True Words for Brave Men: A Book for Soldiers' and Sailors' Libraries

But some will say—this may be all very true and very fine, but we are in no such utter need now.  Why should we use those prayers?

My dear friends, let me say, if you are not now in utter need, in terror, anxiety, danger, if you have no need to cry to Christ, “Graciously look upon our afflictions; pitifully behold the sorrows of our hearts,” how do you know that there is not some one in any and every congregation who is?  And you and I, if we have said the Litany in spirit and in truth, have been praying for them.  The Litany bids us speak as members of a Church, as citizens of a nation, bound together by the ties of blood and of laws, as well as self-interest.  The Litany bids us say, not selfishly and apart, Graciously look on my afflictions, but on our afflictions—the afflictions of every English man, and woman, and child, who is in trouble, or ever will be in trouble hereafter.  Oh, remember this last word.  Generations long since dead and buried have prayed for you, and God has heard their prayers; and now you have been praying for your children, and your children’s children, and generations yet unborn, that, if ever a dark day should come over England, a time of want and danger and perplexity and misery, God would deliver them in their turn out of their distress.  And more; you have been teaching your children, that they may teach their children in turn, and pray and cry to God in their trouble; and thus this grand old Litany is to us, and to those we shall leave behind us a precious National heir-loom, teaching us and them the lesson of the 107th Psalm—that there is a Lord in heaven who hears the prayers of men, the sinful as well as the sorrowful, that when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He delivers them out of their distress, and that men should therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders which He doeth for the children of men.

XII. WILD TIMES, OR DAVID’S FAITH IN A LIVING GOD

“David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him.  And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.”

—1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2.

In every country, at some time or other, there have been evil days—days of violence, tyranny, misrule, war, invasion, when men are too apt, for want of settled law, to take the law into their own hands; and the land is full of robbers, outlaws, bands of partizans and irregular soldiers—wild times, in which wild things are done.

Of such times we here in England have had no experience, and we forget how common they are; we forget that many great nations have been in this state again and again.  We forget that almost all Europe was in that wild and lawless state in our fathers’ times, and therefore we forget that the Bible, which tells man his whole duty, must needs tell men about such times as those, and how a man may do his duty, and save his soul therein.  For the Bible is every man’s book, and has its lesson for every man.  It is meant not merely for comfortable English folk, who sit at home at ease, under just laws and a good government.  It is meant just as much for the opprest, for the persecuted, for the man who is fighting for his country, for the man who has been found fighting in vain, and is simply waiting for God’s help, and crying, “Lord, how long? how long ere Thou avenge the blood that is shed?”  It is meant as much for such as for you and me; that every man, in whatever fearful times he may live, and whatever fearful trials he may go through, and whatever fearful things he may be tempted to do, and, indeed, may have to do, in self-defence, may still be able to go to the Bible, there to find light for his feet, and a lantern for his path, and so that he may steer through the worst of times by Faith in the Living God.

Again, such lawless times are certain to raise up bold and adventurous men, more or less like David.  Men of blood—who are yet not altogether bad men—who are forced to take the law into their own hands, to try and keep their countrymen together, to put down tyrants and robbers, and to drive out invaders.  And men, too, suffering from deep and cruel wrongs, who are forced for their lives’ sake, and their honour’s sake, to escape—to flee to the mountains and the forests, and to foreign lands, and there live as they can till times shall be better.  There have been such men in all wild times—outlaws, chiefs of armed bands, like our Robin Hood, whose name was honoured in England for hundreds of years as the protector of the poor and the opprest, and the punisher of the Norman tyrants: a man made up of much good and much evil, whom we must not judge, but when we think of him, only thank God that we do not live in such times now, when no man’s life or property, or the honour of his family was safe.

Such men, too, in our fathers’ days, were the Tyrolese heroes, Hofer and the Good Monk who left, the one his farm and the other his cloister, to lead their countrymen against the invading French; men of blood, who were none the less men of God.  And such is, in our own days, that famous Garibaldi, whose portrait hangs in many an English cottage, for a proof that though we, thank God, do not need such men in peaceful England, our hearts bid us to love and honour them wherever they be.  There have been such men in all bad times, and there will be till the world’s end, and they will do great deeds, and their names will be famous, and often honoured and adored by men.

Now, what does the Bible say of such men?  Does it give any rule by which we may judge them? any rule which they ought to obey?  Can God’s blessing be on them?  Can they obey God in that wild and dark and dangerous station to which He seems to have called them—to which God certainly called Hofer and the Good Monk?

