What is that Divine strength which is to transform c natural and human strength ? In one word, it is " Christ in Ti the same Divine power which secretly fought in and with J; noblest efforts of humanity outside the Jewish and the Christi? i Church. Only now its nature is revealed ; more than that, thai < is revealed to us the means by which that Divine strength may be gained — the channels of communication have been thrown open to us. The end and aim of the religious life has been made clear — likeness to God, Christ formed in us, ourselves trai formed, our lower self subdued, our higher self taken into t ' " I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." " In all tne things we are more than conquerors through him that loved u&"
^[ It is sometimes said, You tell us to be manly, and yet you bid us subject ourselves to a higher power working in us. Keligious people are so weak. They have no self-reliance. Tkey are but feeble creatures, after all, with all their boasted strength. How can you expect men to set before themselves, as an & what, disguise it as you will, is self-surrender, which nieafifl nouncing all that we admire as manly in us ? I will ans' ;• by some negative instances sufficient, at all events, to pro\ surrendering one's self to the will of God, resting on His strenj is a source not of weakness but of power. Was St. Paul fee l>le and nerveless because his will was surrendered to the wiH >f
i CORINTHIANS xvi. 13, 14 511
Christ ? Did he speak less powei/fully, or run less certainly, or fight as "one that beateth the air," because he had learned to say, " Not I, but Christ in me " ? Are enthusiasts of all ages and all creeds, fanatics, if you will, wanting in force and energy, be- cause they believe themselves to be only passive instruments in the hands of some mightier power ? 1
3. Our strength must he of the whole man. — Strength of character is not to be' obtained through the intellect or through the feelings alone. Either of these exclusively followed can at the best only give principles of conduct anch^ction which satisfy the individual, and the practical result of such a purely individual possession can only be bigotry, prejudice, narrowness or fanati- cism, not real strength.
That man is unmanly, for he falls far short of man's perfec- tion, who exults only in his bodily strength, and wastes in useless, idle, often in cruel and degrading pursuits, time and vigour that are due to society, due to his fellow-men, due to himself. Equally, nay, more, does he fall short, who as a narrow-minded pedant looks out upon man's varied and ever- varying life, and measures human nature by his own scanty measure, and, as it seethes and tosses at his feet, applies to it his dull formula and thinks he has thereby solved its meaning and hushed its voice for ever. Un- manly too, deeply unmanly is he who, with a morbid sensitive- ness that he cannot assuage, is always peering into himself and tenderly nursing his own feelings, and greedily clamouring for the gratification of his own emotions, who cannot face life on equal terms with others, but is constantly brooding over his shocked self-respect, or injured self-love, or ill-requited affection ; who is always demanding from life as a gift that happiness which is accorded only as the prize of effort, and is wringing his hands in sulky despair that he is after all treated even as other men are, though he thinks himself much more exquisitely sensitive than they.
True strength of character is not attained by great exertions, but by unity of life. Nothing is more common than great force in some one direction — in some one inclination, passion, or faculty*; ^ nothing is more rare than a strong man, if by the man you me^i the whole man, the symmetry of our entire being,
1 A. L. Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, 49.
5i2 THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHT
the frame of our life complete through that which every joint
supplieth. The men whom the world takes for strong are for
the most part only one-sided — just as to most minds the half of
a truth is far more telling than the whole of it, and to modify
the impression by giving the other half will seem to round it off
to comparative tameness. Vehement language coming out of
half knowledge and a blind impulse seems fraught with more
vigour than full, just, discriminating speech; and a man who
sees every side of a subject will appear more feeble than the man
who, because he sees but one side of it, can speak impetuously
and strike with unqualified force. How easy would it be to be
strong in some one direction or proclivity of our nature, or in
the vigorous prosecution of single interests! How easy, for
instance, to be strong in the conduct of worldly business, if we
might settle down our whole powers upon it, and had never to
lift our soul from its pursuit! How difficult is it to combine
this with every other sentiment that becomes a man — to infuse