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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love.—1Co_16:13-14.
2. The language is military. St. Paul had never seen an engagement, but he was familiar with barrack life, and one can imagine that there were aspects of that life that charmed him; its simple and absolute devotion, its discipline, its esprit de corps, the two elements of its might, unity and obedience, and the heroic qualities which were begotten of its dangers and its laurels. When he borrows a figure from the guardroom or the battlefield, the fidelity and spirit with which he uses it show that the allusion is not a mere grace of style; it is a vital constituent of the thought. To him Christian life was a contest, and he transfers to Christian action the nomenclature of camps.
There are five precepts. And the fifth, though it is found in a separate verse, should on no account be left out. First there is the introductory call, Be awake! Then there are two pairs: Be godly, and be manly; be strong, and be tender.
I.
Be awake—“Watch ye.”
II.
{
III.
{Be Awake
“Watch ye.”
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.
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 fellowmen 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 thoughtless 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 responsible for his own character, but then the fact that he wastes in idleness the precious years of opening manhood need not particularly influence him. 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 [Note: J. Wells, Stewart of Lovedale, 135.]
“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 [Note: E. J. Hardy.]
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.
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 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
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 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 complimented him and said, “You took that splendidly.” The guard said, “I am on duty, sir.”1 [Note: Joseph Traill.]
(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.”
The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their profession and contracted only the vices of civil life. They were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became careless of their martial exercises, and curious in their diet and apparel. They loved downy beds and houses of marble; and their cups were heavier than their swords.2 [Note: Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ii. 177.]
(3) Lastly, we are on guard for God’s truth.—A man can hardly mix among other men without hearing God’s truth assailed. There is a certain amount of unbelief; but perhaps less unbelief than carelessness and indifference that takes the form of unbelieving and even blasphemous talk. Men who like to be independent of religion themselves, who do not want to be bound by its laws, who find their own way more convenient than God’s way, sometimes profess to be unbelievers. They are not honest unbelievers, but it suits them to talk unbelief; and they do their best to argue or laugh other men into the same way of thinking. Now against this kind of thing we must be on guard.1 [Note: A. Debenham, On Guard, 9.]
See the world
Such as it is,—you made it not, nor I;
I mean to take it as it is,—and you,
Not so you’ll take it,—though you get nought else.
I know the special kind of life I like,
What suits the most my idiosyncrasy,
Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit
In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days.
I find that positive belief does this
For me, and unbelief, no whit of this.
—For you, it does, however?—that, we’ll try!2 [Note: Browning, Bishop Blougram’s Apology.]
Be Godly
“Stand fast in the faith.”
One of the best known stories of the battle of Waterloo is this: One regiment was hard pressed, and suffering seriously from the enemy’s fire. Presently Wellington rode up and called out: “Stand firm, Ninety-fifth! We must not be beaten. What would they say in England?” Stand firm! It was an appeal to the manliness of his soldiers, and to their patriotism. The eye of their country was upon them. Whether charged by the cavalry or mowed down by the cannon, there must be no flinching. Stand firm! We must not be beaten!1 [Note: H. M. Butler, Public School Sermons, 173.]
1. But what is this faith that we are commanded to stand fast in? It means our openness of soul to that eternal God who is our Father, yet our King; it means daily fellowship with that ever-living Christ who is our Brother, yet our Priest; it means a home within the soul to that eternal Spirit who is our Comforter, yet our Guide. Faith is the grasp of the spirit upon those eternal verities of God, which hold the spirit in time as if it were within eternity.
2. Intellectual activity is a great help to steadfastness in belief, but intellectual frivolity a grave danger. We would not make light of the difficulties that perplex the serious mind; what troubles it touches us all. To be forced to feel that the beliefs witnessed to by the Christian Church and accepted by the holy and the good cannot be believed, must ever be a heavy trial to the sober and grave mind. For if it doubts, it is not from inclination, but against it; not by preference, but from sheer conviction; and he is no friend to truth who does not respect the doubt of such a mind. But the number who belong to this class is never large. The longer we live, and the more we know of the intellectual tendencies that create conventional disbelief, the more we discover that fashion, temper, want of thought, and openness to superficial influences are more potent than grave and serious reason. Every age has its own peculiar tendencies to negation, and in our own day we may say that mental meddlesomeness, want of thought and plenitude of frivolous speech about the most awful themes are more fruitful causes of doubt, if doubt we may call it, than the questions of the critics, or the problems of philosophy and the schools.
