"Be strong in the Lord.... Put on the whole armour of God."--EPHESIANS vi. 10, 11.
"More than conquerors through Him that loved us."--ROMANS viii. 37.
KNIGHTS IN ARMOUR
I
INTRODUCTORY
To every Englishman there is something that stirs the blood and fires the imagination in the ancient legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the legends that Tennyson has immortalized in his Idylls of the King. It was a splendid vision that gripped the men who bound themselves--
"To reverence the King, as if He were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no nor listen to it,
To honour his own word as if his God's,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her."
Who, if not soldiers, should be the inheritors and transmitters of these noble traditions? The highest meaning of a soldier's vocation has many points of contact with this Knightly ideal; and some of the greatest soldiers of our history have been men who were also Knights of the Cross. Knights are held to higher ideals and charged with harder tasks than lesser men. And for you who serve our English King and are not unmindful of your allegiance to the King of Kings, I would fain try and draw a picture of what Christian Knighthood may mean. I think I see, at the least, four qualities, or virtues, which must needs distinguish a Christian Knight. These qualities are Courage, Chivalry, Purity, Loyalty.
COURAGE
He who would valiant be
'Gainst all disaster,
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master.
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.
Who so beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound--
His strength the more is.
No foes shall stay his might,
Though he with giants fight:
He will make good his right
To be a pilgrim.
Since, Lord, Thou dost defend
Us with Thy Spirit,
We know we at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies flee away!
I'll fear not what men say,
I'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
JOHN BUNYAN.