And the king of Israel answered and said. Tell him. Let not him that
girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.'--1
KINGS xx. 11.
_For the Young_.
Ahab, King of Israel, was but a poor creature, and, like most weak
characters, he turned out a wicked one, because he found that there
were more temptations to do wrong than inducements to do right. Like
other weak people, too, he was torn asunder by the influence of
stronger wills. On the one side he had a termagant of a wife, stirring
him up to idolatry and all evil, and on the other side Elijah
thundering and lightning at him; so the poor man was often reduced to
perplexity. Once in his lifetime he did behave like a king, with some
flash of dignity. My text comes from that incident. His next neighbour,
and, consequently, his continual enemy, was the king of Damascus. He
had made a raid across the border and was dictating terms so severe as
to invite even Ahab to courageous opposition. His back was at the wall,
and he mustered up courage to say 'No!' That provoked a bit of
blustering bravado from the enemy, who sent back a message, 'The gods
do also unto me and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for
handfuls for all the people that follow me.' And then Ahab replied in
the words of our text. They have a dash of contempt and sarcasm, all
the more galling because of their unanswerable common-sense. 'The time
to crow and clap your wings is _after_ you have fought. Samaria is not
a heap of dust just yet. Threatened men live long.' The battle began,
and the bully was beaten; and for once Ahab tasted the sweets of
success.
Now, I have nothing more to do with Ahab and the immediate application
of his message, but I wish to apply it to my young friends, whom I have
taken it upon me to ask now to listen to two or three homely words to
them in this sermon.
You are beginning the fight; some of us old people are getting very
near the end of it. And I would fain, if I could, see successors coming
to take the places which we shall soon have to vacate. So my message to
you, dear friends, young men and young women, is this, 'Let not him
that putteth on the harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.'
I. Now, look for a moment at the general view of life that is implied
in this saying thus understood.
There is nothing that the bulk of people are more unwilling to do than
steadily to think about what life as a whole, and in its deepest
aspects, is. And that disinclination is strong, as I suppose, in the
average young man or young woman. That comes, plainly enough, from the
very blessings of your stage of life. Unworn health, a blessed
inexperience of failures and limitations, the sense of undeveloped
power within you, the natural buoyancy of early days, all tend to make
you rather live by impulse than by reflection. And I should be the last
man in the world to try to damp the noble, buoyant, beautiful
enthusiasms with which Nature has provided that we should all begin our
course. The world will do that soon enough; and there is no sadder
sight than that of a bitter old man, who has outlived, and smiles
sardonically at, his youthful dreams. But I do wish to press upon you
all this question, Have you ever tried to think to yourself, 'Now what,
after all, is this life that is budding within me and dawning before
me--what is it, in its deepest reality, and what am I to do with it?'
There are some of us to whom, so far as we have thought at all, life
presents itself mainly as a shop, a place where we are to 'buy and
sell, and get gain,' and use our evenings, after the day's work is
over, for such recreation as suits us. And there are young men among my
hearers who, with the flush of their physical manhood upon them, and
perhaps away from the restraints of home, and living in gloomy town
lodgings, with no one to look after them, are beginning to think that
life after all is a kind of pigs' trough, with plenty of foul wash in
it for whoso chooses to suck it up--a garden of not altogether pure
delights, a place where a man may gratify the 'lusts of the flesh.'
But, dear brethren, whilst there are many other noble metaphors under
which we can set forth the essential character of this mysterious,
tremendous life of ours, I do not know that there is one that ought to
appeal more to the slumbering heroism which lies in every human soul,
and to the enthusiasms which, unless you in your youth cherish, you
will in your manhood be beggared indeed, than that which this picture
of my text suggests. After all, life is meant to be one long conflict.
We are like the fellahin that one sometimes sees in Eastern lands, who
cannot go out to plough in their fields, or reap their harvests,
without a gun slung on their backs; for the condition under which we
work in this world is that everything worth doing has to be done at the
cost of opposition and antagonism, and that no noble service or
building is possible without brave, continuous conflict. Even upon the
lower levels of life that is so. No man learns a science or a trade
without having to fight for it. But high above these lower levels,
there is the one on which we all are called to walk, the high level of
duty, and no man does what his conscience tells him, or refrains from
that which his conscience sternly forbids, without having to fight for
it. We are in the lists and compelled to draw the sword. And if we do
not realise this, that all nobility all greatness, all wisdom, all
success, even of the lowest and most vulpine kind, are won by conflict,
we shall never do anything in the world worth doing. You are a soldier,
whether you will or no, and life is a fight, whether you recognise the
fact or not.
So, standing at the beginning, do not fancy that there is opening
before you a scene of enjoyment, or that you are stepping into a world
in which you can take your ease, and come out successfully at the other
end. It is not so; and you will find that out before long. Better that
you should settle it in your minds at first. When you were born you
were enrolled on the roll-call of the regiment; and now you have to do
a man's part in the battle.