The Apostle’s exhortation must be interpreted by the help of the first verse of the preceding chapter: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel, … wherein ye stand”; and the Apostle proceeds to place in their order the truths which comprise the Gospel and the cardinal fact upon which they rest. The argument of the resurrection, which is the glory of this Epistle, was addressed to the sceptical spirit of the Corinthian Church. That spirit expressed itself in the question, “How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?” This is the popular mode of exclaiming against dogma. Its tone does not indicate the earnest inquiry of a child spirit, but the demand of an impatient and carping unbelief.
This was the kind of battlefield to which Arnold would so often refer. To him the great curse of Public Schools, to be set against their noble powers for good, the great curse seemed to be—I quote his brilliant pupil and biographer—“the spirit” sometimes “there encouraged of combination, of companionship, of excessive deference to the public opinion prevalent in the school.” Once he spoke of it in these stern words—are they even now obsolete?—“If the spirit of Elijah were to stand in the midst of us, and we were to ask him, ‘What shall we do then?’ his answer would be, ‘Fear not, nor heed one another’s voices, but fear and heed the voice of God only.’ ” And the favourite image of human goodness which always stood out before Arnold was the noble portrait of Abdiel in Milton—
The Seraph Abdiel, faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal;
Nor number nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Though single.1 [Note: H. M. Butler,]
3. This counsel to “stand fast” occurs no fewer than six times in the Epistles of St. Paul. The Apostle was evidently very anxious about his converts, that they should maintain Christian stability. If any one is to stand fast, two things are necessary,—namely, a foundation to stand upon, and strength to stand. It has been well said that “a man may have his feet on a rock, yet if he is weak as a rag, he cannot stand; and no matter how strong he is, if his feet are on quicksand, he cannot be stable.”
(1) We have a sure foundation to stand upon: “the faith,” that is, the truth,—“as the truth is in Jesus.” We are to take our stand upon revealed truth, the truth of the Bible. Every Christian ought firmly to hold that Christ Jesus is the Son of God; that He died upon the cross for our sins; that He rose again from the dead; that He now reigns in heaven; that He has sent His Holy Spirit into the world; and that He will Himself return at the last day to take all His people to be with Him in glory. While the believer is never to stand still as to growth and obedience, he is always to “stand fast” as to right principles. He is to continue firm with regard to everything that is true and just and good. He is to stand fast in the three abiding graces—“faith, hope, love.”
(2) But not only has the Christian a sure ground to stand upon; he has also strength to stand. Some men are stronger than others in body, in mind, in affections, in will; but the strength that is required in order to “stand fast in the faith” is not one’s own. It comes from the Lord Jesus. It is His gift to His people. The Apostle says, “Stand fast in the Lord,” because the Christian is already “in Christ,” and the whole secret of spiritual strength consists in union with Him. If we would stand fast, we must “abide in him.”
In the Highlands of Scotland there are two bold projecting crags or headlands, some thirty-five miles apart, both of which are called Craigellachie. The one is at Aviemore on the south, and the other near Aberlour on the north. The swift river Spey flows at the foot of both; and the two Craigellachies form the southern and northern boundaries of Strathspey, the land of the Grants. And what used to be long ago the war-cry of the clan Grant, which was sent from Castle Grant at Grantown with “the fiery cross “all through the strath? It was these words: “Stand fast, Craigellachie!” A war-cry this, as John Ruskin has said, full of “deep wells of feeling and thought,” full of “the love of the native land, and the assurance of faithfulness to it.” The repetition of these words out in India by Highland soldiers from Strathspey has been to them in the hour of battle, when they were fighting beside Indian palaces and temples, like a breath of the Scottish heather or a whisper of the birches and pines: “Stand fast, Craigellachie!” But the Christian warrior has a still grander and more inspiring war-cry: “Stand fast in the faith!” “Stand fast in the Lord!”1 [Note: C. Jerdan.]
4. How is it that so few Christian men seem to possess this true courage, this standing fast in the faith? Is it not because they are not rooted and grounded sufficiently in Christ Himself as the fulness of their redemption? Is it not because they have not embraced the faith with all their heart and mind; because they stand wavering on the threshold of the fortress, and have never really entered it? Is it not because they have not thoroughly apprehended God’s purposes regarding them; are not yet satisfied that they are His and He is theirs? because they have never yet felt with deep and living conviction, that He is for them and nothing can be against them, that they were sent here to do His work, and till that work is done, no raging of the enemy can prevail? Is it not because they have not as yet acquired a distinct view of that enemy, and know not his devices; have not learned the signals of the two armies; have not sharply marked, in their mind’s map, the frontiers of the kingdoms of darkness and of light? Is it not from want of the fulness of the faith itself, that we are so wavering and hesitating, so generally doing just what the world or the Church expects of us, and so rarely built up on Christ Himself, looking beyond men for our motives, for our plans, for our endurance?