I think if the Bible did not answer that question it would not be a complete book—if it spoke only of peaceful folk, and peaceful times; when, alas! from the beginning of the world, the earth has been but too full of violence and misrule, war and desolation.  But the Bible does answer that question.  A large portion of one whole book is actually taken up with the history of a young outlaw—of David, the shepherd boy, who rises through strange temptations and dangers to be a great king, the first man who, since Moses, formed the Jews into one strong united nation.  It does not hide his faults, even his fearful sins, but it shows us that he had a right road to follow, though he often turned aside from it.  It shows us that he could be a good man if he chose, though he was an outlaw at the head of a band of ruffians; and it shows us the secret of his power and of his success—Faith in the Living God.

Therefore it is that after the Bible has shown us (in the Book of Ruth) worthy Boaz standing among his reapers in the barley field, it goes on to show us Boaz’s great-grandson, David, a worthy man likewise, but of a very different life, marked out by God from his youth for strange and desperate deeds; killing, as a mere boy, a lion and a bear, overthrowing the Philistine giant with a sling and a stone, captain of a band of outlaws in the wilderness, fighting battles upon battles; and at last a king, storming the mountain fortress of Jerusalem, and setting up upon Mount Zion, which shall never be removed, the Throne of David.  A strange man, and born into a strange time.  You all know the first part of David’s history—how Samuel secretly anoints David king over Israel, and how the Spirit of the Lord comes from that day forward upon the young lad (1 Samuel xvi. 12).  How king Saul meanwhile fell into dark and bad humours.  How the Spirit of the Lord—of goodness and peace of mind—goes from him, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubles him.  Then how young David is sent for to play to him on his harp (1 Samuel xvi.), and soothe his distempered mind.  Already we hear of David as a remarkable person; we hear of his extraordinary beauty, his skill in music; we hear, too, how he is already a man of war, and a mighty valiant man, and prudent in matters, and the Lord is with him.

Then follows the famous story of his killing Goliath the Philistine (1 Samuel xvii.).  Poor, distempered Saul, it seems, had forgotten him, though David had cured his melancholy with his harp-playing, and had actually been for a while his armour-bearer, for when he comes back with the giant’s head, Saul has to ask Abner who he is; but after that he will let him go no more home to his father.

Then follows the beautiful story of Jonathan, Saul’s gallant son (1 Samuel xviii.), and his love for David.  Then of Saul’s envy of David, and how, in a sudden fit of hatred, he casts his javelin at him.  Then how he grows afraid of him, and makes him captain of a thousand men, and gives him his daughter, on condition of David’s killing him two hundred Philistines.  And how he goes on, capriciously, honouring David one day and trying to kill him the next.  While David rises always, and all Israel and Judah love him, and he behaves himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul.  At last comes the open rupture.  Saul, after trying to murder David, sends assassins to his house, and David flees for his life once and for all.  He has served his master Saul loyally and faithfully.  There is no word of his having opposed Saul, set himself up against him, boasted of himself, or in any way brought his anger down upon him.  Saul is his king, and David has been loyal and true to him.  But Saul’s envy has grown to hatred, and that to murder.  He murders the priests, with all their wives and children, for having given bread and shelter to David.  And now David must flee into the wilderness and set up for himself, and he flees to the cave of Adullam (1 Samuel xxii.); and there you see the Bible does not try to hide what David’s position was, and what sort of men he had about him—his brethren and his father’s house, who were afraid that Saul would kill them instead of him, after the barbarous Eastern fashion, and among them the three sons of Zeruiah, his sister; and everyone who was discontented, and everyone who was in debt, all the most desperate and needy—one can conceive what sort of men they must have been.  The Bible tells us afterwards of the wicked men and men of Belial who were among them—wild men, with weapons in their hands, and nothing to prevent their becoming a band of brutal robbers, if they had not had over them a man in whom, in spite of all his faults, was the Spirit of God.

We must remember, meanwhile, that David had his temptations.  He had been grievously wronged.  Saul had returned him evil for good.  All David’s services and loyalty to Saul had been repaid with ingratitude and accusations of conspiracy against him.  What terrible struggles of rage and indignation must have passed through David’s heart!  What a longing to revenge himself!  He knew, too, for Samuel the prophet had told him, that he should be king one day.  What a temptation, then, to make himself king at once!  It was no secret either.  The people knew of it.  Jonathan, Saul’s son, knew of it, and, in his noble, self-sacrificing way, makes no secret of it (1 Samuel xx.).  What a temptation to follow the fashion which is too common in the East to this day, and strike down his tyrant at one blow, as many a man has done since, and to proclaim himself king of the Jews.  Yes, David had heavy temptations—temptations which he could only conquer by faith in the Living God.  And, because he masters himself, and remains patient and loyal to his king under every insult and wrong, he is able to master that wild and desperate band of men, and set them an example of patience and chivalry, loyalty and justice; to train them to be, not a terror and a scourge to the yeomen and peasants round, but a protection and a guard against the Philistines and Amalekites, and, in due time, his trusty bodyguard of warriors—men who have grown grey beside him through a hundred battles, who are to be the foundation of his national army, and help him to make the Jews one strong and united prosperous kingdom.

