* G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.
172 THE SIN OF MEROZ
and may come in like a flood : and in the great day of Arma- geddon he at least would not be found unready or unarmed.^
2. There are many people always who are in the community and in the world whit Meroz was in Palestine. For there is an everlasting struggle going on against wickedness and wretched- ness. It never ceases. It changes, but it never ceases. It shifts from one place to another. It dies out in one form only to burst out in some other shape. It seems to flag sometimes as if the enemy were giving way, but it never really stops — the endless struggle of all that is good in the world against the enemies of God, against sin and error and want and woe. And the strange and sad thought which sometimes comes upon our minds is that few people after all are really heartily engaged in that struggle. How few have cast themselves into it with all their hearts, how many there are who stand apart and wish it well but never expose themselves for it or do anything \ to help it !
^ There is not one of us for whom Meroz has not a lesson. It is short, sharp, decisive. No words need labour it, nor can any words lend it emphasis. Every social sore, every remediable injustice, every unequal law, every unwholesome influence, every bad example, every false moral standard, every assertion of religious intolerance, every attempt at religious supremacy — these summon us in our several stations to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
Thrice blest is he who can divine
Where real right doth lie. And dares to take the side that seems
Wrong to man's blindfold eye.
For right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty;
To falter would be sin.^
ii. The Duty was Patriotism. ^ Meroz _jpj,ilgd ^rsi of alliii the jduty_of j)atriotism. If we are tempted to think that Deborah's language was unwarrantable, let us consider what we ourselves should say under similar
* Life and Letters of Dc<m Church, 226. " F. W. Faber.
JUDGES V. 23 173
circumstances. Let us suppose that this country had been successfully invaded by a foreign enemy; that during his occupation every form of social and personal misery had been inflicted ; that, not to speak of the ruin of our credit, of our trade, of our national character, the exercise of our religion, the sanctity of our homes, the freedom of our persons, had been imperilled or sacrificed; and that at last, under whatever leadership, an organized rising against the invader had been successful, at least within limits, and that he had sustained a decisive reverse. And let us further suppose that at the very crisis of his discomfiture, when everything depended upon making his position untenable and upon converting a first disaster into irremediable defeat, some single English town, lying in the very valley along which the torrent of war was sweeping, should refuse assistance or even sympathy to the national forces. Do you think that English public men, or English public writers, reviewing the campaign when all was over, would be sparing of denunciation, after their own fashion, of such treachery to the national cause ? Would they not insist upon the preciousness, the sanctity, of the national life; upon the folly and wickedness of preaching any doctrine which could destroy or impair it ; upon the duty of laying aside all private opinions, grudges, hesitations, in presence of so absorb- ing, so overwhelming a catastrophe as an invasion ?
^ Let us put ourselves back among the besieged at Ladysmith. Supposing that there was a man in the garrison there who refused to take his part, what would be the five reasons which would make him incur even the curse of the women and children? First of all there was a battle to fight. We have no concern with the rightness or wrongness of the war when we are fighting a battle in a place like Ladysmith ; clearly, the duty of every one in that place was to guard the women and children and to hold out till they died. Then, secondly, they were face to face with a strong and powerful foe. In the third place, they had a brave captain who was leading them, and who was doing his very best to inspire his men with courage. In the fourth place, every day there was the possibility that at any moment the enemy might come in like a flood and sweep the whole place away. And lastly, the women and children, whom every true-hearted man was bound to protect, were in danger unless each man stood at his post. I can therefore imagine the kind of curse which would have been uttered over any shirker in the place : " Curse ye that
174 THE SIN OF MEROZ
man because he comes not to the help of his country ; because he stands not by the women and the children in their hour of danger." The indifferent, we all feel, in such circumstances, would have rightly incurred the curse.^
^ Alluding to Mr. Hodgson, the defeated candidate, and how we should still keep an eye on him, I said that a gentleman saw a boy hitting another who was down, and remonstrated with him for hitting an antagonist who was down — to which the boy replied, " Ah, but you don't know how much trouble I had to get him down." ^ •