One of Bunyan’s famous pilgrims, in the Second Part of The Pilgrim’s Progress, is “Mr. Stand-fast.” This pilgrim is the last to be brought into the story, and the last also to cross the river of death. A true, strong, brave pilgrim was “Mr. Stand-fast.” “Great-heart” and his company came upon him when he was on his knees in the Enchanted Ground, praying earnestly for help against the temptations of “Madam Bubble,”—that is, the world and its enchantments. By and by, when “Christiana” was bidding her friends farewell, she had messages to leave to some, and adieus to present to others; “but she gave ‘Mr. Stand-fast’ a ring,” evidently as a token of her peculiar respect and affection. And when, at the very end of the allegory, the summons to cross the river came to “Mr. Stand-fast,” it bore these touching and tender words: “For his Master is not willing that he should be so far from Him any longer.” While this pilgrim was crossing, “there was a great calm at that time in the river”; so much so, that he stood for a time in mid-channel, and talked pleasantly to the convoy of friends who were watching him from the bank. He assured them that the river had now no terror for him. It had been his habit to “stand fast” amidst the dangers of the long pilgrimage; and therefore he could say, “Now, methinks, I stand easy.”
Be Manly
“Quit you like men.”
The words, “Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men,” in their original language, stand over the gateway of Selwyn College.
I remember as if it were yesterday the horrid feeling when I knocked at his study door, the door through which I had often been taken when something naughty had been done, too bad for mother to punish for, but I had never felt quite so bad before. My knock was answered by a “Come in.” I entered, and father rose and drew me towards the window. Silently we stood there, and then strangest of all strange things, I noticed tears in his eyes. Then, when he put his hands on my shoulders, there was a break in his voice as he uttered the words, never to be forgotten: “Well, my son! You are the first to leave the home nest, and I have been praying God to give me the right words to say to you, and I think He has answered my prayer. God grant that you may always try to be a man.” I looked him in the face, eye to eye, as we had been taught to do, and thought to myself, he has begun. But he said no more.1 [Note: George Clarke.]
2. What does St. Paul mean when he exclaims to the Corinthian converts, “Quit you like men”? He means, not the conventional qualities on which this or that age may look with favour, but the highest qualities of which human nature looked at in its highest light is capable—put forth the manhood that is in you. How strange the contrast between the thoughts which that word must have raised in the minds of St. Paul’s hearers and those which it would have called up if uttered by one of their civil rulers. How different a thing had manhood become to the Christian from what it was before his conversion. The thought that their life had been lived by the Son of God, the thought that their nature had been worn by Christ, that their bodily form had been sanctified by God’s indwelling presence, how overpowering must this have been to the first believers. They could have no doubt, no difficulty in life, when once they had believed. They knew in Him the greatness of their position, the source of their real strength. In following His life they knew wherein true manhood lay; they knew that it was not in the practice of the conventional virtues of the society around them, not in striking, brilliant exhibitions of their own great powers of mind or body, but in the simple daily life of industry and effort, that the perfection of human nature was to be found. This fact, this plain unmistakable truth, was stamped upon man’s conscience by the human life and death of God’s eternal Son. They need not go out of the world to find in solitude, in asceticism, in contemplation, their own “highest perfection,” as the fanatics even among the Jews maintained. They need not strive laboriously, as the Greeks would teach them, to ascend the lofty heights of abstract thought, where the mind might look calmly down on human things, and rise above them into the region of the Divine. Nay, in order to gain their highest greatness, they need not even struggle with the keen strong weapons of the world’s ambition to rise above their fellows, to do great exploits, to win great glory, to conquer and to rule, as they saw their Roman masters striving incessantly to do. Christ had revealed to His followers the sufficiency, the grandeur of common life; within the sphere of daily duty can the highest individual perfection be found.
This view of life lies at the bottom of what we call manliness of character. For it implies all those qualities which we most commonly attach to our idea of manliness. A man acting always from such a view is frank and straightforward, for he makes no false pretences and so has nothing to conceal. He is simple because he is too much in earnest to be lost in complexities and misunderstandings. He is fearless, for he is conscious of no aim of which he need be ashamed. He is brave, for whether he gain or lose in each separate undertaking, in the end he cannot but win, for present failure must at least teach a broader wisdom for the future, and a more perfect sympathy with actual surroundings. He is sound and healthy, for he knows himself too well and deals with himself too honestly to leave any room for what is morbid or affected. He is strong, for he is self-controlled, at any moment ready to act decisively up to what he knows, without thinking that what he does is necessarily on that account the wisest and best course possible. He is enduring, for he can afford to wait, knowing that his aim is his own lasting development, not the production of immediate results, not the glory of present praise and honour.
