*The above address which was delivered at the opening of the New Drill Hall, Bonar Bridge, in April 1880, appeared in the Free Presbyterian Magazine for October 1904, and is here reprinted in the hope that it may prove useful to the men serving in His Majesty’s Forces and to others.—J. C.
THE first application to me for an address, at the opening of this hall, your Captain “described as a charge on the right.” This he followed up by “a charge on the left,” threatening “a charge in front of the whole line,” if I still refused to surrender. Lacking courage to meet this formidable attack, I at once sent on the white flag. I have now followed it, and I am here to attempt what I was asked to do. I hope you will accept my assurance that my compliance was not altogether due to cowardice: for I have less desire than courage to engage in a conflict with our gallant Volunteers.
Of the Volunteer movement I think with pleasure. I feel grateful to him in whose hands are all hearts, that He stirred, into the activity of such a movement, the patriotic feeling of the young men of our country. When there seemed to be a menace from the Continent, bearing on these islands of ours, it would have been a reproach to the stalwart sons of Britain if they had not risen as one man to equip themselves for the defence of their native land. Our land is sea-girt. The great Creator, who gave us our place in the great waste of waters, has given us walls of waves as our defence. But it is well to have our line of living men on the shore of which beat the formidable billows of the great Atlantic, and the blustering waves of the restless German Ocean. He who made the waters of two Oceans a bulwark around us, is He who moved companies of young men to organise themselves as an army of Volunteers for the defence of the land we live in. In saying so, I do not aver that all who offered themselves for this service were intelligently and consciously swayed by a regard to the will of the Supreme. But His great hand moved them, and the cause is great on the side of which they have rallied. For our Queen and our country are well worth fighting for; and it is only the blood of craven hearts that would be grudged for the defence of both.
Our beloved Sovereign was very young when the responsibilities of her high position were laid upon her shoulders. It was well for her, and it was well for us, that she soon found in Prince Albert one on whom, as a wife, she could safely lean, and one by whom, as a Queen, she was wisely counselled; while having the innate dignity that disposed her to maintain the rights of her position, and fitted her for acting so as to command the respect of all her subjects. Her part as wife she acted with meekness, and her part as Queen with dignity. As a wife, most wisely; as a mother, most motherly; and as a Queen, most queenly did she prove herself to be. And when the great calamity of her life came on her, as a true widow she bowed low beneath the weight of her great affliction, but was unselfish enough to raise her head again as Queen, that the dark shadow of domestic trouble might not hide her crown from the eyes of her loyal subjects, who, because of the desolation of her widowhood, were all the more disposed to accord to her their homage. It had indeed been a struggle to merge the widow in the Queen. We would have loved her less if the struggle had been less severe. But the Queen is Queen again, though neither she nor we can forget the good Prince Albert.
And we have a country deserving of being defended as no other country on the face of all the earth. There are wider realms than Britain under the sway of other potentates. There are other climes on which the sun shines more brightly. There are many lands of richer soil and of more genial climate. Our islands, in their place in the world’s map, seem as if they were outcasts from the Continents with all their great advantages. We seem as if we were disowned by the great nations of the world while quite dependent on their vast resources. Out in the great sea how desolate and small seem these isles of ours. And yet our Sovereign’s sceptre extends over a wider range of territory than that of any ruler on the earth. These islands are but the home-farm of our great estate. In all Continents of the globe we have Colonial possessions, one of these so extensive that one prairie or one lake in it is larger than all Scotland. Out of the myriads in our great Empire in the East, a population equal to that of all Great Britain would scarce be missed. Islands, too, are under our Crown, beside which, if we could moor our Britain, great as we call it, off their shores, this land of ours would be dwarfed into comparative littleness. Whence came to us these vast possessions? Who gave us all this power? Why has Britain become great? It cannot be that her greatness is underived. We must owe it to Him who ruleth over all nations, and who as the Omnipotent can, as He pleaseth, dispose of all parts of the earth, and distribute power to the nations which people it. True, we have made conquests by successful wars, but it was the God of battles who gave us the victory. True we had our navy manned by sailors of daring courage, led by men of skill and enterprise. True, also, we had our army with its ranks filled by men of muscle and of bravery, and under the command of Generals some of whom have never been surpassed. But who gave us these men? Who over-ruled the events which evolved the crisis that secured the triumph of our arms? To the MOST HIGH we owe all additions to our territory, and all accessions to our power. A glance at the map of the world should suffice to make this evident. Strength working in weakness alone achieved such a result as Britain’s greatness.
