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Show Yourself A Man 1 Kings 2:2

Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man. Biblical Illustrator - 1 Kings 2:2

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Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man.<br />

Biblical Illustrator - 1 <strong>Kings</strong> 2:2<br />

This book is dedicated to Rydder Wilson<br />

1 <strong>Kings</strong> 2:1-4<br />

David's Instructions to Solomon<br />

When David's time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying,<br />

“I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of<br />

the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his<br />

testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever<br />

you turn, that the Lord may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay<br />

close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their<br />

soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’<br />

The Biblical illustrator; or, Anecdotes, similes, emblems, illustrations : expository,<br />

scientific, geographical, historical, and homiletic, gathered from a wide range of home<br />

and foreign literature, on the verses of the Bible published in 1900 by Nisbet in London.<br />

Strangers & Exiles Publication<br />

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Be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man.<br />

1 <strong>Kings</strong> 2:2<br />

Religion not unmanly<br />

This is interesting in many ways, interesting as a picture, and as a<br />

specimen of counsel. It is an old man speaking to a young one, a<br />

king to his successor, an aged warrior to a youthful man of peace, a<br />

man of action to a man of knowledge, a dying man to a man on the<br />

threshold of his earthly career, one who had done with earth to one<br />

who was entering on its fulness, a father to a son, a David to a<br />

Solomon. When he advised Solomon to show himself a man, he<br />

attached no low and feeble sense to the term. David was a judge of<br />

manliness. Yet to his advice to Solomon to be manly he appends a<br />

description of character and of a course of action, which therefore<br />

was in his estimation manly, or at the least not unmanly. “<strong>Show</strong><br />

thyself a man,” he says, “and keep the charge of the Lord thy God,<br />

to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments,<br />

and His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the law<br />

of Moses.” Now all this is summed up in one word, and that is<br />

religion. In the opinion of King David, then, religion is manly.<br />

Religion then furnishes ample room for manly sentiments and<br />

manly courses of action. Nay, it requires them and makes them<br />

necessary.<br />

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I. It involves the choice of a great object. It sets a man upon living<br />

for a great end, the greatest end that he can live for. To see grownup<br />

men occupying themselves in petty concerns, suffering them to<br />

engross their thoughts and their time and their powers, making<br />

them their all, concentrating upon them their energies and their<br />

efforts, following them with a zeal, an earnestness, and a<br />

pertinacity utterly disproportionate and exaggerated, it is a pitiable<br />

sight, ridiculous if it were not also melancholy. This is puerile,<br />

boyish, effeminate. The things of a child are very proper things for<br />

a child. There is fitness, there is beauty, there is use, in his devotion<br />

to them. But how unseemly, how contemptible, how offensive, is<br />

such a devotion in a man. We judge of men by the elevation and<br />

magnitude of their pursuits. We think a fop a puerile creature, who<br />

lives to look pretty and smell sweet. And the man “whose God is his<br />

belly,” who lives to eat, and lays out his mind on marketing and<br />

cookery, is another great child. Such men are still busy with their<br />

playthings a little changed in form. But does any man rise to the<br />

height of himself who lives for this world? Is there not in an such<br />

living the same sort of dwarfing and disparagement of the true<br />

greatness and dignity of human nature, the same sad incongruity<br />

and disproportion?<br />

II. there is manliness again in decision, firmness, and constancy<br />

of purpose. It is characteristic of children that they do not know<br />

their own minds, that they are the sport of whim and caprice,<br />

unsteady, vacillating, freakish, easily diverted from their aim,<br />

easily discouraged by difficulties, deficient in persistency,<br />

resolution, and concentration. When we see a child more fixed and<br />

consistent in the choice of an end than children are wont to be, we<br />

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call him precocious, a manly child; and if this quality is not so<br />