All right exercise of any human gift, so descended from the Giver of good, depends on the primary formation of the character of true manliness in the youth—that is to say, of a majestic, grave, and deliberate strength. How strange the words sound; how little does it seem possible to conceive of majesty, and gravity, and deliberation in the daily track of modern life. Yet, gentlemen, we need not hope that our work will be majestic if there is no majesty in ourselves. The word “manly” has come to mean practically, among us, a schoolboy’s character, not a man’s. We are, at our best, thoughtlessly impetuous, fond of adventure and excitement; curious in knowledge for its novelty, not for its system and results; faithful and affectionate to those among whom we are by chance cast, but gently and calmly insolent to strangers; we are stupidly conscientious, and instinctively brave, and always ready to cast away the lives we take no pains to make valuable, in causes of which we have never ascertained the justice.1 [Note: Ruskin, The Study of Architecture (Works, xix. 32).]
In Drummond’s Life of Charles A. Berry, there is the following reminiscence by Mr. Holderness Gale, an intimate friend of Berry:—“One day I had been spending an hour or two with him, and we were leaving the Club together, he to go, I think, to Woodford. Our ways parted at the Club door, and when we reached it, he called to me to wait a minute while he claimed his bag. In those days, a member entering the Club might leave his bag with the hall porter, and this Berry had done. He described his bag as a square black one, with a round handle, and was handed one which was beautifully smooth and shone with unsullied varnish. ‘That’s not mine,’ said Berry; ‘mine is over there,’ and he pointed to another bag of the same shape, or rather which had been of the same shape in its early days. When I saw it, the owner’s slippers, and sundry other impedimenta, had destroyed its squareness, and the varnish had given way, here and there, in honourable scars of roughened brown leather. ‘I suppose you thought that wasn’t respectable enough for a parson,’ said Berry, as the attendant gave the bag a dusting. ‘Bless you, sir, we never thinks of you as a parson; we always thinks of you as a man,’ was the reply. I never saw Berry more touched than at this spontaneous tribute.”1 [Note: Charles A. Berry, 274.]
Away back in the Middle Ages was a very beautiful and radiant thing named chivalry—a thing partly real and partly ideal, the ideal part of it being just as precious for us as the real part. Now, one great purpose lying at the root of chivalry was that of cultivating a fine and stately type of manhood; in fact, of breeding up the manliest race of men that had ever trod up and down in the world. And what was their notion of manliness—theirs, in that epoch of coarseness, and of animal lusts, and of violent lives? Listen. The finest dream of chivalry was embodied in that superb personage, King Arthur, and in the gorgeous knights who sat with him at the Round Table. And by what principles were their splendid lives controlled? Tennyson has told us, in the best English that has been written in our time—putting the testimony into the lips of King Arthur himself.
I was first of all the kings who drew
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
The realms together under me, their Head,
In that fair Order of the Table Round,
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.
I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To honour his own word as if his God’s,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her; for indeed I knew
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
3. Manliness is a great word; it is a many-sided word; but in general, we have this feeling about it, when we use it with emphasis—that it is an idealizing word. It is a word that will not suffer us to stay down among the small actualities of the manly character as known to us; but it continually points us up and away from the small actualities towards the grand possibilities of the manly character which we hope may sometime be known to us. The word manliness, perhaps, is greater and richer in noble attributes than was any one real specimen of manliness that we have ever looked upon with these eyes of ours. Nevertheless, when we think of true manliness, we are not content with the discouraging real, we lift ourselves up towards the inspiring ideal; and we begin to place before our eyes, one by one, all those qualities that we can think of as going to the formation of a noble, strong, splendid, and complete man. The manly man, we say—why, that is the ideal man; that is the man, not as he is, perhaps, but as he ought to be, as he may be, as he will be.
