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

by Charles Kingsley

Let me give you another instance. You all have seen lightning conductors, which prevent tall chimneys and steeples from being struck by storms, so that the lightning runs harmless downward. Now we can all see how this is conquering the force of lightning in a wonderful and beautiful way. But before you can conquer the lightning by a conductor, you must obey the lightning and its laws most carefully. If you make the conductor out of your own head and fancy, it will be of no use. You must observe and follow humbly the laws which God has given to the lightning. You must make the conductor of metal wire, or it will be useless. You must make it run through glazed rings, or it will

be only more dangerous than no conductor at all; for God who made the lightning chose that it should be so, and you must obey if you wish to conquer.

Man could not conquer steam, and make it drive his engines and carry his ships across the seas, till he found out and obeyed the laws which God had given to steam; and so without breaking the laws, man turned them to his own use, and set the force of steam to turn his machines, instead of rushing idly out into the empty air.

So it is with all things, whether in heaven or earth. If you want to rule, you must obey. If you want to rise to be a master, you must stoop to be a servant. If you want to be master of anything in earth or heaven, you must, as that great Lord Verulam used to say, obey God’s will revealed in that thing; and the man who will go his own way, and follow his own fancy, will understand nothing, and master nothing, and get comfort out of nothing in earth or heaven.

Well—when Lord Verulam told men his new wisdom, they laughed and scoffed, as fools always will at anything new. But one by one, wise men tried his plan, and found him right, and went on; and from that time those who followed Lord Verulam began discovering wonders of which they had never dreamed, and those who did not, but kept to the old way of witchcraft and magic, found out nothing, and made themselves a laughing stock. And after a while witchcraft vanished out of all civilised countries, and in its place came all the wonderful comforts and discoveries which we have now, and which under God, we owe to the wisdom of the great Lord Verulam. Cotton mills, steam engines, railroads, electric telegraphs, sanitary reforms, cheap books, penny postage, good medicine and surgery, and a

thousand blessings more. That great Lord Chancellor has been the father of them all.

And a noble thought it is for us Church people, and a glorious testimony to the good training which the Church of England gives, that the three men, who more than any others laid the foundation of all our wonderful discoveries, I mean Lord Verulam, Mr. Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton, were all of them heart and soul members of the Church of England.

I said just now that the man who will not obey, will never rule; that the man who will not stoop to be a servant, will never rise to be a master; that the man who neglects God’s will and mind about things, and will follow his own will and fancy, will understand nothing, and master nothing, and get comfort out of nothing, either in earth or heaven.

Either in earth or heaven, I say. For the same rule which holds good in this earthly world, which we do see, holds good in the heavenly world which we do not see. Solomon does not part the two worlds, and I cannot. Solomon says the same rules which hold good about men’s bodies, hold good about their souls. The great Lord Verulam used always to say the same, and we must believe the same. For see, Solomon says, that this same wisdom by which God made the worlds, will help our souls as well as our bodies; that it is not merely the earthly wisdom which brings a man length of life and riches, but heavenly wisdom, which is a tree of life to every one who lays hold of her (Prov. iii. 18). The heavenly wisdom which begins in trusting in the Lord with all our heart, the heavenly wisdom which is learnt by chastenings and afflictions, and teaches us that we are the sons of God, is the very same wisdom by

which God founded the earth, and makes the clouds drop down dew! Strange at first sight; but not strange if we remember the Athanasian creed, and believe that God is one God, who has no parts or passions, and therefore cannot change or be divided.