prominent as to be premature and unnatural, we say it augurs well<br />

for the boy’s future. To see a grown man the victim of fugitive<br />

preferences, impressions, and impulses, “a wave of the sea, driven<br />

with the wind and tossed,” is wretched. We say then that fixedness,<br />

concentration, steadfastness, are attributes of a man, are essential<br />

to the development of a truly manly character. And where are they<br />

so exhibited as in religion, if it be genuine and true? What else so<br />

tends to form and foster them? What else so draws the whole life as<br />

it were to a single focus?--so forces all its streams to run into one<br />

reservoir? What else gives life such unity, coherence, and<br />

connection of parts?<br />

III. There is manliness in independence; and this is emphatically<br />

a religious virtue. The Christian must be singular, and pursue a<br />

path not trodden by the multitude. And he must be content<br />

ordinarily to pursue it in the face of misconception,<br />

misconstruction, remonstrance, and derision. This is to no small<br />

extent “the offense of the cross.” To be unlike others, to be looked<br />

upon with curiosity, to be thought affected or ostentatious, is<br />

trying. So, to keep a separate and isolated position, to be one by<br />

one’s self, and stand an anomaly and exception, self-centered and<br />

self-sustained, without the ordinary props of human opinion and<br />

usage, requires largely independence of character. Independence is<br />

a quality of manhood. A child is a conformist and a copyist. It leans<br />

upon the parent, and holds itself up by clinging to an older person,<br />

as the ivy hangs upon the tree or wall It goes in leading strings, and<br />

looks timidly out for examples and precedents and authorities. To<br />

think and act for himself, to mark out his own line of action and<br />

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pursue it, to have the reasons and the law of his actions in himself,<br />

and not to swerve from his path at dictation or censure or<br />

contempt, is to vindicate one’s maturity, to act the part of a man.<br />

Does not religion then stand vindicated from the charge of<br />

unmanliness? And is not David s counsel to Solomon his son<br />

justified and sustained--Be manly and be religious, be manly in<br />

your religion, and religious in order to be manly? Is not religion<br />

successfully rescued from one of, the most effective and damaging<br />

aspersions that is ever cast upon it--that it is unmanly, that it is a<br />

suitable thing for the softer sex, and pretty in children, but not at<br />

all fit for robust, hardy, deep-thinking, bold-acting men? It is not<br />

in the slightest degree true. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.)<br />

Dignity of man<br />

The dignity of man appears from his bearing the image of his<br />

Maker. God has, besides, enstamped a dignity upon man by giving<br />

him not only a rational, but an immortal existence. The soul, which<br />

is properly the man, shall survive the body and live for ever. The<br />

dignity of man also appears from the great attention and regard<br />

which God hath paid to him. God indeed takes care of all His<br />

creatures, and His tender mercies are over all His works: but man<br />

has always been the favorite child of Providence.<br />

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I. <strong>Man</strong> hath a capacity for constant and perpetual progression in<br />

knowledge.<br />

II. <strong>Man</strong> hath a capacity for holiness as well as knowledge. His<br />

rational and moral faculties both capacitate and oblige him to be<br />

holy. His perception and volition, in connection with his reason<br />

and conscience, enable him to discern and feel the right and wrong<br />

of actions, and the beauty and deformity of characters. This<br />

renders him capable of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking<br />

humbly with God.<br />

III. That man hath a capacity for happiness, equal to his capacity<br />

for holiness and knowledge. Knowledge and holiness are the<br />

grand pillars which support all true and substantial happiness;<br />

which invariably rises or falls, accordingly as these are either<br />

stronger or weaker. Knowledge and holiness in the Deity are<br />

the source of all his happiness. Angels rise in felicity as they rise in<br />

holiness and knowledge. And saints here below grow in happiness<br />

as they grow in grace, and in the knowledge of holy and Divine<br />

objects.<br />

IV. That man hath a capacity for great and noble actions.<br />

1. We may justly infer from the nature and dignity of man, that we<br />

are under indispensable obligations to religion. Our moral<br />

obligations to religion are interwoven with the first principles of<br />

our nature. And, as man is formed for religion, so religion is the<br />

ornament and perfection of his nature. The man of religion is, in<br />

every supposable situation, the man of dignity. Pain, poverty,<br />

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misfortune, sickness and death, may indeed veil, but they cannot<br />

