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