The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American CharacterSpeer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Philosophy
The Stuff of Manhood: Some Needed Notes in American Character
Speer, Robert E. (Robert Elliott)
Character; Christian life; Conduct of life; Moral education
“When the roll is called up yonder,
I’ll be there.”
They were sent right up and almost at once into that fateful battle.
General Wauchope knew somebody had blundered, and he said to the men:
“Men, do not blame me for this.” And without any fear they went into
the ending from which no soldier such as they would draw back, unafraid
of anything that might come to them because unashamed to own their
Lord and unfearing to follow Him.
Of such as those are we to be? Or will temptation intimidate us, and
the tone of the conversation of the men and women with whom we mingle
pull us down and cause us to fold our colours up and lay them away, as
the man did whom the sneer of a serving maid caused to deny the Lord
Who was dying for him?
Where are we to find that which will drive out this fear? “Perfect love
casteth out fear.... He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”
From how many of our hearts to-day will the perfect love of Him Whom
we call Master and Lord expel all fear? Let it be so now. Not years
afterwards, when other things shall have palled upon us, years that
shall have brought their dulling influence with them, but now, in all
the full strength and richness and glory and eagerness of our lives,
let us admit the perfect love that shall cast out fear and send us out
the kind of men and women Christ would have us be, to join the great
company of men and women and girls and boys who, unfearing,
“... climbed the steep ascent of Heaven,
Through peril, toil and pain.
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train!”
Christian character needs this conquest of fear and it needs the love
which is one of the deep springs of such conquest. It needs also in
our day an immensely more practical use of the principle of hope, a
principle almost totally neglected in theology and made nothing of in
our codes of conduct or in our creeds. Paul had a far deeper insight
into the human heart and a vastly richer grasp on life. “Now abideth
faith, hope, love, these three,” said he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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