The Warriors | Page 4

of courage, energy, and love. Nothing is too hard for it, nothing too distasteful, nothing too insignificant. Through all the course of duty it spurs one to do one's best. Its essence is to overcome. This is the indwelling Holy Spirit, wherein is freedom, power, and rest. To its final triumph all things are accessory. To joy, all powers converge.

II. PRELUDE: THE CALL OF JESUS
[VOX DILECTI]
_I heard the voice of Jesus say Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, thou weary one, lay down Thy head upon My breast. I came to Jesus as I was, Weary and worn and sad; I found in Him a resting-place, And He has made me glad._
_I heard the voice of Jesus say Behold I freely give The living water; thirsty one, Stoop down and drink, and live. I came to Jesus, and I drank Of that life-giving stream; My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, And now I live in Him._
_I heard the voice of Jesus say I am this dark world's light; Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, And all thy day be bright. I looked to Jesus, and I found In Him my star, my sun; And in that light of life I'll walk, Till travelling days are done._
HORATIUS BONAR
It is a world of voices in which we live. We are daily visited by appeals which are ministering to our growth and progress, or which are tending to our spiritual downfall. There are the voices of nature, in sky, and sea, and storm; the voices of childhood and of early youth; the voices of playfellows and companions,--voices long stilled, it may be, in death; the voices of lover and beloved; the voices of ambition, of sorrow, of aspiration, and of joy.
But among all these many voices, there is one which is most inspiring and supreme. When the Vorspiel to Parsifal breaks upon the ear it is as if all other music were inadequate and incomplete--as if a voice called from the confines of eternity, in the infinite spaces where no time is, and rolled onward to the far-off ages when time shall be no more. Even so, high and clear above the voices of the world, deeper and tenderer than any other word or tone, comes the voice of Jesus to the soul of man.
Look, if you will, upon the World of Souls, many-tiered and vast, stretching from day's end to day's end,--a world of hunger and of anger, of toiling and of striving, of clamor and of triumph,--a dim, upheaving mass, which from century to century wakes, and breathes, and sleeps again! Years roll on, tides flow, but there is no cessation of the march of years, and no whisper of a natural change. Is it not a strange thing that one voice, and only one, should have really won the hearing of the race? What is this voice of Jesus, so enduring, matchless, and supreme? What does it promise, for the help or hope of man?
There are some who say that Jesus has held the attention and allegiance of the race by an appeal to the religious instinct; that all men naturally seek God, and long to know Him. But if we try to define the religious instinct, we shall find it a hard task. What might be called a religious instinct leads to human sacrifice upon the Aztec altar; directs the Hindu to cast the new-born child in the stream, the friend to sacrifice his best friend to a pagan deity.
There are others who say that Christ appeals to the gentler instincts of man,--to his unselfishness, his meekness and compassion. Yet some of the most admirable Christians have been ambitious and aggressive. Others say, He appeals to our need of help. But self-reliance is a Christian trait. Others say, He appeals to our sense of sin--our need of pardon. But many a Christian goes through life like a happy child, scarcely conscious at any time of deep guilt, and never overwhelmed by intense conviction or despair.
The truth seems to be that Christ appeals to our whole selves. He calls us by an attraction which is unique. In the universe there exists a force which we must recognize--though we do not yet in the least understand it--which is gradually drawing the race Christward. The law of spiritual gravitation is, that by all the changing impulses of our nature we are drawn upward unto Him. Spohr's lovely anthem voices this cry of the soul:
"_As pants the hart for cooling streams, When heated in the chase, So longs my soul, O God, for Thee, And Thy refreshing grace.
"For Thee, my God, the living God, My thirsty soul doth pine; Oh! when shall I behold Thy face, Thou Majesty divine_?"
1. Jesus calls us by the mystery of life. There are hours