Let a man face life in this confidence and he is invincible. He goes forth and an unseen army goes with him. He gains the seer's vision to see even the plotting of the enemy and the forces that fight against him all working for his good. From many combats he gains strength for the decisive struggle. All things work together for good. He serves the right, the truth, the things that are eternal; he fights for character, for manhood, and the good; and the eternal forces that rule the universe fight by his side. He beholds the hills full of the hosts of heaven; though he has no time to enjoy the vision he knows they are there, his allies, his assurance of ultimate victory. THE UNSEEN HAND The mightiest and the eternal forces fight ever on the side of the right. True, things do not always look that way. Sometimes Napoleon's sneer about God being on the side of the largest battalions seems to have truth in it. But ere long we see the large battalions swept away before the strange, unaccountable, and irresistible power of an insignificant body having truth and God on its side. The man who takes up the struggle for truth, who puts his hand to the sword for the oppressed, for the right, finds himself holding a two-handled weapon, and if he grasps firmly the one hilt it is as though there were an omnipotent hand grasping the other. He who fights worthily, in fitting battle, never fights alone. It is not that some omnipotent person steps down from a throne in the heavens and plunges into the battle; it is that every time a man steps out for right and truth he places himself in accord with eternal spiritual forces that give themselves to him and his work. It is not that God comes to fight for a man so much as that a man finds himself fighting beside God; entering this battle, he sees that where he thought none had been serving heaven had long been waging the contest. It is so easy, like old Elijah, to think that you alone are left to witness for truth, to feel the loneliness of standing for things noble and worthy, to become oppressed with the hopelessness of the minority in which you find yourself. When real and concrete things press upon us and their uproar is in our ears we become deaf and blind to the greater forces that from the beginning of time have been working for the best. Every great reform has looked like a losing movement; it has begun with most insignificant minorities; it has met with violent and well-organized opposition; its supporters have often been faint-hearted, and yet ultimately it has overcome always. As men have fought on they have found an unseen hand grasping the sword beside theirs. We all need this sense of God with us, helping us in our lives. This gives courage and confidence. It does not mean weak reliance upon heaven to do things for us; it means entering on the things that look impossible because we know that, if they are right, every great force in the universe will cooeperate with us.