Here we are in a state of warfare which calls for constant shutting
out of enemies. Temptations are everywhere; our foes compass us like
bees; evils of many sorts seduce. We can picture to ourselves some
little garrison holding a lonely outpost against lurking savages ready
to attack if ever the defenders slacken their vigilance for a moment.
And that is the truer picture of human nature as it is than the one by
which most men are deluded. Life is not a playground, but an arena of
grim, earnest fighting. No man does right in his sleep; no man does
right without a struggle.
The need for continual vigilance and self-control comes from the very
make of our souls, for our nature is not a democracy, but a kingdom.
In us all there are passions, desires, affections, all of which may
lead to vice or to virtue: and all of which evidently call out for
direction, for cultivation, and often for repression. Then there are
peculiarities of individual character which need watching lest they
become excessive and sinful. Further, there are qualities which need
careful cultivation and stimulus to bring them into due proportion. We
each of us receive, as it were, an undeveloped self, and have
entrusted to us potential germs which come to nothing, or shoot up
with a luxuriance that stifles unless we exercise a controlling power.
Besides all this, we all carry in us tendencies which are positively,
and only, sinful. There would be no temptation if there were no such.
But the slightest inspection of our own selves clearly points out, not
only what in us needs to be controlled, but that in us which is
_meant_ to control. The will is regal; conscience is meant to
govern the will, and its voice is but the echo of God's law.
But, while all this is true, it is too sadly true that the
accomplishment of this ideal is impossible in our own strength. Our
own sad experience tells us that we cannot govern ourselves; and our
observations of our brethren but too surely indicate that they too are
the prey of rebellious, anarchical powers within, and of temptations,
against the rush of which they and we are as powerless as a voyager in
a bark-canoe, caught in the fatal drift of Niagara. Conscience has a
voice, but no hands; it can speak, but if its voice fails, it cannot
hold us back. From its chair it can bid the waves breaking at our feet
roll back, as the Saxon king did, but their tossing surges are deaf.
As helpless as the mud walls of some Indian hill-fort against modern
artillery, is the defence, in one's own strength, of one's own self
against the world. We would gladly admit that the feeblest may do much
to 'keep himself unspotted from the world'; but we must, if we
recognise facts, confess that the strongest cannot do all. No man can
alone completely control his own nature; no man, unenlightened by God,
has a clear, full view of duty, nor a clear view of himself. Always
there is some unguarded place:
'Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how mean a thing is man!'
but no man can so lift himself so as that self will not drag him down.
The walls are broken down and the troops of the spoilers sack the
city.