But there is something vastly better than the extent of our possessions and the greatness of our power—Great Britain is a free country. As there is none greater, there is none freer on the face of all the earth. Our Constitution, with its security against anarchy on the one hand and against despotism on the other, with its recognition of the divine supremacy, and its countenance of the great Christian institution with its distinctive Protestantism, is such that, in its defence it were an honour to the best of Britain’s sons to shed their blood. The Volunteers did well to rally around the banner of British freedom. Our hereditary monarchy and our hereditary peerage, with our representative House of Commons, give us a peculiar government—a guarantee for order and for freedom which cannot be found in any other nation in the world. To change in the direction of greater freedom I do not demur, if the security for order be preserved. I am not disposed to complain of the right of election being more widely extended, if only the power to use it wisely is advancing pari passu. But I do protest against what has been done in the way of making our Constitution less distinctly Protestant than it was before. To admit to our legislature men who are the sworn subjects of an alien and hostile power, as well as members of an alien and hostile church, was the fruit of sham zeal for liberty. Liberty did not surely call for power being put into the hands of those who never rule but to enslave, and who in this land of ours clamour for liberty only that they may acquire a power that shall prove itself intolerant of all freedom, except the liberty to oppress the conscience and shed the blood of all who differ and protest. Shattered be the power that would move our nation to sever the link that binds the Crown of Great Britain to the cause of truth and righteousness, and to the Church for whose sake even He reigneth who is King of kings and Lord of lords.
There are nations which claim to have greater liberty than we enjoy, simply because they are Republican. But it is in boasting, not in liberty that they excel us. There is despotism in a democracy as surely as in an irresponsible monarchy. It sometimes exposes one to as much risk to differ from the majority in a republic as to refuse to submit to the edict of an imperial despot. With us there is freedom from the pressure of the crowd, as well as from the oppression of the few. The rich man is amenable to the law as surely as the poor. It is not so in some other countries which boast of liberty and equality. Rulers and judges have there their price, and their favour can be bought by money. It is not so here. There is yet too much of an opportunity to oppress the poor allowed to the rich, within the fence of law, even in this land of ours. But the time has passed for the use of all the power allowed by law being quietly borne. It were good policy on the part of those who have the power to refrain from the offensive use of it. By going as far as the present state of the law allows them in the assertion of their rights, and in making felt their power over their dependents, they but provoke a rising which, in a great wave of popular indignation, shall sweep away alike their position, their power, and their possessions.
There are countries, too, where a blaze of pageantry invests the ruler’s position with a halo so dazzling as scarcely to allow the pomp of our Sovereign’s position to appear beside it. But this is but the glare of a despot’s flaming power. It is but the means of producing an unintelligent awe, which shall cause the fawning sycophants of the Court, and the servile poor, to yield themselves to an inconsiderate oppressor’s will. Our Queen has found the happy medium between occupying a position too far removed from the subject’s level, and the lack of dignity which would expose her to the contempt of those who are bound to honour her; and our laws so define her position as to secure to her sufficient honour, while wisely limiting her personal power.
Our religious liberty is a richer boon than even our social and political freedom. We have it because our ancestors loved it to the death. They loved it because they would fain worship God according to His Word, and be free to proclaim and to do His will. It is ours now because, at the cost of their blood, they won an acknowledgment of the right to enjoy it. But there is scheming to deprive us of this precious boon. Rome is mapping out, on the old lines, our country into dioceses again, to be presided over by men who are to act as the executive of a foreign power in applying the working of the Canon laws. The crafty and ambitious scheming of this power may ere long produce a crisis in this land of ours. Those who are its agents in the midst of us are but waiting for the time when they shall have nurtured into such strength the influence of Popery in this country, that foreign aid, added to that of the mutineers within, shall suffice to secure our subjection again to the full power of Antichrist. If this crisis should arrive, there will be needed an army of Protestant Volunteers to fight for liberty, resolved, like the Covenanters of earlier times, not to allow the soil of their beloved Scotland to be trodden by the foot of the oppressor, till they first had dyed it with their blood.
And the beauty of its scenery combines with all our social, political, and religious advantages to attach the hearts of all of us to our native land. We lack the vastness of other regions in this area of ours. We have no one great outstanding object, like an Alpine summit or a Niagara, to draw from all lands eager sight-seers to our shores. But we have in our Bonnie Scotland, the impressive sternness of our many hills and the quiet beauty of our many glens, forming a combination, with lake and river interspersed, which prints itself deep into the hearts of its sensitive sons, while yielding a restfulness of feeling that makes their country the home of their choice. “Tir nam beann’s nan gleann” (land of mountains and glens), should be “tir nan gaisgeach” (land of heroes), ready to fight for their native land against all invaders, as well as resolute to banish all wrongs from its borders.