What are the attributes of this complete man, which St. Paul may be supposed to have had in mind when he exhorted us to act like one? There should be no difficulty in answering this question. The very word which St. Paul used is one the exact meaning of which is still perfectly well known. For our phrase in four words, “Quit you like men,” he used a single word, a verb formed from the familiar noun for man. The primary meaning of that noun was simply man as distinct from woman; its secondary meaning was man as a person of mature years, in contrast with a child; and then, for its third and supreme meaning, the word broadened and blossomed into the large conception of man as a being possessed of intelligence, wisdom, moral light and force, and a spiritual nature, in contrast with creatures of inferior order who are devoid of these endowments. So when St. Paul said to the little group of Christians at Corinth, environed by the spiritual perils of that most corrupt pagan city, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men,” he very likely charged that last word with all the ennobling and stimulating meanings which in the usage of poets and historians and orators it already had. For long before St. Paul’s time the word had been often used, somewhat as he used it, as a word to spur and inspire men to great and worthy and difficult deeds. In Homer and Herodotus and in Xenophon the word comes up again and again, when some great chieftain, at a moment of danger, in the presence of some grand or tremendous duty, just turns round to his followers and tells them to remember that they are men, and to act accordingly. Of course, St. Paul must have charged the word with richer meanings than they did, by as much as his conception of the spiritual range and possibility of man’s nature was grander than theirs; but the basis of his appeal was just the same as theirs.
In the first place, then, if in any respect a man is expected to have more courage and strength than a woman, let him act as becomes a man. Here the protest is against effeminacy. Secondly, if in any respect a grown man is expected to have more intelligence, wisdom, force, self-control, or fortitude than a mere child, let him act as becomes a man. Here the protest is against puerility. But, unquestionably, the great meaning with which the word is charged, in the Apostle’s use of it, is its third and consummate meaning. Men are to act as creatures having reason, conscience, the power of choice, and the measureless possibilities of the immortal life, and not like creatures of mere instinct, impulse, and irresponsibility. Here the protest is against brutishness or animalism, existence unregulated by intelligent and conscientious self-direction. Therefore, taking this as the Apostle’s conception of manliness—namely, character expressing itself in a life steered by principle—let us look at some of those forms of principle by which the manly life will be steered.
(1) Magnanimity.—Magnanimity is the principle of taking the large-minded view of things rather than the small-minded view. It is this principle woven into the texture of any human life which gives to it, however lowly it may be, true elevation and dignity; which enables its possessor to meet whatever comes with a tranquil and firm spirit; which raises him above anything so petty as revenge; which prompts him to disdain injustice and meanness, and leads him to task himself and to sacrifice himself for noble ends. Accordingly, whatever in us is small, paltry, narrow, low; whatever tends to warp and contract us; whatever is stingy, greedy, miserly, selfish, jealous, morbid, is just so far a diminution of our manliness. And every vocation or method of culture which tends merely to sharpen certain less noble faculties of our nature, such as calculation, shrewdness, cunning, acquisitiveness, needs to be met by the deliberate cultivation of the faculties which will correct this tendency and broaden our grasp and handling of things.
“Abraham,” says Charles Kingsley, “was a prince in manners and a prince in heart.” The Hittites partly divined his secret. His personality was grandly impressive to them. He rose in uncrowned sovereignty above them all, the strongest, noblest, gentlest man; and they saw that he was a prince of God’s own making. He owed his power and charm, not so much to natural endowments as to the transforming and ennobling influence of Divine grace. Great aspirations and ideals created his great character. He kept company with God till he became a partaker of the Divine nature. Beginning as a man of God, he ended as a prince of God. True religion develops the highest kind of manhood. Under its influence a common man becomes princely in soul, unconsciously regnant among his fellow-men, and does the most common things in a noble, gentle, royal spirit. Being to God what the wax is to the seal, he is stamped with the image of God.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.1 [Note: J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, i. 180.]
It is news to some people that manliness is a matter of culture rather than of fate. These are the people who confuse manliness with manhood. Their view is that in the great drama of humanity some of us are cast for male parts and some of us for feminine characters; and since none can determine his own sex, therefore manliness is a matter over which we have no control. They are by no means entirely wrong; and yet they are not right. It is not ours to say whether we shall or shall not be men. It is ours to say whether we shall be manly. For manliness is a matter of quality. There are many kinds of men, and it is only worth while being the best kind. To be the best of anything a man must take himself in hand. He must culture and discipline himself with the help of God. In other words, he must set his will towards manliness. He must know what he wants, he must know how to get it; he must count as nothing the pains of progress. The fact is that manhood is only potential manliness. Yet where there is manhood there is always the possibility of manliness. Temperament is bias, but not destiny. Will and vision will always open a road from manhood to manliness.1 [Note: J. G. Stevenson, in Youth and Life, 1.]