destroy his dignity, which sometimes shines with more<br />

resplendent glory under all these ills and clouds of life.<br />

2. This subject may help us to ascertain the only proper and<br />

immutable boundaries of human knowledge: such boundaries of<br />

our knowledge as arise from the frame and constitution of our<br />

nature, and not from any particular state or stage of our existence.<br />

3. This subject gives us reason to suppose, that men, in the present<br />

state, may carry their researches into the works of nature, much<br />

farther than they have ever yet carried them. The fields of science,<br />

though they have been long traversed by strong and inquisitive<br />

minds, are so spacious, that many parts remain yet undiscovered.<br />

4. The observations, which have been made upon the nobler<br />

powers and capacities of the human mind, may embolden the sons<br />

of science to aim to be originals. They are strong enough to go<br />

alone, if they only have sufficient courage and resolution. They<br />

have the same capacities, and the same original sources of<br />

knowledge, that the ancients enjoyed.<br />

5. We are under indispensable obligations to cultivate and improve<br />

our minds in all the branches of human knowledge. All our natural<br />

powers are so many talents, which, in their own nature, lay us<br />

under moral obligations to improve them to the best advantage.<br />

Being men, we are obliged to act like men, and not like the horse or<br />

the mule which have no understanding. (N. Emmons, D. D.)<br />

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<strong>Show</strong> thyself a man<br />

On the sixth of March, in the year 1741, the brilliant statesman,<br />

William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, felt it necessary to<br />

apologize from his place in the House of Commons for what he<br />

styled “the atrocious crime of being a young man.” The sneers at<br />

youth which provoked this wrathful protest are seldom heard today.<br />

In this more democratic age the value of young men as a factor<br />

in human affairs is better understood. The elder Disraeli has<br />

pointed out that “almost everything that is great in” the story of the<br />

race has been done by youth, and Thomas Carlyle has taught us<br />

that the history of heroes is the history of young men. We<br />

remember that in war the victories of Hannibal and Alexander, of<br />

Clive and Napoleon, were the triumphs of young men; that<br />

Innocent m. and Leo X., the greatest of the Popes, had won the<br />

tiara before they were thirty-seven, and that Martin Luther at fiveand-thirty<br />

had achieved the Reformation. We remember that<br />

Pascal and Sir Isaac Newton had written their greatest treatises<br />

before they were thirty; that Raphael and Correggio among<br />

painters; Byron, Shelley, and Keats among poets; Mozart,<br />

Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Bellini among<br />

musicians--these, and many more too numerous to quote, had won<br />

their place among the immortals and died while they were yet<br />

young men. We have come to recognize that the qualities which<br />

command success--dash, courage, hopefulness, fertility of<br />

invention and resources--are often more abundant in youth than<br />

in age; and knowing how largely young men have made the world’s<br />

history in time past, we look to young men as the history-makers<br />

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of time present and to come. There is little peril to-day of our<br />

despising young men on account of their youth; we rather need to<br />

be warned against despising old men on account of their age. The<br />

position which young men thus take in modem life adds a tone of<br />

deeper emphasis and keener urgency to the ancient, familiar, and<br />

inspiring exhortation of my text. The injunction echoes the words<br />

which Moses addressed to Joshua when he entrusted him with<br />

command. A thousand years later we meet it again in Paul’s appeal<br />

to Timothy: “Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is<br />

in Christ Jesus,” as also in the exhortation to the Corinthians, when<br />

Timothy was coming amongst them: “Watch ye; stand fast in the<br />

faith; quit you like men; be strong!” Again and again in profane<br />

history, in the pages of Homer, Herodotus, or Xenophon, we find<br />

great chieftains charging their followers in the same strain. Modem<br />

history likewise takes up the call, Latimer in the fire exclaiming:<br />

“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley; play the man!” Nelson at<br />

Trafalgar sounding the war-cry: “England expects every man to do<br />

his duty.” Every mother who sends her son into the world breathes<br />

the spirit of it.. The words imply an ideal. John Trebonius, Martin<br />

Luther’s schoolmaster, always took his hat off to his schoolboys.<br />

“Who can tell,” he would say, “what man there may be here? “There<br />

was wisdom in the act, for among those boys was the solitary monk<br />

that shook the world. Yet it is not every man who becomes all that<br />

we mean by a man. Vanity emasculates some and they become--not<br />

men, but the show-blocks of their hatter, the lay-figures and<br />

walking advertisements of their tailor. Indolence destroys others,<br />

and they become--not men, but manikins dependent on the charity<br />

of their relations, and parasites that live by suction. Vice is, the<br />

degradation of others, until, sinking below shame, unworthy<br />

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utterly of the human form--erect, divine,” they become as swine in<br />

sensuality or as wolves in brutal ferocity. But even if men escape<br />

these degradations they may still remain immeasurably below the<br />

standard implied in this great word, “a man.”<br />

Unless above himself he can<br />

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!<br />

What, then, is this ideal? What is it that every woman puts into her<br />

love and every man into his self-respect when we sound the<br />

challenge: “<strong>Show</strong> thyself a man? What are the marks by which a<br />

