We confess its superiority in the character of its achievements. With arms men conquer inferiors or equals: through wisdom they overcome beings vastly greater than themselves--greater in number, in nature, in knowledge, in cunning, in courage, in energy, in endurance, in all the facilities and resources of warfare, except such as are furnished by the grace of God. With arms we vanquish human enemies: through wisdom, superhuman. With arms we vanquish external enemies: through wisdom, internal. With arms we vanquish visible enemies: through wisdom, invisible. With arms we vanquish mortal enemies: through wisdom, immortal. With arms we vanquish earthly enemies: through wisdom, heavenly principalities and powers dethroned and doomed. With arms we subdue provinces and subvert empires: through wisdom, overcome self, and bring our own rebellious nature under the government of God; and he who accomplishes this, saith Solomon, "is better than the mighty--than he that taketh a city." Alexander is said to have conquered the world. Vain boast! The world was not half conquered. But "he that is born of God," St. John tells us, "overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Faith is the theological synonyme of wisdom. Faith is the foundation of all true religion. Faith, wisdom, is real heroism. And it was through this the holy men of old achieved their splendid triumphs and won their immortal honors. And it is through this that the Christian still overcomes the world; overcomes its spirit; its false philosophy; its evil customs and fashions; its cunning strategy, and its open violence; the shallow sophistry of its unbelief, and the affected valor of its impiety; the fascination of its soft seductions and all the fury of its fierce revenge. Faith, with Hope and Charity for its allies, sprinkled with "the blood of the Lamb," and bold in "the word of its testimony," with the eagle's eye and the lion's courage, goes forth to the holy conflict; and all the missiles of malice, ridicule and infidelity--as cannon-balls by cotton-bales--are effectually repelled by the meekness and gentleness of its spirit; and the enemy at length succumbs to the virtue that he finds invincible. This is real victory! This is the sublime triumph of wisdom!