(2) Sincerity.—Another principle by which the manly life is steered is sincerity, sometimes described as ingenuousness, openness of heart, frankness, fairness, straightforwardness, honesty of nature through and through. The manly man will surely be controlled by this principle. The manly man is not double-tongued, or a hypocrite, or a trickster. The manly man is the upright man, the straightforward man, or, to use a new but most expressive phrase, he is the square man. When we hear of a piece of brilliant and successful sharp practice in politics, in law, in stock speculation, is it not our first tendency rather to smile admiringly over the expert achievement than to brood seriously over a certain ignoble something in it which taints the whole glittering transaction and the person who executes it? For there is nothing manly about trick-playing. How refreshing it is to see a man who never has an object of which he need be ashamed, and who marches towards his object without dodging, indirection, or stealth!
No meanness, hypocrisy, or dishonesty, whether on the part of rich or poor, could escape the rigorous censure of “that terrible Thoreau,” as his acquaintances called him; nor would he waste on thriftless applicants one cent of the money which he had earned by his own conscientious labours. He maintained sincerity to be the chief of all virtues. “The old mythology,” he wrote, “is incomplete without a god or a goddess of sincerity, on whose altars we might offer up all the products of our farms, our workshops, and our studies. This is the only panacea.”2 [Note: H. S. Salt, Henry David Thoreau, 122.]
Trevelyan speaks of “that ingrained sincerity of character” for the sake of which his party would have followed Lord Althorp to the death.3 [Note: Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, 260.]
During Mr. Gladstone’s last tenure of office as Prime Minister a clergyman, whose only opportunity of knowing Mr. Gladstone had been through the not too trustworthy descriptions of hostile critics, happened to say in the presence of Dean Church that he believed Mr. Gladstone was a thoroughly insincere man. The Dean was sitting in his chair when the remark was made, but he instantly rose, his face even paler than it usually was, and he said, evidently with the strongest suppression of personal feeling: “Insincere! Sir, I tell you that to my knowledge Mr. Gladstone goes from communion with God to the great affairs of State.” It was high testimony to be given to any man, but highest of all when we remember who gave it.1 [Note: Life and Letters of Dean Church, 304.]
This is Love’s nobility,—
Not to scatter bread and gold,
Goods and raiment bought and sold;
But to hold fast his simple sense,
And speak the speech of innocence,
And with hand, and body, and blood,
To make his bosom-counsel good.
For he that feeds men serveth few;
He serves all who dares be true.2 [Note: Emerson.]
(3) Self-control.—Manliness is self-mastery. Any fool, the weakest, dullest, paltriest that ever was, can make a drunkard or a debauchee. There is no human clay so vile, no sludge and scum of humanity so despicable, but out of it you may make an effeminate corrupter or lying schemer; but it takes God’s own) gold to make a man. No lacquer work, no tinsel suffices for the cherubim of the sanctuary. They must be hammered out of pure gold, seven times purified in the fire. From whom, it has been asked, does the inspiration descend on us? Is it not from the central figures of the great tragedies of humanity; from the creators of law, from the avengers of wrong, from the martyrs of right, from the missionaries of mercy, from the Pass of Thermopylae, from the self-dedication of the Decii, from the fires of Smithfield, from the waters of the Solway, yea! from the cross of Calvary? And he who will not take up that cross cannot be a true man; he cannot be Christ’s disciple.
Every man finds in himself two sets of tendencies—one coarse, the other fine; the one gross and animal, the other spiritual and noble; one set allying him to the beasts that perish, the other allying him to the angels of God and to God Himself. Now, every man’s life is going to be habitually controlled by one or the other of these sets of tendencies, or he is going to vacillate in a helpless, rudderless way between the two. But what will the manly man do about it? This he will do. He will not vacillate; he will not drift rudderless, water-logged, helpless. No; he will decide firmly between these two sets of tendencies; he will make his choice, and he will choose to have his life habitually controlled by his finer instincts rather than by his coarser ones; he will elect as his master tendencies those which are pure and ennobling rather than those which are low and degrading; he will resolve that within the domain of his personality the soul shall be king, not the body; that conscience and intelligence shall rule, and not the mob of his animal lusts and passions. With him the decision simply comes to this: the body shall obey the soul, the soul shall not be degraded to the task of obeying the body.