sterling manhood may be known.<br />

I. One mark of manhood is strength. “Be thou strong, therefore,<br />

and show thyself a man.” In the notion of an ideal man we all<br />

include the attribute of physical strength. It is true that some have<br />

asserted their manhood in spite of bodily infirmity. The Apostle<br />

Paul carried the Gospel over two continents, notwithstanding that<br />

he was half blind and paralyzed. Richard Baxter, the most<br />

voluminous writer and most successful pastor of his day, was a<br />

lifelong invalid. Dr. George Wilson was accustomed to deliver his<br />

lectures with a great blister on his chest. Bishop Butler, who wrote<br />

the Analogy of Religion, and James Watt, inventor of the steam<br />

engine, were both so harassed with bile and consequent<br />

melancholy as to be constantly tempted to make away with<br />

themselves. The lives of such men are notable illustrations of the<br />

triumph of mental energy over bodily infirmities, and should<br />

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encourage those of us who suffer from constitutional debility; but<br />

they do not make physical weakness either natural or desirable.<br />

Young men ought to be strong, ought to take pleasure in vigorous<br />

exercises, ought to remember the ancient proverb: “The glory of<br />

young men is their strength.” In this matter of physical culture I<br />

say to every young man: “Shew thyself a man.” More, however, than<br />

either physical or mental strength, as sunlight is more than<br />

moonlight or starlight, is moral strength. In the high firmament of<br />

ideal manhood, moral strength is the greater light that rules the<br />

day. You must put the dement of conscience, you must put love for<br />

righteousness and hatred of evil-doing into your conception of<br />

manly vigor, or you never can truly say of any man what Marc<br />

Antony said of Brutus:--<br />

The elements were<br />

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up<br />

And say to all the world--this was a man.<br />

II. A second mark of manhood is sagacity. Milton asks: “What is<br />

strength without a double share of wisdom?” and then he adds:<br />

“Strength is not made to rule, but to subserve, where wisdom bears<br />

command.” He that would show himself a man must couple<br />

sagacity with strength; for we live in a world o| illusions, which are<br />

like traps at a young man’s feet. You young men of this new<br />

generation are face to face with what Carlyle described as “the<br />

Everlasting No.” To every precept of heaven the devil brings a “No.”<br />

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“Fear God and keep His commandments.” “No,” says the devil;<br />

“indulge your passions.” “<strong>Man</strong>’s chief end is to glorify God and<br />

enjoy Him for ever.” “No,” says the devil; “man’s chief end is to<br />

glorify himself and enjoy his own way.” “He that findeth his life<br />

shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.”<br />

“No,” says the devil; “let every other man be damned, body and<br />

soul, and what does it matter to you? This “Everlasting No” meets<br />

us at every call of duty, and has to be resisted and foresworn once<br />

and for ever, or we cut ourselves adrift from every possibility of<br />

achieving the ideal manhood. Thousands of men to-day are<br />

crippled and emasculated by this negative of unbelief. Their loss is<br />

incalculable. Themselves are stripped of blessing, and their<br />

influence is emptied of power. To the devil’s “Everlasting No” do<br />

you oppose God’s “Everlasting Yes.” Be positive and practical; add<br />

sagacity to strength.<br />

III. A third mark of manhood is saintliness. A saint is one who<br />

lives unto God, and in whom God’s will is law. Here manliness<br />

completes itself. <strong>Man</strong> being created in the image of God, we can<br />

regard none as attaining the ideal of manhood who does not in<br />

thought, purpose, impulse, and deed reflect the God in whom he<br />

lives, moves, and has his being; and is not this what we mean by<br />

saintliness? Saintliness includes honesty, for it accepts the golden<br />

rule: “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye also to<br />

them”; and does not Pope affirm “ an honest man’s the noblest work<br />

of God”? Saintliness includes the service of others; for every saint<br />

is a follower of Him who “came not to be ministered unto, but to<br />

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minister and give His life a ransom for many.” And does not Lord<br />

