal of the doubt that 
 clouds people’s minds is just a mist that has 
 risen up from their impure hearts. When our 
 will is set to do what is right, our mind will be 
 clear as to our path. Even a stupid boy will 
 be brightened when he gets a new heart. When 
 Jesus comes into the life, He straightens things 
 up all round. He smartens the brain when He 
 cleanses the heart. His salvation is an all-round 
 salvation, and if you will let Him into your 
 lives, He will guard the head from blunders, 
 as well as the heart from sin. The cleverest 
 men in the world are Christian men—that is, 
 Christ’s men, men who are anxious above 
 everything else to do Christ’s will. The nations 
 
The Helmet 131 
 
 that are soundest in head and cleanest in heart, 
 and richest in brave and noble deeds are the 
 nations that are trying to please Jesus Christ. 
 
 Have you this salvation? If not, don’t wait 
 another moment. You can have it just now, 
 this very instant, and just for the asking. 
 With it as a helmet, you can go out among all 
 the poisonous words and thoughts that the 
 enemy may try to lodge in your brain. It will 
 turn them all aside. With it you need not 
 worry about anything. Why should you? 
 Clothed from head to foot in heavenly armour, 
 and on the winning side, you need be anxious 
 for nothing—you need fear nothing. 
 
 “Not all the powers of hell can fright 
 A soul that walks with Christ in light. 
 He walks, and cannot fall: | 
 Clearly he sees, and wins his way, 
 Shining unto the perfect day, 
 And more than conquers all.” 
 

 
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 The Sword ) 
 
 
 
 
 
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XIII 
 
 The Sword 
 
 “And take... the sword of the Spirit, which is 
 the Word of God.” 
 
 EPHESIANS vi. 17 
 
 Now we come to the one and only weapon 
 which the Christian soldier needs. Of course, 
 it is a very fine thing to be clothed from head 
 to foot in armour that nothing can pierce, and 
 to be able to move about amid all kinds of 
 danger, bearing a charmed life. Still, at the 
 same time, a fellow likes to be able to hit back 
 occasionally, and not let the other side have all 
 the fun. It makes a fight much more interest- 
 ing when you can give as well as take, when 
 you can thrust as well as parry. So Paul tells 
 us to “take the sword of the Spirit, which 1s 
 the Word of God.” 
 
 This is for the purpose of attack, though, of 
 course, a sword is just as reliable as a means 
 of defence. A skilful swordsman can so use 
 
 his weapon as to weave about him a gleaming 
 135 
 
136 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 wall of steel, through which his foe finds it 
 impossible to pass. Now, that which serves the 
 purpose of a sword in the hand of the Christian 
 is the Word of God, and like a sword it answers 
 for the double purpose of defence and attack. 
 If you make a companion of God’s word, it will 
 lessen your temptations to sin. You know we 
 make a great many temptations for ourselves, 
 just through the company we keep. Books, as 
 well as people, carry an atmosphere about with 
 them. If you breathe the air that clings about 
 them, you grow weak and open to attack. 
 There are some atmospheres so impure that to 
 live in them even for a short time is to run a 
 very great risk. Men who work in mines, and 
 in factories where the air is foul, become very 
 pale and feeble, and then they easily fall vic- 
 tims to disease. There is nothing like plenty 
 of fresh air for keeping the body in health. 
 That is one reason why God has given you a 
 nose, that you might get swift warning of a 
 tainted atmosphere, and keep off. I have a 
 friend in Australia who cannot tell the dif- 
 ference between the smell of a violet and that 
 of an onion. One night in a public meeting 
 that he was addressing, the acetylene gas 
 
The Sword 187 
 
 escaped to such an extent that the people were 
 leaving the hall. He smelt nothing but pres- 
 ently felt himself somehow to be dividing into 
 two different persons, one talking and the other 
 standing by, and if someone had not come to 
 the rescue serious results might have followed. 
 It is a fine thing to have a keen scent. It isa 
 protection against danger. It is an important 
 thing to take care of your nose, and then it will 
 take care of you. Like a sentry on outpost duty, 
 it will give you danger signals of trouble ahead. 
 Now, I have seen boys, and even girls, hanging 
 about evil-smelling drains, and munching apples 
 over an open sewer, as though there were no 
 other place in the whole world in which to play. 
 If ever you see a boy doing that kind of thing, 
 hunt him off, because that is the hiding place of 
 typhoid fever, diphtheria, and all the black 
 brotherhood of disease and death. 
 