If one is alive, there will be much in him which needs control, and yet is not going to submit without a struggle. It takes a practised hand to manage a pair of high-spirited horses so that they will not run away; and he would be a phenomenal charioteer who could drive wild beasts tandem and keep them under the rein together. This is the kind of task which ardent natures have to face. As compared with some primitive peoples, we have lost in frankness and gained in outward decorum, because we hide objectionable eccentricities from public view. But the human heart is still a curious menagerie. Though the animals may be pretty well tamed in the cage of civilization, it does not follow that their rougher instincts are destroyed. A good many different selves often seem to be included in the self. How shall we bind them into a real unity?
When shall we lay
The ghost of the brute that is walking and haunting us yet and be free?
This is the great problem of life.1 [Note: W. T. Herridge, The Orbit of Life, 65.]
(4) Courage.—Another principle by which the manly life is steered is courage. As to this thing called courage, people sometimes distinguish between physical courage and moral courage. If there be such a thing as physical courage apart from moral courage, we have not very frequent use for it in civilized life. Against physical danger, as proceeding from the violence of others, society protects us; we seldom need to be at the trouble of protecting ourselves. Physical courage is the virtue of barbarism; the virtue of civilization is moral courage. The courage most needed in civilized society, at almost every hour of our lives, is the courage of opinion; the courage of our faiths and our convictions.
Once, in some American city, there was held a densely crowded mass-meeting of slave-holders. Shouts of applause and enthusiasm marked the words of these champions of bondage, and they thundered forth the plausible sophisms of perverted Scriptures which defended their covenants with death. And one of the orators exclaimed, in the face of that menacing and raging meeting: “I should like to see an Abolitionist now; I should like to see an Abolitionist show his face here.” Then a short figure was seen thrusting its way to the front, and, standing up before these raging defenders of wickedness alone, Theodore Parker shouted out to the raging multitude, “I am an Abolitionist!” It required nobler courage to do that than to fight a battle.1 [Note: Dean Farrar.]
I say it deliberately, from long observation, that I regard cowardice as a capital defect in a young man. I have really more hopes of a fool than of a coward. I am never sure that a coward will tell the truth. I tremble at every temptation that he encounters, lest he may succumb. I fear for every opposition that he meets, lest he may be carried away with it.2 [Note: R. B. Fairbairn, College Sermons, 67.]
I remember a remarkable conversion that occurred many years ago, when a work of grace was beginning in the parish over which my dear father was pastor. It happened that at that time there was a little band of men who were “great chums,” and in a good position in society, as things went in the village; they were, in fact, regarded as influential men in the parish. One evening, they were all together at an hotel in the neighbouring town of Penzance, and, as men do on such occasions, they were drinking, and talking all kinds of nonsense, and not infrequently all kinds of profanity! One happened to say, “I wonder what the people are doing just now over at Pendeen.” Another replied, “I suppose they are all getting converted as fast as possible.” “Well,” said one to a third, “I say, Captain B——, I will tell you what it is. When I see you converted, I will begin to think there is something in it,” and there was a great roar of laughter from the whole of the company at the thought of Captain B——’s conversion. The man thus referred to was, I may say, a mine agent, occupying a very influential position, and a large employer of labour. As the laughter died away, he rose from his seat. His companions did not notice how pale was his cheek. One thought only had flashed across his mind, when he heard his friend’s remark, and the roar of laughter which it provoked. It was this—“Is my salvation so utterly hopeless that these worldly men can afford to regard me as they do? Do my companions think me altogether lost—for time and eternity? He started up and darted out of the room. The company thought they had offended him. Another moment, and he was in the hotel-yard, and crying to the ostler, “Saddle my horse!” He rode to his home as fast as he could ride. His wife could not understand what was wrong with him: he seemed so agitated. He took no food; but immediately set out for the place at which our meetings were being held. He was the last man we expected to see there. He came boldly forward and took his seat in front of the congregation, full in view of many whom he was employing. He had overcome his moral cowardice. My dear father gave out those lines of a well-known hymn of Wesley’s—
Is here a soul that knows Thee not,
Nor feels his want of Thee?
A stranger to the blood which bought
His pardon on the tree?
Convince him now of unbelief,
His desperate state explain.
And, as my father uttered these last words—“His desperate state explain!”—we heard a cry. This man was prostrated on his knees, and was sending up the thrilling prayer, before the eyes and ears of all—“God be merciful to me a sinner.” I need hardly tell you that man went home rejoicing. But I may add that his conversion moved the whole neighbourhood, and was the commencement of the most remarkable work of God’s grace that has ever occurred in those parts. Now, I call that manly, “quitting oneself like a man.” I know he could not have done it if the Holy Spirit had not been striving within him. But then we often strive the other way; God calls, and we won’t answer. God draws, and we won’t yield; and the result is our hearts become like adamant, harder than flint.1 [Note: Canon Hay Aitken.]