Lytton remind us—<br />

That man is great, and he alone<br />

Who serves a greatness not his own<br />

For neither praise nor pelf.<br />

Content to know and be unknown,<br />

Whole in himself!<br />

Strength, sagacity, saintliness--these three, and the greatest of<br />

these is saintliness, if any one of us would show himself a man.<br />

(W. J. Woods, B. A.)<br />

<strong>Man</strong>hood<br />

The last words of any one, as he takes his departure for the eternal<br />

world, are always of interest to those left behind. Even the last<br />

utterances of the criminal on the scaffold will be read by<br />

thousands, who would not have listened to one word of his when<br />

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he stood begging at their door. The last words of great and good<br />

men, when spoken to those near and dear to them, are therefore of<br />

especial interest.<br />

I. The charge of the dying father. It is that of a king to his<br />

successor, who is soon to ascend the throne of Israel. The position<br />

is so responsible, the charge will be long and weighty. But no; how<br />

short the address, how few the directions--“<strong>Show</strong> thyself a man” Be<br />

a man, that is all. Yes, but that is everything. Be a man, such as God<br />

made; not the distorted, crooked, perverted creature sin has made.<br />

II. What is implied in this charge. Vir was the word the Romans<br />

used for man, and from which our word virtue comes. Virtue, too,<br />

with them meant courage, heroism. Whatever therefore is virtuous<br />

is manly. Truthfulness is a virtue, and therefore manly. God is<br />

truth. <strong>Man</strong> is most manly when most like God, for he was made in<br />

the image of God. Honesty is paying our just debts, paying honor to<br />

whom honor is due, exercising supreme love to God, and loving our<br />

fellow-men as ourselves (Mat. 22:27). Hence, a true man, a real<br />

man, must be a Christian and a gentleman. Temperance, patience,<br />

kindness, gentleness, unselfishness, are all virtues, and therefore<br />

manly. The gentleman’s code of honor is found in Php. 4:8.<br />

III. The foundation of manhood is strength. Strength of purpose,<br />

will-power, determination, self-control, power to resist popular<br />

customs when wrong, prevalent vices that have become<br />

aristocratic, fashions and habits of evil that have fastened on<br />

people whom you consider above you in age, experience, and<br />

profession; power to be called eccentric, odd, queer, to be sneered<br />

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at. You need a courage that will not dilly-dally with evil, but at the<br />

first solicitation say “no,” that will “dare to do right, dare to be true.”<br />

Hence in this brief charge the very first accents are, “ Be thou<br />

strong.” David knew it required strength.<br />

IV. The source of this strength is in God. Moses, Joshua, Paul,<br />

Luther, Wesley, were men of mighty power, and they all found their<br />

strength in God.<br />

V. The important aim of this charge was the right development<br />

and formation of character. This should be the first aim of every<br />

young man. This is the first aim of the Gospel, now so often<br />

overlooked in this busy, bustling, noisy age. Paul’s first; instruction<br />

to Timothy was, “Take heed unto thyself.” Deceit, falsehood, lust,<br />

etc., are all intruders. Cast them out, show thyself. Let not the<br />

animal reign, but the man. Be a man, and then you will be what<br />

every true man is--a king. (G. H. Smyth.)<br />

How men are made<br />

To be a man requires a trinity of qualities: a strong body, a fullorbed<br />

mind, and a spiritual nature.<br />

1. Young men, it is your duty to cultivate your physical strength<br />

by athletic sports, gymnastics, and other exercises that will help to<br />

fortify the noble temple in which God has housed your mind and<br />

soul. It matters not how valuable the possessions that are stored in<br />

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a house, if the house is insecure or the roof leaky. It is no credit to a<br />

man to be so careless about the house in which the priceless<br />

treasures of mind and spirit are placed that the building becomes<br />

worn out before its time. If you and I are going to do efficient work<br />

in this the busiest age of the world’s history, if we are to hold our<br />

own in the fierce competition of this the greatest of all commercial<br />

periods, we will need sturdy muscles, stout lungs, healthy livers,<br />

and good digestion. A man handicaps himself seriously in the race<br />

of life who pays no regard to the rules of health. On the other hand,<br />

a man with a healthy body has better chances of success, because<br />

health inspires him with hope and ambition. Thomas Carlyle gave<br />

to the world a jaundiced view of many things because he had a<br />

weak stomach. What misery he caused in his own home, and in the<br />

life of that patient martyr-wife of his, has been revealed in the<br />

letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle. <strong>Man</strong>y a man who most sacredly keeps<br />