 Now, what a bad drain is to the bodily 
 health, a bad book is to the health of the soul. 
 A bad book is the word of Satan, and breathes 
 out an air of fatal sickness wherever it goes. 
 But God’s Word is like a fresh breeze from the 
 sea, or the sweet breath of the meadow-land 
 when it is strewn with new-mown hay, or the 
 
138 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 bracing air of the mountains laden with the 
 scent of fragrant pines. Keep in the fresh air 
 of God’s Word, and you will be safe from a 
 thousand dangers that befall the people who 
 breathe the poisoned air of bad and worthless 
 books.. The more you read the Bible, the more 
 you'll get to love it, and the more you love it, 
 the more you'll grow like it, for we always 
 become like the thing we love. This very love 
 for what is pure and good will put a wall of 
 defence around you. It will be like a flaming 
 sword turning every way, and guarding your 
 tree of life. 
 
 But not only will the word of God be a means 
 of defence to you, it will be also a weapon of 
 attack. Satan has very little chance with the 
 man who is skilful in the use of God’s Word. 
 If you will only store your memories with the 
 Scriptures, then whenever an impure thought 
 of the enemy tries to break through the lines 
 of your defence, the pure Word of God will 
 leap out like a flashing blade of steel and put it 
 to flight. Get as much of the Bible as you can 
 off by heart, and every text will be like a two- 
 edged sword. There is nothing that makes the 
 Devil fall back so quickly and with such con- 
 
The Sword 139 
 
 fusion as the Word of God. This was the only 
 weapon that Jesus used in his fierce conflict with 
 the enemy, and it was quite sufficient. If you 
 read the story of the Temptation in the wilder- 
 ness you will see that Jesus met every word of 
 Satan with the Word of God. He just flashed 
 out texts of Scripture from the scabbard of 
 his memory till, wounded and defeated, the devil 
 limped off and owned Him conqueror. Don’t 
 try to meet temptation with any sword of your 
 own making. This is the reason why we are 
 so often defeated. We try some word of our 
 own, some wooden sword of human manufac- 
 ture, which only breaks in our hand and puts 
 us at the mercy of our foe. Never try your 
 words on the devil. There is nothing he de- 
 lights in more, than to get us to talk things 
 over with him, for we are no match for him 
 in argument. He turns our words aside as 
 though they were but cardboard blades; but the 
 sword of the Spirit he cannot withstand. Get 
 a firm grip, then, of this sword, and, clothed 
 from head to foot in heavenly armour, you will 
 be able to “stand in the evil day, and having 
 done all to stand.” 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 
XIV 
 Praying 
 
 “Praying always with all prayer.” 
 EPHESIANS vi. 18 
 
 We have been taking the armour piece by 
 piece, and I have tried to show you what each 
 piece means. Let us suppose now that you have 
 done what Paul advises, that you have put it all 
 on, so that you are now clothed from head to 
 foot in armour easy to carry and hard to pierce. 
 Is that all you need, and can you go out now 
 and not only stand your own ground, but drive 
 the enemy from his? Paul does not think so, 
 and from what he goes on to say, it is very 
 clear that we are not sent out to independent 
 fighting. God does not intend that we shall 
 go out “on our own,” as though He had done 
 everything He was going to do for us, and that 
 now we must look after ourselves, fighting our 
 battles and winning our victories or sustaining 
 our defeats uncared for and alone. Nothing 
 