“I asked Kang Yu Wei, who has studied the Gospels profoundly, what seemed to him the most striking quality in Jesus. He answered, somewhat to my surprise, that what appealed to him most, in the personality of Jesus, was His courage.”1 [Note: Hibbert Journal, October 1908, p. 22.]
And who the bravest of the brave;
The bravest hero ever born?
’Twas one who dared a felon’s grave,
Who dared to breathe the scorn of scorn.
Nay, more than this: when sword was drawn,
And vengeance waited for His word,
He looked with pitying eyes upon
The scene, and said, “Put up thy sword.”
O God! could man be found to-day
As brave to do, as brave to say?
“Put up thy sword into its sheath,”
Put up thy sword, put up thy sword!
By Kedron’s brook thus spoke beneath
The olive-trees our valiant Lord,
Spoke calm and kinglike. Sword and stave
And torch and stormy men of death
Made clamour. Yet He spake not save
With loving word and patient breath
The peaceful olive boughs beneath,
“Put up thy sword within its sheath.”
Be Strong
1. Let us, then, live in no doubt of what is strength and what is weakness. It is strength to will and to do; it is weakness to desire and not to do; to wish and not to will; to wish to break a habit and still to live in it; to wish to fix the thoughts and let them wander; to wish for the command of a faculty and to acquire no efficient use of it. And strength is not the vehement impulse of one part of us, but the final consent of all that is in us. It is not in the tenderness of a yielding man; nor in the resignation of a cold one; nor in the prudence of a selfish man; nor in the open-handedness of a spendthrift. The tender must be firm; the resigned, loving; the prudent, generous; the charitable, self-denying. It was seen in Christ when the morning of His greatest glory dawned upon Him—watching in trembling and in prayer—in His humility testing His weakness, and collecting His strength in God. Remember what He said to the disciples, who all failed Him in that great crisis, not because their hearts were evil, but simply because their wills were feeble: “What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
“Quit you like men, be strong.” Yes, strength will come:
Who weeps at night will fight as well to-morrow;
’Tis good to stand a-wrestling with the world;
He loses much who knows not care nor sorrow;
’Tis good all day to keep the foe abreast,
’Tis good at night to fall on dreamless rest.
2. “Be strong.”—The original means rather “Become strong.” What is the use of telling men to “be strong”? It is a waste of words, in nine cases out of ten, to say to a weak man, “Pluck up your courage, and show strength.” But is it so vain to tell a poor, weak creature like me to become strong, when you can point me to the source of all strength, in that spirit “of power and of love and of a sound mind”? We have only to take our weakness there to have it stiffened into strength; as people put bits of wood into what are called “petrifying wells,” which infiltrate into them mineral particles, which do not turn the wood into stone, but make the wood as strong as stone. So my manhood, with all its weakness, may have filtered into it Divine strength, which will brace me for all needful duty, and make me more than conqueror through Him that loved me. Then, it is not mockery and cruelty, vanity and surplusage, to preach, “Quit you like men; be strong, and be a man”; because if we will observe the plain and not hard conditions, strength will come to us according to our day, in fulfilment of the great promises: “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and “my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
“What is that Divine strength which is to transform our natural and human strength? In one word, it is “Christ in us,” the same Divine power which secretly fought in and with the noblest efforts of humanity outside the Jewish and the Christian Church. Only now its nature is revealed; more than that, there 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 transformed, our lower self subdued, our higher self taken into God. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
It is sometimes said, You tell us to be manly, and yet you bid us subject ourselves to a higher power working in us. Religious people are so weak. They have no self-reliance. They are but feeble creatures, after all, with all their boasted strength. How can you expect men to set before themselves, as an end, what, disguise it as you will, is self-surrender, which means renouncing all that we admire as manly in us? I will answer by some negative instances sufficient, at all events, to prove that surrendering one’s self to the will of God, resting on His strength, is a source not of weakness but of power. Was St. Paul feeble and nerveless because his will was surrendered to the will of Christ? Did he speak less powerfully, 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, because they believe themselves to be only passive instruments in the hands of some mightier power?1 [Note: A. L. Moore, Some Aspects of Sin, 49.]
3. Our strength must be 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 and action which satisfy the individual, and the practical result of such a purely individual possession can only be bigotry, prejudice, narrowness or fanaticism, not real strength.
That man is unmanly, for he falls far short of man’s perfection, 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. Unmanl