And it is the land of the quietest, happiest homes on earth. If we have not always plenty, we have long had peace. If we lack the fertility of other soils, and the genial warmth of other climates, we have a stimulus to exertion which keeps us from the indolence of those who dwell amidst the plenty of summer climes. British homes, should have a rampart of British Volunteers around them. We in this land know the blessing of quiet home life, and should be ready at all hazards to defend it. And when the love of home combines with the love of country to inflame, a soldier’s zeal, there can be no daring to which his spirit will not rise—no feat of arms from which he will withhold his hands.
Yes, Britain is worth defending, and I am rejoiced that her sons are risen in the great Volunteer movement to tell to all the nations that they are ready to defend their native land. I am not to express approval of all that may have accompanied the Volunteer movement. I approve of it only in so far as it tells that the fire of patriotic zeal is still alive, and that Britain’s sons are free-men sworn to defend their country. But neither am I disposed to ridicule the Volunteer army as if all its soldiering were in its uniform. I am not at all in sympathy with those who institute an unfavourable comparison between it and the standing army because the latter does all the fighting. I am rather disposed to be thankful that there is no fighting work for Volunteers to do. Long may it be so. It will help to prolong the season of exemption if they appear meanwhile to be prepared. We need not be bullied into submission by threats of invasion when we have such an army of defence; and the presence and equipment of such a force will help to preserve us even from bullying. The very choicest of our young men of all ranks have joined the army of Volunteers. A finer body of men is not in arms in any country. Long may it be ere they know what it is to be under fire, instead of being behind it; and ere they have to show the marks of bullets on their bodies instead of counting them on their targets! Long may it be ere they themselves are targets for the bullets of a foe!
But if you have asked me to speak at the opening of this hall, it is, of course, in my capacity as a soldier you have asked me to do so. For a soldier I am—at least, I profess to be so. If I am true, according to my profession, a soldier I am, and if I have any accredited place in the army to which I belong, it is that of a recruiting sergeant. And you will allow me, I know, to act according to my commission; for in the army to which I belong a sergeant is not a non-commissioned officer. He has a commission, and stands only under the Commander-in-Chief—”the Captain of Salvation.”
As the recruiting officer, I have the King’s shilling to offer to all without exception, and all who will take it will be at once enlisted. And to accept it will not interfere with any lawful work or soldiering to which anyone is already bound. Those who fight for my King may fight for your Queen and country. All the better British soldiers would they make who were Christian soldiers first. Mine is no rebellious move. I am no promoter of mutiny or desertion. I am not decoying men from the army of their lawful earthly Sovereign, but I am bent on promoting desertion from all unlawful service.
As you have asked me to speak to you, you will allow me to act according to my commission. I know you would not care for a soldier who would be ashamed of his colours; and, as I am a recruiting sergeant, you will allow me to try to persuade you to take my King’s money that you may be added to the ranks of the army with which I am connected. You will allow me to tell you of the King under whom, and of the cause on the side of which, I ask you to enlist, of the way of accepting “the bounty,” and of the service in which all who enlist must take part.
THE KING
is “chiefest among ten thousands.” There never was, and there never will be, His peer. Like Him in rank no King besides could be, for He is infinitely high. Like Him in beauty none, for in His person all Divine glory is combined with all possible human lovliness. Like Him in wealth none, for He is “Heir of all things.” While possessed of all Divine resources, He has wealth of glory wherewith to ravish, wealth of merit wherewith to ransom, and wealth of grace wherewith to save all who touch His sceptre. Like Him in power there can be none, for to Him all things are possible. At His fiat countless world’s sprang into being. He is “upholding all things by the word of His power.” By the power of His word the hosts of hell were driven from His presence, and the bands of death were broken. And the climax of His wonder-working on the earth shall be reached when He brings all the dead to life, and all the risen to judgment, and gives the earth, with all its elements and form and mass, over to consuming fire. And in love there is none like Him. Infinite was the proof He gave of how He loveth, when He died upon the tree, bearing the shame and agony involved in the endurance of the curse, and infinite will be the boon His love will yield to all who join His banner. He gave His life for all His soldiers, that they all might live, and their life He binds up with His own, that they may never die. And in righteousness none is like Him. He died the death of the cross that in His blood justice might have its due; and the infinite power of His life shall be put forth in securing all His people’s rights, and in defeating all injustice. And in faithfulness none is like Him, for it is impossible for Him to lie. Each word that cometh from His mouth is more steadfast than the everlasting hills. And in the glory of His royal state none can be compared to Him. His glory is not something from without that dignifies the position which He holds, as it is with the pomp of earthly kings. But His glory is from Himself. He glorifies His place and throne by the revelation of Himself. His honour is underived. It is the light of His own eternal glory, or it is the product of His own creating power. O this is a King in whom to glory. All Zion’s children, standing armed in Zion’s gates, may well be joyful in their King.
