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,'Be strong — " Be strong."
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Be tender — " Let all that ye do be done in love."
I
I.
Be Awake. " Watch ye."
Be awake, lie not in slumber, that is the first requisite for all action; break the bands of sleep and indolence, or you can do nothing.
The word means one of two things certainly, probably both — Keep awake, and keep your eyes open. Our Lord used the same metaphor very frequently, but with a special significance. On His lips it generally referred to the attitude of expectation of His coming in judgment. St. Paul sometimes uses the figure with the same application; but here, distinctly, it has another. There is the military idea underlying it. What will become of an army if the sentries go to sleep? And what chance will a Christian man have of doing his devoir against his enemy, unless he keeps himself awake, and keeps himself alert ? Watchfulness, in the sense of always having eyes open for the possible rush down upon us of temptation and evil, is no small part of the discipline and the duty of the Christian life.
i. Wakefulness.
1. Many men have never awakened at all; they know not what life is ; they know not what the world in which they seem
i CORINTHIANS xvi. 13, 14 487
to move may be ; they have never raised their sleepy eyes from the dreary round of selfish enjoyment, as they call it, in which their time is spent. To lead an aimless, useless life, with mind enfeebled and faculties undeveloped, the whole nature enervated through want of exercise, this is the most awful prospect any man can be called upon to face.
2. There are two main causes at the bottom of this terrible vice.
(1) In the first place there is the cold, deliberate selfishness that refuses to move beyond itself, will not be troubled, has no sympathies, with any duty outside itself, is determined to consult always its own comfort in the way which comes most easy and lies nearest at hand. A man who is indolent from this reason is the most perfectly unlovely character that can be found, and the number of such tends to increase with our national wealth and prosperity. Such a man knows that life is likely to be tolerably comfortable for himself, he knows that he is free from the stern hand of daily necessity, and so he deliberately purposes to get the utmost out of what he has, he shuts the door against all high aims, for they might give him trouble; knowledge he despises and takes in its place a low selfish cunning ; his fellow- men he estimates solely as they contribute to his own enjoyment ; he will do nothing he can help ; why should he ? He will go on peaceably through life ; for what can come to disturb him if he is only reasonably prudent ?
(2) But indolence comes from another cause — from thought- less feebleness rather than low selfishness. A feebly indolent man knows dimly that life has a meaning, has duties. He believes somehow that there is a God who judges the world, that he himself has an immortal soul, and an account to give one day — believes it somehow, but believes it sleepily — believes it so that if he were awakened and formally asked these questions, he would give formally proper answers, but does not believe it in such a way that the truths to which he confesses take any real hold upon his life. He believes that life has a purpose, but that it need not be realized just yet. He grants that man is re- sponsible for his own character, but then the fact that he wastes in idleness the precious years of opening manhood need not
4%8 THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT
particularly influence hirn. He grants that bad habits are easily acquired, but there is no fear of his own actions going so far as to form habits. He admits that it is better to be wise than to be ignorant, but thinks that knowledge will come to him through society, through free intercourse with others, rather than by the old-fashioned method of intellectual labour and honest thought.
^ He wakes in the night, and hears one of his Lovedale boys on watch, "pacing his round with his rifle on his shoulder, singing low and sweetly, and apparently much to his heart's content, one of Sankey's hymns, ■ Jesus loves me, even me.' He did not know that I was stirring." This singing watchman was Shadrack Ngunane, one of the Lovedale volunteers, whom Stewart, by an act of grace, had allowed to remain in Lovedale after a grave offence. " He has been as busy and useful," Stewart adds, " as a white man could have been, always well, always cheerful, always ready for everything." The picture of this once wild Kafir, formerly rather troublesome, now cheerfully keeping his midnight watch in this fashion and on such a venturesome journey, is one I shall not forget. It made me hope for the day when out of the regions we are now in there will be many who will prove themselves as worthy of the labour bestowed on them as this lad has done, and help to convey the Gospel still farther on. Day or night I never found my Kafir friend sleeping when he ought to be waking, or elsewhere than at the post of duty.1