The conquering King whom the psalm hymns is a Priest for ever ; and He is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are gathered in the day of the muster, with high courage and willing devotion, ready to fling away their lives ; but they are clad not in mail, but in priestly robes, like those who wait before the altar rather than like those who plunge into the fight, like those who compassed
358 A VOLUNTEER ARMY
Jericho with the ark for their standard and tlie trumpets for all their weapons. We can scarcely fail to remember the words which echo these and interpret them. The armies which were in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in tine linen, white and clean. Christina Kossetti comments on the strangeness of such armour against cut of sword and thrust of spear. But the suggestion is that the soldiers have one heart with their Leader, and are great in consecration like Himself. They go out after Him where hard blows are struck, where there is turmoil and shouting and the burden of the weary day, but they go as priests. That warfare which belongs to the extension of the Kingdom of God calls for services which may often be sordid and ugly and painful ; but when they are rightly rendered they are as sacred and as acceptable as any incense offering in the dim seclusion of a temple. The one priestly sacrifice worth speaking of which men can render is the offering of a heart given willingly to the Divine service: and the cause is sure to prevail which can count on volunteers of that complexion.
^ Dr. Butler, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, writing of Keith-Falconer, who had been one of his pupils at Harrow, says : " I do not think our dear friend and I had any further communication with each other till the end of last year (1886), when I received from him at Davos-Platz a most kind letter of congratulation on my appointment to the Mastership of Trinity. He told me also of the plan which he had formed for going to Aden, and there employing his knowledge of Arabic for missionary purposes. The result of this generous enterprise we know but too well. The work was scarcely begun before it reached its earthly end. To those who believe in the abiding results of devotion to the cause and the Person of Christ, his short life will not seem a failure. His image will remain fresh in the hearts of many as of a man exceptionally noble and exceptionally winning, recalling to them their own highest visions of unselfish service to God and man, and helping them to hold fast the truth that in the spiritual world nothing but self-sacrifice is permanently fruitful, and that the seed of a truly Christian life is never quickened except it die." ^
2. The priestly attire sup^gests that the great power which we are to wield in our Christian warfare is character. Purity of ^ B. Sinker, Memorial* qf the Hon. Ion Keitfi- Falconer, 28.
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heart and life, transparent simple goodness, manifest in men's sight — these will arm us against dangers, and these will bring our brethren glad captives to our Lord. We serve Him best, and advance His Kingdom most, when the habit of our souls is that righteousness with which He invests our nakedness. Be like your Lord, and as His soldiers you will conquer, and as His priests you will win some to His love and fear. Nothing else will avail without that. Without that dress no man finds a place in the ranks.
^ " I have known many a man," says Thoreau, " who pretended to be a Christian ; but it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for it." This poet was persuaded that his King would go far because of the temper of the people. " They offer themselves willingly ; in holy, beautiful garments they come, fresh, young, countless like dew at the dawn." ^
^ Turn your energies towards your moral cultivation. In doing so you will accumulate imperishable riches. All that your worldly care can bring will be the doubtful possession of riches of doubtful value. In the possession of the moral wealth of a noble and disciplined character, you possess that which can neither wither nor be stolen. What we have we must leave at the threshold of the grave. What we are goes with us into the other world. Eiches will drop from our dying hand into the grasp of others. Character passes with us into the presence of God. Character is everything. This, rather than worldly riches, is the true end of life. Tlie perfecting of this is the true purpose of God in life.^
^ Few things tell on character more surely and precisely than the goal on which the heart is set and the temper in which that goal is sought. And certainly the Christian character, as it appears in Christ-like lives, does not look at all as though it had been formed and fostered and determined by a mercenary attention to a selfish aim. For the faculties and the capacity that grow in those who try to be true to Christ in daily life are strikingly ill- suited for the opportunities of enjoyment which might be imagined in a heaven of selfishness. Christians do not grow in the capacity for selfish pleasure, nor attain an exceptional power of relishing to the utmost a separate and individual gratification. The faculty which they develop is the faculty of self-denial; of glad, un- hindered self-forgetf uluess for others' sake ; of delighting in good- ness and eliciting what is best in others ; of simple, cheerful, unclouded self-surrender. These, and such as these, are the