And the third note in the great apostle's counsel in this: "Quit you
like men." Our translators have taken four words to express a single
word in the original letter. We have no one English word which can carry
the splendid load of meaning. It really means--play the man! It really
means--no funk! All the school children will know the value of that
word. It is a good strong vital English word, and I am sure it expresses
the spirit of the apostle's counsel to these young recruits. Lowell uses
it in the Bigelow Papers: "To funk right out o' p'litical strife ain't
thought to be the thing." No funk, soldiers of Christ! I have sometimes
heard men talk of late as though the Lord were dead, and the game is up,
and the Kingdom is in ruins. "Play the man!" The European soldiers of
every nation are showing the world in their own sphere what it means to
play the man. Some of us are becoming almost afraid to call ourselves
soldiers of Jesus when we see what a true soldier really is. Think of
it! Think of his readiness for the front! Think of his laughter in
sacrifice! Think of his song in the midst of danger and pain! Think of
his endurance even unto death! And then, think how we stand up and sing
"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war"! And shall we funk in
the day of darkness and disaster, and after months of appalling
bloodshed and woe shall we talk as if the campaign of righteousness were
ended, and the Kingdom of Jesus is overturned? Let us stop this kind of
talk. Let us silence this sort of fear. Let us crush this type of
disloyalty. It is an insult to our flag; it is a dishonour to our Lord.
"Quit you like men, be strong!" Put strength into everything, and do
everything strongly. Do not let us speak or serve in a faint, lax,
irresolute, anæmic, dying sort of way. "Be strong!" Be strong in your
prayers. Be strong in your moral and spiritual ambitions. Be strong in
your visions and hopes. Be strong in your beneficence; strengthen it to
the vigour of sacrifice. And if there be a devil, as more than ever I
believe there is, let the Church surprise him by her strength. Let her
turn the day of calamity into the day of opportunity. Let her
transfigure the hour of disaster into the hour of deeper consecration.
Let us make new vows. Let us enter into new devotion. Let us exercise
ourselves in new chivalry. Let us go out in new ways of sacrifice. My
brethren, God is not dead! "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you
like men, be strong!"
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus!
The trumpet call obey;
Forth to the mighty conflict
In this His glorious day.
Ye that are men now serve Him
Against unnumbered foes,
Let courage rise with danger
And strength to strength oppose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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