 of the kind. All through the struggle—and it 
 143 
 
144 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 will be life-long—we are to be in constant com- 
 munication with headquarters, corresponding 
 with our Captain, asking for and receiving in- 
 structions and support. This is what Paul 
 means when he says: “praying always with all 
 prayer.” Prayer is asking for what we need, 
 and whatever else you may be doubtful about, 
 of this you may be certain, that you can al- 
 ways get God*to listen to you at a moment’s 
 notice. He is always at call. You need only 
 whisper, and He will hear. Indeed, there will 
 be times when you cannot even whisper but the 
 starting tear will become a prayer and bring 
 Him to your side. Some of you, perhaps, have 
 the telephone laid on to your house. Suppose 
 you want to speak to your father at his office. 
 Of course, you ring up. But, then, he might 
 be engaged with someone else, and too busy to 
 speak to you. Or he might have gone out for 
 an hour. Or, as sometimes happens, something 
 may have gone wrong with the telephone wire, 
 so that you cannot get your message through. 
 Now, nothing like this can ever happen with 
 your prayers. Prayer is the most wonderful 
 telephone in the world. It has been in use for 
 thousands of years, and though millions of 
 
Praying 145 
 people have used it, it has never got out of 
 repair. You have never to ask, “Are you 
 there?’ when you go to the prayer telephone. 
 God is always there. He is never so busy that 
 He cannot listen to you and answer your 
 prayer. You have never to ring up the Ex- 
 change and ask to be “put on” to God. You 
 are always on, and nobody—not even an arch- 
 angel—can “ring you off.” O the wonder of 
 it all! that men and women and little children, 
 everywhere and always, can speak into the very 
 ear of God, telling Him all they need, and 
 knowing that for Christ’s sake He will answer 
 their prayer. This is one of the sweetest and 
 most beautiful truths in the whole world, and 
 that we cannot understand how it works must 
 not keep us from using it. How many among 
 the tens of thousands who use the telephone un- 
 derstand how their voices are carried for hun- 
 dreds of miles along a wire? Yet no one allows 
 his ignorance of how it works to keep him from 
 using the instrument when required. So never 
 you mind how God answers prayer. The prin- 
 cipal thing to know and remember is that He 
 does answer it, and all you have to do is just 
 to tell Him what you need and wait His time. 
 
146 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 Of course, I don’t mean to say that God will 
 give you everything you ask for. He loves you 
 too well to do that, and His love is shown just 
 as much in the things He denies you as in those 
 He gives. But you just go on asking as usual, 
 and leave Him to sort out your prayers. You 
 won’t know what is best for you sometimes, but 
 He will, and you may safely trust Him to do 
 the very best He can for you; and remember 
 there are never any mistakes made at Head- 
 quarters. Even if God does not give you the 
 thing you asked for and which you thought 
 would be good, He will give you something 
 else which He knows will be a great deal better. 
 Just pray about everything, however small. 
 Bring God into every part of your life, home, 
 and school, lessons and play, and He will bless 
 and brighten them all. 
 
 Paul says, “Praying with all prayer.” Now, 
 by “all prayer” he means every kind of prayer. 
 Of course, you know that you ought to have 
 stated and regular times for prayer, just as you 
 have for your meals. Daniel prayed “three 
 times a day”—morning, noon, and night. They 
 were his stated times with which he allowed 
 nothing to interfere, even when he was Prime 
 
 bd 
 
Praying 147 
 
 Minister of one of the greatest empires in the 
 world. But Daniel often prayed between times 
 as well. You know that breakfast, dinner, and 
 supper do not prevent you from having some 
 refreshment between meals. You can always 
 manage a banana or an apple at recess time in 
 the morning, and a good slice of bread and jam 
 at four in the afternoon, to say nothing of 
 what you have before breakfast and what you 
 take before going to bed. I might change the 
 text to make it read, “Feeding always with all 
 kinds of food,” and it would be true of certain 
 boys I know. Every chance of something to 
 eat that offers they take. Now, that’s how to 
 pray. Stated times, between times, any time, 
 every time. Whenever you feel your heart get- 
 ting hungry for God; whenever you feel faint 
 in spirit and want refreshing ; whenever you are 
 sad and want cheering up, just “ask and receive 
 that your joy may be full.” 
 