THE CAUSE
is that of truth, and righteousness, and salvation. It is a foul shame to take the side of falsehood. To contend against the truth is the most degrading of all humiliations. For this is to be in the ranks of an army which has “the father of lies” at its head, an army of slaves and cowards. All in it are traitors to the cause for which they ought to contend. And false hearts are always craven hearts. They lack the principle of true courage, which is truth, and they lack the strength which is found in leaning on the God of truth. The maniac courage of the man who is bold to sin is not true bravery. The bravest man in the world is the man who is most afraid to sin. It is “the righteous” who is “bold as a lion.” “The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.” To “contend for the faith once delivered to the saints” is the conflict to which the “good soldier of Jesus Christ” is called. And He is called to contend for right as well as for truth—for what the law claims as well as for what the gospel offers—for virtue as well as for faith—for a righteous practice as well as for a scriptural creed—for liberty to serve the Lord as well as for liberty to hold and avow His truth. To espouse such a cause is to stand on the side of the Lord of Hosts, and all devoted to that cause have Him on their side. All who fight under His banner are sheltered under the covert of His wings. The cause of truth and righteousness is the cause of grace and safety. None is safe but among the soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They side with grace who contend for truth, and grace sides with them. It was grace that won them to the side of truth and righteousness, and it is well their part to be zealous for its honour. It secured their life at the outset, and ere they were called to fight. Their life is hid beyond the reach of shaft, or spear, or arrow, even in the very thickest of the fight. What seems the post of danger to the Christian soldier is the surest post of safety. The cowards are men for whom to tremble. Those who try to save are those who endanger their life. Truth met with mercy, and righteousness and peace embraced in the death of “the Captain of Salvation,” who “was made perfect through suffering,” and they meet and embrace in the issues of every conflict in which His soldiers shall take part till time shall be no more.
RECRUITS
for such a service I fain would have. My King’s own money, in the King’s own name, I would implore you to accept. It is placed before you in the offer of Christ in the gospel. Christ Himself, in the offer of the gospel—that is the King’s money. It is the King Himself, with all His wealth of grace, and merit, and glory. How different this from the shilling usually given in enlisting recruits for the British army. Only one paltry coin is given—sometimes a little bounty is added—but not unfrequently both the shilling and the bounty are soon spent in the dram-shop. But here are unsearchable riches, and you are called at once to accept them. To be enlisted thus is to be enriched for ever. All things are yours if ye are willing to be Christ’s—yours at the very moment in which you close with the terms proposed in the gospel—in the moment in which you are willing to be debtors for all things to Jesus as a Saviour, and to be His servants as the Lord of all. You get King’s money then to the whole extent of the King’s treasury; enough to carry you to the end of all your conflicts—enough to last you for evermore. But you get it not in hand. You get in hand only what you presently enjoy of peace. But you are entitled to all that is in the King’s, and you will have him graciously and wisely to dispense it as help in every time of need. O surely these are good terms—so good that it must be both madness and iniquity to refuse them.
The King for whom I profess to act is not like earthly sovereigns. They care not to have their armies made up but of able-bodied and healthy men. Sergeants recruiting for the British army are not asked to enlist any but such as the examining surgeon will find to be free of disease. No hunchback will be taken, and no dwarf; none who is blind, or deaf, or dumb; no cripple can pass into the British army; none below and none above a certain age, and none but males. But the Captain of Salvation imposes no such restrictions on His recruiting sergeants. His orders to them are—“Bring in hither the poor, and the halt, and the maimed, and the blind.” What a strange army such as these would make! But it is such an army that befits a Saviour King to gather. Such an army is fitly led by one who is “Prince and Saviour.” True they seem fit only for being in hospital, and yet though they really need to be cured, they are ready also to take the field. In other armies they who go to hospital cannot at the same time be in the ranks. But it is otherwise in the Christian army. They can have hospital treatment even on the field of battle, and while engaged in actual conflict with the enemy. The King calls them to be patients, that He may make them soldiers; and they may keep their place in the wards of His Bethesda, even when they fight beneath His banner. What is impossible elsewhere is the rule here. And how becoming this arrangement is! I often used to feel, in earlier years, that too little credit was given to the rank and file of an army for the achievement of a victory. The Commander-in-Chief seemed to have all the praise accorded to him. But the more I have read and thought of the matter, the more persuaded I am that the commander’s influence on the fate of the day has not been so much over-rated as I at one time thought it was. But, in the achievements of His army, the Captain of Salvation is “all in all.” It is by His own strength, made perfect in the weakness of His ailing followers, that fighting work is done by any of them. From Him they derive all their courage and all their strength. The power that achieves the victory is only and wholly His. He does all, while having only infirmity to work with. Let no amount of disease and weakness, then, be made a reason for refusing to enlist under the banner of King Jesus. The King is the Captain of Salvation. Come to Him to be cured, come to Him to serve. Leaning on Him in conscious impotence, and following the guiding light of truth, go forth to meet all that may await you, hoping for a victory, of which the King shall have all the glory, and you the eternal gain.
