So likewise is it through the writings of all the Apostles. St. James assumes the universal fact, and points out the way of temptation as the way of joy;[10] St. Peter shows how temptation {48} leads on to "praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ";[11] and the Epistles of the Beloved Disciple, tender and full of all gentleness as they are, ring with the suggestion of the Satanic antagonism, the warfare and the victory. What a trumpet call there is to the elect lady and her children: "Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought."[12] It is like an echo of the revelation on Patmos, the message to the faithful Philadelphians, "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."[13] II. _Enduring Hardship_ It is a part of the temptation itself that, as we contemplate the fact of its universality, the question should arise in the soul, weary with the battle, sore with long buffeting, "Is there no rest, no cessation from the strain and stress of the warfare?" The question comes from Satan. Assuming the role of a comforter, he whispers to us of the hardness of the ceaseless struggle. It is a temptation to induce us to forget our character as the followers of our Lord. When we were baptized we were signed with the Sign of the Cross in {49} token that we should "manfully fight under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto our life's end."[14] In short, at our Baptism we were enlisted and sealed as soldiers, and a soldier who never fights has no reason for existing. A soldier who turns himself back in the day of battle is not only unworthy of his name and character, but is by this act reversing the whole principle of his life and vocation. We are members of the Church Militant,--the fighting Church. The Son of God has gone forth to war, the trumpet-call to His soldiers has sounded. It were shame upon the soldier of an earthly army should he, at such a time, linger and repine because of the battle, and surely those who contend for no earthly laurel, but for the "crown of glory that fadeth not away,"[15] cannot afford to do less. Let us never forget that we are members of an army, that it is a time of war; our Captain has gone forth with His host; "The ark and Israel, and Judah, abide in tents; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields; shall I then go into mine house to eat and to drink?"[16]