 Now, prayer is sometimes called an “exer- 
 cise.” It is a gymnastic for the soul. You 
 know what physical drill is, and how it 
 strengthens and toughens the muscles, making 
 them hardy and able to endure. Well, prayer 
 is spiritual drill, and does for the soul what the 
 
148 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 other drill does for the body. It is not always 
 an easy thing to pray. Indeed, sometimes it is 
 very difficult, and, strange to say, when we need 
 to pray most we often want to pray least. You 
 will have to call up all your power of will some- 
 times to keep your soul engaged and your mind 
 fixed on the business. Prayer with the mind 
 wandering all over the place and thinking of 
 something else “all the time is a useless thing. 
 Remember that what you get out of your 
 prayers in the way of comfort and grace to help 
 in time of need will depend on what you put into 
 them in the way of earnestness. You see, if 
 God gave you an answer to a prayer when you 
 were not in earnest and did not care whether 
 you got it or not, you would not value it when 
 it came, and it would do you no good. Unless 
 you really feel the need of the thing you ask 
 for, you won’t get it. Suppose that some aiter- 
 noon, after school, you ask your mother for 
 something to eat, and because she happens to 
 be busy and unable to attend to you at the mo- 
 ment, you drop your books and stroll off for 
 a game of football. Do you think your mother 
 will come chasing you round with a slice? Not 
 much! But why? Because she knows very 
 
Praying 149 
 well that if you are really hungry you will stand 
 by and bother her till you get it, and if you are 
 not hungry enough to stay till she gives it to 
 you, you can very well wait till supper. Now, 
 real prayer is the cry of a hungry soul for 
 food, asking and waiting to be served. When 
 we are really hungry and thirsty for the thing 
 we ask in prayer, the answer will not be far 
 away nor long in coming. Learn how to pray. 
 Get into practice at once. It is like everything 
 else; you can get “out of form” through neglect ; 
 but if you will only practice, you will become 
 expert. It is only through prayer that you can 
 become “‘strong in the Lord and in the power 
 of His might.” It is only through prayer that 
 you can either win or wear the armour, and 
 thus be able to “withstand in the evil day, and 
 having done all to stand.” 
 

 
AV 
 W atching 
 

 
XV 
 
 Watching 
 
 “Watching thereunto with all perseverance.” 
 
 EPHESIANS vi. 18 
 
 Last time we were speaking about prayer and 
 all the wonderful things that God will do for 
 us if we will but ask Him. There are some 
 things, however, that God will not do for 
 us, but which we must do for ourselves, and 
 one of these is “watching.” Of course, you 
 know how important it is in battle that some- 
 one should be always on the lookout. An army 
 always has its sentries posted. All night long, 
 as well as all day, they have to pace to and 
 fro with wakeful, watchful eyes, and with ears 
 keen to catch the softest tread, challenging 
 every footfall and demanding the password at 
 every approach, thus guarding the camp from 
 surprise. 
 
 Now, as I have reminded you frequently 
 
 during these talks, we are at war, and it is be- 
 153 
 
154 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 cause our enemy is so skilful in planning sur- 
 prises that we must be always on the alert. We 
 must be like soldiers on sentry—never taking 
 it easy. Of course, in ordinary sentry work, 
 the soldier is not always on duty; he is re- 
 lieved by another taking his place, and then he 
 can go back to his tent and sleep. But there is 
 no relief from duty in our battle with Satan. 
 Ours is a life-long sentry. We must always be 
 on guard—always watching against attack. 
 This is the meaning of “Perseverance” and it 
 is the only time this word occurs in the Scrip- 
 tures. It means unwearying constancy. Did 
 you ever see a sentry-box? If so, you will have 
 noticed that when the sentry is in, he touches 
 the walls on all sides. It just about fits him. 
 There are no carpets or rugs about, no sofas 
 or easy chairs; there is no room for them; in- 
 deed, unless the sentry stands up straight there 
 is not room for him! If he tried to lie down 
 he could not get himself all in. Now, all this 
 want of comfort in the arrangement of a sen- 
 try-box is intentional. The sentry must not 
 take it easy; he must not be made too com- 
 fortable, lest he fall asleep, and the enemy get 
 within the lines. The people to whom Paul was: 
 