the Ten Commandments breaks with impunity the laws of health.<br />

2. The development of the body, however, is not all that makes up<br />

man. A prize-fighter has a well-developed body, but his influence<br />

does not count for much outside of the prize-ring. There is a mind<br />

to be cultivated and a soul. The man who devotes himself entirely<br />

to physical development will be apt to forget the needs of the other<br />

two parts of his nature. If all the energy in a man’s nature is<br />

running to brawn, there will be nothing left to run to brain. The<br />

men who have compelled the world’s attention have not been<br />

physical giants hut men of mental and moral muscle. Napoleon,<br />

Wellington, and Grant were not great in body. If the ideal of a<br />

perfect man consisted only in physical qualities, we should be<br />

lower in the scale than certain animals. The ex surpasses a man in<br />

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muscular strength; the antelope in speed; the hound in keenness of<br />

scent; the eagle in eyesight; the rabbit in acuteness of hearing; the<br />

honey-bee in delicacy of taste; the spider in fineness of nervous<br />

energy. So we cannot measure a man by his body, nor by his<br />

material possessions. We have advanced beyond the age in which<br />

the world counted as its greatest heroes Hercules, Ajax, Croesus,<br />

Miltiades. The world to-day is ruled not by muscle, but by mind and<br />

heart. The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring. A<br />

young man’s value to the world and to himself depends largely on<br />

the cultivation of his intellect. Just as in the cultivation of the body<br />

you have to regard suitable food and proper exercise, so in the<br />

development of the mind you have to consider the kind of food.<br />

Every young man ought to mark out for himself a course of<br />

reading in history, biography, poetry, and philosophy. Another<br />

thing: As you would not knowingly take into your system diseased<br />

meat, or decayed fruit or vegetables, in like manner you will not<br />

desire to poison your mind by the reading of impure books. The<br />

quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our character.<br />

Impure thoughts are worms which eat away the tissues of moral<br />

character. The man who falls a victim to temptation is the man<br />

whose character has become worm-eaten. Guard most sacredly the<br />

door of the mind, and keep it closed against the entrance of evil<br />

thoughts. Had General Grant been a man of weak will, he never<br />

could have carried the campaigns of the Civil War through to<br />

success. Yet his memoirs reveal a man with a heart as tender as a<br />

girl’s, hating war and disliking the very sound of a gun, but<br />

possessed of such self-command that to foresee a thing necessary<br />

to be done was to command, even though he had to fight it out on<br />

one line all summer. Opposition, discouragement, difficulties,<br />

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never can keep a man of will power down. The party leaders at<br />

Rome thought they would get rid of the ambitious young Caesar, so<br />

they gave him a commission which necessitated a prolonged<br />

absence from Rome and a difficult expedition into the heart of an<br />

un-civilized and unexplored region of country. They said: “Rome<br />

never again will hear of young Caesar.” But the young man<br />

conquered Gaul, and returning after a campaign of ten years seized<br />

the scepter of imperial power. It is a sad thing to see a man in<br />

whom the will power has gone to decay. Dr. Maudsley, the English<br />

scientist, says the beginning of recovery from mental derangement<br />

is always a revival of the power of the will. When an expert in an<br />

insane asylum finds a patient able to execute some new plan of<br />

conduct, and to hold himself in the pursuit of it for hours at a time,<br />

he is apt to say that that man will soon go out of the asylum.<br />

3. Let me now come to the final quality that goes into the makeup<br />

of symmetrical manhood, and that is the spiritual nature. Physical<br />

strength is good, but it is only the cellar foundation of the house.<br />

No one would be content to live in the cellar, no matter how well<br />

stocked it might be with provisions and other comforts. He would<br />

at least want to have another story to the building, and we have<br />

spoken of the intellectual development. But to stop with that would<br />

be like dwelling in a library, or art gallery, and never having any<br />

higher rooms where we might come into fellowship with the<br />

Creator, and with His Son, our Savior. To change the figure, lev me<br />

say that to neglect the spiritual nature, as some men have done,<br />

equipping the physical and mental natures with everything<br />

needful, is like building a splendid ship and leaving off the rudder.<br />

The spiritual nature in a man is the rudder which controls his<br />

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thoughts and purposes. Sometimes a ship at sea is found flying the<br />