All this the shepherd lad has to do, and he does it, by faith in the Living God, and so makes himself for all ages to come the pattern of perfect loyalty.  And now, let us take home this one lesson—That the secret of David’s success is not his beauty, his courage, his eloquence, his genius; other men have had gifts from God as great as David’s, and have misused them to their own ruin, and to the misery of their fellow-men.  No; the secret of David’s success is his faith in the Living God; and that will be the secret of our success.  Without faith in God, the most splendid talents may lead a man to be a curse to himself and to his neighbours.  With faith in God, a very common-place person, without any special cleverness, may do great things, and make himself useful and honoured in his generation.

XIII. DAVID AND NABAL, OR SELF-CONTROL

“And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.”

—1 Samuel xxv. 32, 33.

The story of David and Nabal needs no explanation.  It tells us of part of David’s education—of a great lesson which he learnt—of a great lesson which we may learn.  It is told with a dignity and a simplicity, with a grace and liveliness which makes itself understood at once, and carries its own lesson to any one who has a human heart in him.

“And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel”—the park grass upland with timber trees—not the northern Carmel where Elijah slew the prophets of Baal, but the southern one on the edge of the desert.  “And the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.  Now the name of the man was Nabal; and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings; and he was of the house of Caleb.”  Caleb was Joshua’s friend, who had conquered all that land in Joshua’s time.  Nabal, therefore, had all the pride of a man of most ancient and noble family—and no shame to him if he had had a noble, courteous, and generous heart therewith, instead of being, as he was, a stupid and brutal person.

“And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep.  And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: And thus shall ye say unto him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be to all that thou hast.  And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.  Ask the young men, and they will show thee.  Wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and unto thy son David.  And when David’s young men came, they spake to Nabal, according to all thee words of David, and ceased.”

Nabal refuses; and in a way that shows, as his wife says of him, how well his name fits him—a fool is his name, and folly is with him.  Insolently and brutally he refuses, as fools are wont to do.  “And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now-a-days that break away every man from his master.  Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men whom I know not whence they be?”

“As slaves break away from their master.”  This was an intolerable insult.  To taunt a free-born man, as David was, with having been a slave and a runaway.  It is hard to conceive how Nabal dared to say such a thing of a fierce chieftain like David, with six hundred armed men at his back; but there is no saying what a fool will not do when the spirit of the Lord is gone from him, and his own fancy and passions lead him captive.

So David’s young men came and told David.  “And David said to his men, Gird every man on his sword.  And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; and two hundred abode by the stuff.”

That is a grand passage—grand, because it is true to human nature, true to the determined, prompt, kingly character of David.  He does not complain, bluster, curse over the insult as a weak man might have done.  He has been deeply hurt, and he is too high-minded to talk about it.  He will do, and not talk.  A dark purpose settles itself instantly in his mind.  Perhaps he is ashamed of it, and dare not speak of it, even to himself.  But what it was he confessed afterwards to Abigail, that he purposed utterly to kill Nabal and all his people.  David was wrong of course.  But the Bible makes no secret of the wrong-doings of its heroes.  It does not tell us that they were infallible and perfect.  It tells us that they were men of like passions with ourselves, in order that by seeing how they conquered their passions we may conquer ours.

Meanwhile, Nabal’s young men, his servants and slaves, see the danger, and go to Abigail.  “One of the young men told Abigail, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them.  But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.  Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him.  Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.  And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you.  But she told not her husband Nabal.”

And then follows the beautiful scene which has been the subject of many a noble picture.  The fair lady kneeling before the terrible outlaw in the mountain woods, as she came down by the covert of the hill, and softening his fierce heart with her beauty and her eloquence and her prayers, and bringing him back to his true self—to forgiveness, generosity, and righteousness.

“And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.  Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, thine handmaid, saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send.  Now therefore, my lord, as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal. . . . I pray thee forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days.”

And she conquers.  The dark shadow passes off David’s soul, and he is again the true, chivalrous, God-fearing David, who has never drawn sword yet in his own private quarrel, but has committed his cause to God who judgeth righteously, and will, if a man abide patiently in Him, make his righteousness as clear as the light, and his just-dealing as the noonday.  Frankly he confesses his fault.  “Blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which has kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand.  For in very deed, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, which has kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not a man been left unto Nabal by the morning light.”  Then follows the end.  Abigail goes back to Nabal.  Then the bully shows himself a coward.  The very thought of the danger which he has escaped is too much for him.  His heart died within him.  “And Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house like the feast of a king; and Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: wherefore she told him nothing less or more until the morning light.  But it came to pass in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.  And it came to pass, about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.”  One can imagine the picture for oneself.  The rich churl sitting there in the midst of all his slaves and his wealth as one thunderstruck, helpless and speechless, till one of those mysterious attacks, which we still rightly call a stroke, and a visitation of God, ends him miserably.  And when he is dead, Abigail becomes the wife of David, and shares his fortunes and his dangers in the wilderness.

