ii. Watchfulness.
1. Watchfulness means more than being awake. It is con- centrated attention in wakefulness. It springs from the conviction of danger, it is sustained by the responsibility of duty. It is one of those positions which are restricted to the individual himself. Watchfulness cannot be transferred : it cannot even be distributed. You cannot say with perfect accuracy we watch ; it must always be, I watch. If there be many watchmen, the security of the guard is not in the unity of the number, as it would be in repelling an assault, but in covering every position of possible surprise by individual and responsible vigilance. The watchman for the time being personifies the army to which he belongs. He commands because he protects every man and every weapon and arm of the service. His first and main qualification is a knowledge and persuasion of the danger which has made him a watchman.
1 J. Wells, Stewart of Lovedale, 135.
i CORINTHIANS xvi. 13, 14 489
U " I recently visited the Heights of Abraham," said a friend, " and looking down those precipitous cliffs which make that the strongest natural citadel in America, I was amazed that Wolfe and his English forces were able to capture it. Speaking to a guardsman, I said, ' It would seem as if a band of schoolboys might have held this fort against an army; how did it happen that the French were defeated ? ' The guard replied, ' Oh, the soldiers got careless, overconfident and pleasure-loving, and one dark night while they were off guard, the citadel was taken.' " 1
2. One part of that watchfulness consists in exercising a very rigid and a very constant and comprehensive scrutiny of our motives. For there is no way by which evil creeps upon us so unobserved as when it slips in at the back door of a specious motive. Many a man contents himself with the avoidance of actual evil actions, and lets any kind of motives come in and out of his mind unexamined. It is all right to look after our doings, but as a man " thinketh in his heart, so is he." The good or the evil of anything that I do is determined wholly by the motive with which I do it. And we are a great deal too apt to palm off deceptions on ourselves to be certain that our motives are right, unless we give them a very careful and minute scrutiny.
^f We should establish a rigid examination for applicants for entrance, and make quite sure that each that presents itself is not a wolf in sheep's clothing. Make them all bring out their passports. Let every vessel that comes into your harbour remain isolated from all communication with the shore until the health officer has been on board and given a clean bill. " Watch ye " ; for yonder, away in the dark, in the shadow of the trees, the black masses of the enemy are gathered, and a midnight attack is but too likely to bring a bloody awakening to a camp full of sleepers.2
3. We have three things to guard — God's honour, God's property, and God's truth.
(1) First, we are on guard for God's honour. — How often men fail in this. How constantly we hear God's Name, as it were, dragged in the dust. Swearing is so common that people often use such language without realizing that they are sinning against God. The words come to their lips so naturally that they do not even think about their meaning ; and the man who does not use them
1 E. J. Hardy. 8 A. Maclaren.
490 THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT
becomes sometimes an object of surprise, if not of ridicule, amongst his mates. Nevertheless, the true soldier of Christ must brave this, for he is on guard for the honour of his King. If he is afraid to stand alone in leaving such words out of his talk, he is failing in his duty. If it is noticed, so much the better. Others see that he is not ashamed to show his colours. If he stands firm, they will in time grow to respect him for it ; for deep down in the heart of the greatest blackguard there is generally admiration for a brave man who will stick to what is right, come what may.
^ A smartly dressed railway guard was bustling about his work on a platform, with a pretty rose in his buttonhole. A man, more than half tipsy, came lurching past, snatched the rose from the guard's buttonhole, and flung it under the train, and then chuckled in his drunken fashion. The guard's face flushed red, but without a word he turned away. As he passed, a man compli- mented him and said, " You took that splendidly." The guard said, " I am on duty, sir." x
(2) Secondly, we are on guard for God's property. — A soldier in the King's army is not his own. He has to go where he is ordered and stay where he is stationed. And more than this. Not long ago one of our great generals pointed out in an address to the troops in India that men who do not try to keep themselves fit for service — efficient soldiers, as we call it — by clean, temperate lives, are defrauding the Service they have enlisted in. Every conscientious soldier, he said, should look at the question in that light. Even so the Christian soldier, who belongs to God, must try to be, in body and soul, an efficient member of the Service of the King of kings. In the words of the good old Church Catechism, he must " keep his body in temperance, soberness, and chastity."