signal, “Not under control.” That is a very terrible signal. The<br />

splendid athlete who can win a boat race, or in the arena knock out<br />

his opponent, may be only a baby in his moral manhood. A man<br />

with muscles strong enough to fell a horse may be weak enough to<br />

yield to some subtle temptation. The secret is spiritual character.<br />

You remember what men said of the noble Greek who governed his<br />

city by unwritten laws--“Phocion’s character is more than the<br />

constitution.” The power of character in Lamartine was such that<br />

during the bloodiest days in Paris he never bolted his doors, and<br />

once when he rose to speak the one who introduced him said:<br />

“Sixty years of a pure life are about to address you.” Emerson says<br />

there was a certain power in Lincoln, Washington, and Burke not to<br />

be explained by their printed words. John Milton said: “A good man<br />

is the ripe fruit our earth holds up to God.” If the Roman youth<br />

were elevated in spirit by standing one day each week in a room<br />

devoted to the statuary of great heroes, and making vows to their<br />

imaginary presence, how much more are we ennobled when we go<br />

into the presence of the infinite and eternal Jehovah, who is able to<br />

impart to us the transforming influence of His Holy Spirit. (D. H.<br />

Martin, D. D.)<br />

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Duty and privilege<br />

This is the parting advice of a king to his son, whose right it was to<br />

grasp the scepter as it fell from the pallid hand of his dying father.<br />

I. Be thou strong.<br />

1. Not boastful severest conflict, when many are fainting.<br />

2. How is this strength obtained? From God alone, through our<br />

Lord Jesus Christ. How from Him? Repent of all sins. Resolve to<br />

break from all sins, and live a devoted Christian life. Cultivate<br />

personal trust in Christ as your Savior, and believe that God for His<br />

sake pardons and saves you.<br />

II. <strong>Show</strong> thyself a man. Lot it not be a mere inference, but a<br />

palpable fact; a demonstration. “<strong>Show</strong> thyself.” Men put a value<br />

upon us according to how we show ourselves. Don’t leave it to<br />

others to show that you are a man; do it yourself. Not an angel, but<br />

a man. There is no instrument God can use in so many ways and<br />

places, and with such wonderful success, as a devoted Christian<br />

who can show himself a man--a man who has the tear of sympathy<br />

for the sorrowing, a word of comfort for the bereaved, and a word<br />

of hope for the downcast and desponding. (Homilist.)<br />

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A son charged to be brave<br />

The sword presented by the Emperor William to his little son, the<br />

Crown Prince, on his tenth birthday, contains an inscription on its<br />

blade, of which the following is a translation: “Trust in God. Be<br />

brave in combat to preserve honor and glory. He who fights<br />

bravely, relying on the help of God, is never overcome. All your<br />

powers of body and mind belong to your country. To my dear son<br />

William, May 6, 1892.<br />

Wilhelm R.”<br />

In what manliness consists<br />

True manliness is to stick to your principles if they be good and<br />

right. When Garfield was a lad at Williams College, he climbed up<br />

Mount Greylock one day with many of his companions, and spent<br />

the night on the mountain top. Seated around a camp fire they sang<br />

college songs and told stories all the evening. At length Garfield<br />

took a Testament out of his pocket, and said: “Boys, it is my custom<br />

to read a chapter before going to bed and have a prayer. Shall we<br />

have it together?” And they all did. We admire the boy for his<br />

courage.<br />

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Learning to be brave<br />

Mr. Mortimer Mempes, in his World’s Children, gives some<br />

remarkable specimens of the Spartan training in courage that the<br />

boys of Japan must all undergo. All kinds of games are played to<br />

test the character in this particular of the children. They are told<br />

thrilling stories of dragons and giants, and, when worked up to<br />

terror, each boy has to go into a darkened room and bring out a<br />

strand of wick which is burning in a dish of oil; and this, too, with a<br />

smiling face, absolutely unruffled. Another favorite game is to<br />

gather in a lonely graveyard, under a tree, and plant flags in a<br />

haunted spot. Then each boy is made to walk up the avenue alone,<br />

pull out a flag slowly, with dignity, and without a nervous tremor.<br />

So, having borne the yoke in his youth, his courage is believed to be<br />

equal to all demands upon it in later life.<br />

Play the man for God<br />

On one occasion when Whitfield was surrounded by a mob, and<br />

began to show symptoms of alarm as the stones flew in all<br />

directions, his wife, standing by his side, cried out, “Now, George,<br />

play the man for God.” We are to play the man in the battle of life<br />

because God made us to be manly and not unmanly; because the<br />

Son of <strong>Man</strong> came upon earth to show us how to suffer and be<br />

strong; because if we fear God we shall have no other fear. (Quiver.)<br />

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