"V"

942. Valour, Exhortation to

O anxious gazer! look not at the battle so much below, for there thou shalt be enshrouded in smoke and amazed with garments rolled in blood; but lift thine eyes yonder where thy Saviour lives and pleads, for while he intercedes the cause of God is safe. Let us fight as if it all depended upon us, but let us look up and know that all depends upon him. Now by the lilies of Christian purity and by the roses of the Saviour's atonement, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, we charge you who are lovers of Jesus to do valiantly in the Holy War; for truth and righteousness, for the kingdom and crown jewels of your Master, against the harlot of Rome and the many-headed beast on which she rides, charge ye with dauntless courage.

943. Value of the Saints to Christ Had Napoleon spoken forth his mind about the lives of men in the day of battle, he would have likened them to so much water spilt upon the ground. To win a victory, or subdue a province, it mattered not though he strewed the ground with corpses thick as autumn leaves, nor did it signify though in every village orphans and widows wailed the loss of sires and husbands. What were the deaths of conscript peasants when compared with the fame of the Emperor? So long as Austria was humbled, or Russia invaded, little cared the imperial Corsican though half the race had perished. Not thus is it with the King of kings; he spares the poor and needy, and saves the souls of the needy, and precious shall their blood be in his sight. Our glorious Leader never squanders the lives of his soldiers; he values the church militant beyond all price; and though he permits his saints to lay down their lives for his sake, yet is not one life spent in vain, or unnecessarily expended.

944. Veil Rent by Christ

You remember, when Christ died, the veil of the temple was rent in twain. There was not a little slit for little sinners to creep through, but it was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, so that big sinners might come, just in the same way as when Samson pulled up gates, posts, bar, and all, there was a clear way out into the country for all who were locked up in the town. Prisoner, the prison doors are open. Captive, loose the bonds on thy neck; be free! I sound the trump of jubilee. Bond-slaves, Christ hath redeemed you.

945. Victory of the Christian

Hebe is a champion just come from the Greek games; he has well nigh killed his adversary in a severe boxing match, and he comes in to receive the crown. Step up to him, look at that arm, and observe the thews and sinews. Why! the man's muscles are like steel, and you say to him, "I do not wonder that you beat and bruised your foe; if I had set up a machine made of steel, and worked by a little watery vapour, it could have done the same, though nothing but mere matter would have been at work. You are a stronger man and more vigorous in constitution than your foe: that is clear; but where is the particular glory about that? One machine is stronger than another. No doubt, credit is to be given to you for your endurance, after a sort; but you are just one big brute beating another big brute. Dogs, and bulls, and game-cocks, and all kinds of animals, would have endured as much, and perhaps more." Now, see the Christian champion coming from the fight, having won the victory! Look at him! He has overcome human wisdom; but when I look at him I perceive no learning nor cunning: he is a simple, unlettered person, who just knows that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners; yet he has won the victory over profound philosophers: then he is more than a conqueror. He has been tempted and tried in all sorts of ways, and he was not at all a crafty person; he was very weak, yet somehow he has conquered. Now this is being more than a conqueror, when weakness overcomes strength, when brute force is baffled by gentleness and love. This is victory indeed, when the little things overcome the great things; when the base things of this world overthrow the mighty; and the things that are not bring to nought the things that are: yet this is just the triumph of grace. The Christian is, viewed according to the eye of sense, weak as water; yet faith knows him to be irresistible. According to the eye of sense, he is a thing to be trampled upon, for he will not resist; and yet, in the sight of God he becomes in this very way, by his gentleness and patience, more than a conqueror.

946. Victory of the Christian, Certainty of The fight may seem to hang in the scales to-day, but the conquest is sure to come unto him whose right it is. He shall gather all the sceptres of kings beneath his arm in one mighty sheaf, and take their diadems from off their brows, and be himself crowned with many crowns, for God hath said it, and heaven and earth shall pass away, but every promise of his must and shall be fulfilled. Push on, then, through hosts of enemies, ye warriors of the cross. Fight up the hill, ye soldiers of Christ, through the smoke and through the dust. Ye may not see your banner just now, neither do ye hear the trumpet that rings out the note of victory, but the mist shall clear away, and you shall gain the summit of the hill, and your foes shall fly before you, and the King himself shall come, and you shall be rewarded who have continued steadfast in his service.

947. Victory over Difficulties, Resolution to obtain

There is nothing but what you can make a way through if you can find something harder to bore it with. Look at the Mont Cenis tunnel, made through one of the hardest of known rocks: with a sharp tool, edged with diamond, they have pierced the heart of the Alps, and made a passage for the commerce of nations. As St. Bernard says:—"Is thy work hard? set a harder resolution against it, for there is nothing so hard that it cannot be cut by something harder still." May the Spirit of God work in thee invincible resolution and unconquerable perseverance. Let not the iron break the northern iron and the steel. Under persecutions and difficulties, let God's people resolve on victory, and by faith they shall have it, for according to our faith so. shall it be unto us.

948. Victory, the Churchs' Watchword A message came to Sir Colin Campbell at the Alma, that Her Majesty's Guards were falling thick and fast beneath the shot, had they not better retire for a little while into safe quarters? The answer was, "It were better, sir, that every one of Her Majesty's Guards should lie dead on this battle field than turn their backs on the enemy." And it is so. Let us die, yea, it were to be devoutly wished rather than that we lived a coward's life! Let the preacher first of all be carried to his grave, let him never live to see the shame of this Israel. Let these eyes be sealed in death rather than behold "Ichabod" written on these walls. No, brethren, it shall not be; you will serve Jesus, you will love him, and "Onward to victory" shall be your watchword from to-day. Be more in prayer, for this is the great matter. Seek out each one your own sphere of action; give yourselves wholly to it; and if any grow cold or careless, let him remember Jesus saith, "I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."

949. Vision of Christ, Inspiring to Service A vision of the Crucified, my brethren, is that which we want When we are toiling in his harvest-field, and sit down to wipe the sweat from our brow, we grow very weary; the harvest is plenteous, but the labourers are few: we feel that the edge of our sickle is growing very, very blunt, and we wish we could lie down under the spreading tree from the heat of the sun, and toil no longer; but just then we see the Crucified One coming forward with his mighty sickle; and as we mark the blood-drops streaming from his brow, and see the nail-print in the hand with which he grasps the sickle; when we see how he toils, and how he labours, with what an awful love he sacrifices himself, how he has stripped off his very garments, and, in all the nakedness of self-denial, gives himself up that he may save others while himself he cannot save; then we pluck up heart again, and take our sickle in the hand which once did hang down, saying, "Jesus, I will never be weary, for thou wast not weary; and when I shall be faint awhile, I will see thee, whose meat and drink it was to do thy Father's will, and I will make it my meat and my drink to serve thee." Surely you cannot do God's work so well as when you have Jesus Christ with you.

950. Voice of the Love of Christ

Silent as to vocal utterance, but like familiar tones that sometimes greet us in our dreams, the voice of Christ is distinctly audible to the soul. It will come to you in sweet or in bitter providences; yea, there is such a thing as hearing Christ's voice in the rustling of every leaf upon the tree, in the moaning of every wind, in the rippling of every wave. And there be those that have learned to lean on Christ's bosom, till they have looked for all the world as though they were a shell that lay in the ocean of Christ's love, listening for ever to the sonorous cadence of that deep, unfathomed, all-mysterious main. The billows of his love never cease to swell. The billowy anthem still peals on with solemn grandeur in the ear of the Christian.