“Cheerly, Adam,” wrote Hew Murray, “we are becoming men; and if there are harder processes involved in that than in the old disciplines we used to share together, we must nevertheless bear the heavier means for the sake of the greater end. Manlike and masterful as our fathers were, when the old steel breast-plates at Murrayshaugh and Mossgray covered brave hearts beating high to the natural warfare which they carried over the Border. They too must have had foes, less tangible than the rough barons and yeomen of Cumberland, those fighting men of other generations; and I begin to think, Adam, that the natural element of us all is war--active contention, strife of one kind or another--and that we depart from our most healthful state when we lay down our weapons, and endeavour to halt in the inevitable contest. No longer for imprisoned princesses--though there is right good meaning and simple wisdom in these stories of our youth--nor yet any longer for _los_ and fame, but because there is true life and health in the warfare, and because-- “Adam, we have had much and intimate intercourse, but scarcely ever have we spoken together of Him who is the centre of this world’s history, the wonderful Presence that pervades all the changes of its many ages past and to come. But, Adam, because He bids, because He leads, because He himself for the strife and for the victory’s sake was clothed as one of us. It is a wonderful history, that, of this long struggle ascending up to the very source of time, of the good and the evil, the righteousness of heaven, and the sin of earth; and now to mark the individual ways by which we solitary units, thus far down in the stream of the world’s existence, are wakened by so many different obstacles, each in his own separate course, to carry on the warfare. To turn from our idolatry of the false beautiful here, to lawful worship of the true sublime yonder; to take up arms for the Lord’s sake and do valiant service against His enemy and ours, that ancient Titan, Sin. The true work of a man, the great war worthy this humanity, which He shares who saved it. “I think it is a gracious and blessed thing, Adam, that this natural propensity to strife within us should have so noble an outgate. Do you ever think how we used to dream long ago of delivering Scotland? and there are foes greater than the old Edward scheming against her purity and freedom now. Ah, Adam! you are happy, you are at home, and can do your devoir for our own land and people, while I, a stranger and a sojourner here, can only strive to maintain the ancient honour of our name, and commend our faith to minds which know not how to receive the one religion--the one Lord. I think I am not the kind of stuff which the mission-man should be made of, for continually I yearn for home.