Now, what may we learn from this story?  Surely what David learnt—the unlawfulness of revenge.  David was to be trained to be a perfect king by learning self-control, and therefore he has to learn that he must not punish in his own quarrel.  If he must not lift up his hand against Saul, on the ground of loyalty, neither must he lift up his hand against Nabal, on the deeper ground of justice and humanity.

But from whom did David learn this?  From himself.  From his own heart and conscience, enlightened by the Spirit of God.  Abigail gave him no commandment from God, in the common sense of the word.  She only put David in mind of what he knew already.  She appeals to his known nobleness of mind, and takes for granted that he will hear reason—takes for granted that he will do right—and so brought him to himself again.  The Lord was withholding him, she says, from coming to shed blood, and avenging himself with his own hand.  But that would have been of no avail had there not been something in David’s own heart which answered to her words.  For the Spirit of God had not left David; and it was the Spirit of God which gave him nobleness of heart—the Spirit of God which made him answer, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who sent thee this day to meet me; and blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou which hast kept me this day from shedding of blood.”

Though Abigail did not pretend to bring a message from God, David felt that she had brought one.  And she was in his eyes not merely a suppliant pleading for mercy, but a prophetess declaring to him a divine law which he dare not resist.  “It has been said by them of old time,” our blessed Lord tells us, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy.”  This is the first natural law which a savage lays down for himself.  There is a rude sense of justice in it, mixed up with the same brute instinct of revenge which makes the wild beast turn in rage upon the hunter who wounds him.  But our Lord Jesus Christ brings in a higher and more spiritual law.  Punishment is to be left to the magistrate, who punishes in God’s name.  And where the law cannot touch the wrongdoer, God, who is the author of law, can and will punish.  “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.”  Yes! if punishment must be, then let God punish.  Let man forgive.  I say unto you, said our Lord, “Love your enemies.  Do good to them that hate you—bless them that curse you—pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.”

It is a hard lesson.  But we must learn it.  And we shall learn it, just as far as we are guided by the Spirit of God, who forms in us the likeness of Christ.  And men are learning it more and more in Christian lands.  Wherever Christ’s gospel is truly and faithfully preached, the fashion, of revenge is dying out.  There are countries still in Christendom in which men think nothing every day of stabbing and shooting the man who has injured them; and far, very far, from Christ and His Spirit must they be still.  But we may have hope for them; for if we look at home, it was not so very many years ago that any Englishman, who considered himself a gentleman, was bound by public opinion to fight a duel for any slight insult.  It was not so many years ago that among labouring men brutal quarrels and open fights were common, and almost daily occurrences.  But now men are learning more and more to control their tempers and their tongues, and find it more and more easy, and more pleasant and more profitable, as our Lord forewarned them when He said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  And Christ’s easy yoke is the yoke of self-control, by which we bridle the passions which torment us.  Christ’s light burden is the burden and obligation laid on every one of us, to forgive others, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.  And the rest which shall come to our souls is the rest which David found, when he listened to the voice of God speaking by the lips of Abigail; the true and divine rest of heart and peace of mind—rest and peace from the inward storm of fretfulness, suspicion, jealousy, pride, wrath, revenge, which blackens the light of heaven to a man, and turns to gall and wormwood every blessing which God sends.

Ah! my friends, if ever that angry storm rises in our hearts, if ever we be tempted to avenge ourselves, and cast off the likeness of God for that of the savage, and return evil for evil,—may God send to us in that day some angel of His own, as He sent Abigail to David—an angel, though clothed in human flesh and blood, with a message of peace and wisdom.  And if any such should speak to us words of peace and wisdom, soothing us and rebuking us at once, and appealing to those feelings in us which are really the most noble, just because they are the most gentle, then let us not turn away in pride, and wrap ourselves up in our own anger, but let us receive these words as the message of God—whether they come from the lips of a woman, or of a servant, or even of a little child, for if we resist them we surely resist God—who has also given to us His Holy Spirit for that very purpose, that we may hear His message when He speaks.  It was the Spirit of God in David which made him feel that Abigail’s message was divine.  The Spirit of God, hidden for a while behind his dark passions, like the sun by clouds, shone out clear again, and filled all his soul with light, showing him his duty, and giving back peace and brightness to his mind.

God grant that whenever we are tried like David we may find that that Holy Spirit has not left us, but that even if a first storm of anger shall burst, it shall pass over quickly, and the day star arise in our hearts, and the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon us, and give us peace.