Watching 155 
 
 writing understood all about this, for the Ro- 
 man guards or sentries were familiar to people 
 everywhere throughout the known world. 
 They were magnificent fellows, splendidly 
 trained, and loving duty more than life. I once 
 saw a wonderful piece of statuary called the 
 “Flight from Pompeii.” The statue itself is a 
 lovely piece of work and shows a man with his 
 wite and little baby hurrying from the doomed 
 city during an eruption of Vesuvius. But when 
 you have looked at that, you will find all round 
 the pedestal, sculptures of different scenes dur- 
 ing that awful time, and one of these repre- 
 sents a sturdy Roman guard standing at the 
 city gate, unmoved and unmovable, amid the 
 sulphurous death. Although crowds of people 
 are hurrying past him, seeking to save them- 
 selves and their belongings, he stands firm as 
 a rock, choosing rather to die at his post than 
 purchase his life at the cost of his honor and 
 his oath. 
 
 It was men of this sort that Paul was meet- 
 ing and talking to every day, and many a story 
 of eventful outpost duty would they tell him 
 during the long hours in which they were keep- 
 ing guard. Even if Paul had not thought much 
 
156 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 about the importance of wakeful watching be- 
 fore, these stories of the camp would make him 
 think that if against foes that could be seen 
 and handled, it was thus necessary to be always 
 on guard, how much greater was the need when 
 the enemy could be neither heard nor seen. 
 Now, I think you will find that most of the 
 sins we commit arise from our being off guard. 
 It is not that we sit down and think it over 
 first and then deliberately do what is wrong; 
 we rather get surprised into it through un- 
 watchfulness. The Greek word for “watch” 
 which Paul uses has three meanings. First 
 of all it means to “wake up from sleep.” You 
 know how hard this is sometimes, especially on 
 dark wintry mornings when the wind is howl- 
 ing round the house and the rain is beating 
 against the window of your room. How many 
 times have you to be called on a morning like 
 that? How often do you answer, “Y-e-s,” 
 turning over in your sleep without waking up 
 at all? Now, Paul does not tell us to turn over 
 in our sleep, but to wake right up, to throw 
 off sleep, to open our eyes. This is what the 
 word “watch” means—to cast off sleep and have 
 done with it. But even that is not enough. 
 
Watching 157 
 
 Paul’s* word means not only ‘wake up!” but 
 “get up!’ You know if you don’t get up at 
 once when you wake, the bed feels so “comfy” 
 that it holds you down, and the longer you stay, 
 the longer you want to. If you were to walk 
 through a certain college that I know you would 
 not find a single bedroom door without one or 
 two cracked panels. They have been whanged 
 and banged of a morning so often, to rouse up 
 sleepy boys, that they have all been split. Of 
 course, at the beginning of the year, after the 
 long vacation, the bell would wake everybody, 
 but it is just wonderful what you can get used 
 to in the way of noise, and still sleep on. And 
 so it always came to pass that in about a fort- 
 night nobody heard the bell at all, or if they 
 did, it was so mixed up in their dreams that 
 it did not disturb them. Then for the rest of 
 the term the master on duty, with a towel 
 wrapped round his fist would go from room to 
 room, pounding the panels of the doors till he 
 got a satisfactory answer; and even then some 
 fellows would come tumbling down to prayers, 
 buttoning up their vests or putting on their 
 collars as they came, and taking three steps of 
 the stairs at a time. 
 
158 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 The great thing is to get up at once when 
 you wake. It never gets easier. The more you 
 think about it, especially if you have to take 
 a cold shower, the harder it is to get out. I 
 would advise you, when you ought to get up, 
 and can’t make up your mind for the spring, 
 just to think of sleep as a great octopus waiting 
 to throw his long tentacles round you, that he 
 may draw you down, down, down, and drown 
 you in the sea of forgetfulness. This will shake 
 you up and wake you up, and make you jump 
 for bare life; then, once you are out of bed, the 
 spell will be broken, so that you will not want 
 to go back to bed even if you have the chance. 
 But even yet we have not got all the meaning 
 out of Paul’s word “watch.” It means not only 
 “wake up,” and “get up,” but “look around!’ 
 “Be on guard!’ Have all your wits about 
 you!” The wisdom of all this is seen from the 
 fact that your enemy is so cunning. Paul 
 speaks in this very chapter about the “wiles of 
 the devil.” This means “tricks.” Now, you 
 know that in playing a game sometimes there 
 are certain tricks that you have to watch 
 against, or else the other side may gain an un- 
 fair advantage. But in a game you can ap- 
 