The EQUIPMENT
is ready for recruits. The royal arsenal holds enough for the equipment of all possible recruits. We hear sometimes of the supply of the best rifles from our national armoury being inadequate. But it cannot be so here. The Power that wins one to be a soldier equips the recruit in the very act of enlisting him. He comes armed into being as a soldier. It is in his case alone that the fabled birth in armour can be realised. But he requires skill to use the armour. Recruits need DRILLING. And that of the Christian recruits is not like that to which you, Volunteers, are subjected. You, in the course of your drill, have no foe before you. You have to imagine an enemy in front of you. You beat only the air with your bayonets, and you strike only dead targets with your bullets, and your fire is not returned. But it is not so with the gospel volunteers. True, their first experience is not on high places—not on the open field. But it is that of real conflict with a very real foe. It is not in mimic warfare they acquire their skill; it is not in “sham fights” they learn the art of war. It is, though their closets are the scene, in deadly struggles with an enemy who is both strong and subtle. In their hearts and homes, in the course of their drilling, they meet with every enemy, with whom they will have to contend, till the days of conflict are ended. In new forms the opposition may present itself, but the enemies are ever the same. The errors against which they may be called to bear a public testimony they encountered in their own secret thoughts; and the onsets of an opposing world are but in another form the mutinous uprisings of their own deceitful hearts, which, in the seclusion of the closet, they were enabled, by the help of grace, to resist and quell. All that they shall have to bear, in experience of deceit and violence, through the opposition of the world, is only what they bore before, when nothing intervened between their consciousness and “spiritual wickedness in high places.”
ACTIVE SERVICE
there must be to all the soldiers in the Christian army. They all must face the foe. And they must not shrink from doing so. They are weak, they are sick, they are unskilful, but they must fight. And such an enemy too! The power of a mighty traitor within the camp, the forces of the world around, and the hosts of darkness. These are their foes, and if they do not slay them, they must be slain by them.
But very various are the experiences of soldiers during a campaign. In the Peninsular War some men went through all the series of its battles and survived to fight at Waterloo. Others were under fire for the first and last time on that bloody field. Some join the army only in the moment of victory. But all Christian soldiers are called to a lifelong conflict. And why should they shrink from the battle? Sometimes cowards sham illness in prospect of an engagement, and some desert, and others hide themselves till the danger is past. Well, I cannot greatly wonder though they should, if their commander is unskilful, if their cause is bad, and if their death is certain. But if He who has the command-in-chief is infallible, if the cause is of all the best, and if the soldier’s life is perfectly safe what excuse for cowardice remains? For craven-hearted cowards there is no place in the Christian army, and for shrinking no excuse.
To be decided for the Lord is the way to be bold in the fight. Let his Captain be in his heart, and there will be no tremor in the soldier’s arm. Let there be no shrinking from the conflict, for the Christian’s life is safe, and his VICTORY is certain. Ere he goes down to the battle his life is taken into Divine keeping. He does not bring his life into the fray. And when the campaign is over he will bring no scars to his home. He will be even “more than a conqueror.” His is not mere victory. The conqueror himself is often a contrast to his triumph. He shows wounds and weakness beneath the laurel wherewith his brow is crowned. But those who overcome through the Lamb, while wearing their crowns of glory, enjoy the health of perfect holiness. They parted with all their ailments in the moment of victory; and everlasting gladness is in their hearts, as well as everlasting joy on their heads, as they pass into the rest and bliss and glory of their Father’s house.
News may come that Truth is sick, but never that it is dead.—
William Gurnall.
One live coal may set a whole stack on fire.—John Trapp.