Watching 159 
 
 peal to the umpire, and insist on fair play, and 
 if you don’t get it, you can withdraw from the 
 game and decline to play. But in this struggle 
 with Satan and his forces you have no choice. 
 Even though he cheats every time and takes all 
 sorts of mean advantages, you must fight, and 
 against all he knows. If long practice in un- 
 fairness and deceit have anything to do with 
 knowing how to do it, then by this time the 
 devil must be an expert sneak. Anyhow, he is 
 a tricky foe, and takes us unawares if he can, 
 so that we need to be always on the alert, watch- 
 ful, wakeful, prepared, lest coming suddenly he 
 sweep us off our feet and take us captive at his 
 will. 
 
 Now, it is not that watching of itself will 
 save us, but that by watching we shall get warn- 
 ing of the danger and know exactly when and 
 what to ask for in our prayers. You see, we 
 are not told to watch unto fighting, but unto 
 “prayer.” You know that the first business of 
 a sentry when he observes the enemy stealing 
 up to his lines is not to fight the foe himself, 
 but to alarm and fall back upon the “picket,” 
 that is, a body of the troops who are to be al- 
 ways ready in case of surprise. He does not, 
 
160 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 unless absolutely forced to it, engage the enemy 
 himself. When the picket is alarmed then the 
 “support” is roused. This is a body of the 
 soldiers who may go to sleep, but are all dressed 
 and ready for action at a moment’s notice when 
 roused. By this time the “reserves” have got 
 shaken up, and instead of surprising a sleeping 
 camp, the enemy discover that they have to deal 
 with a wide-awake army, eager for the fray. 
 Now, just as the sentry does not engage the 
 enemy himself, but gives the alarm which is 
 really a prayer for help, so with us, when stand- 
 ing guard we feel the danger near, it 1s not our 
 business to fight single-handed with the foe, but 
 to call upon the forces which are always at our 
 back and ready to come at our call. This is 
 “watching unto prayer.” 
 
 Wake up! That is your business. When you 
 are thoroughly roused, watchful, and waiting 
 to know and do your duty, you will see it plain 
 and clear. ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
 Christ shall give you light.” Waking up and 
 going round in the dark is bad business. When 
 the dog barks in the middle of the night, and 
 you thing someone is prowling round the house, 
 you grope about to find the electric switch, or 
 
Watching 161 
 
 the matches if you happen to live in the country. 
 But anyone who has done this will know what 
 a wonderful time you can have. You seem to 
 be in a furniture shop. There are so many 
 things to come against and to tumble over. You 
 never seem to be through with them. You 
 never thought there were so many things in the 
 room before. Then when you are quite sure 
 you are in front of the door, you walk straight 
 into the fireplace, or fetch up with your big toe 
 against a chair, while your nose feels for the 
 mantelpiece in such unseemly haste that you see 
 a shower of dancing stars. All this is most 
 exhausting, and it all comes of waking up and 
 getting up in the dark. Now, nothing like this 
 can happen to you if you will obey Paul’s word 
 of command. Just you try; rouse yourselves up, 
 and Christ will give you such light and wisdom 
 that you will never be in doubt about the next 
 step and never be surprised into sin. ‘Watch, 
 therefore, and pray, lest ye enter into tempta- 
 tion.” 
 “Principalities and powers 
 Mustering their unseen array, 
 
 Wait for thy unguarded hours— 
 Watch and pray. 
 
162 
 
 The Beauty of Strength 
 
 “Gird thy heavenly armour on, 
 Wear it ever night and day; 
 Ambushed lies the evil one— 
 Watch and pray.” 
 
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