Knights in Armour

by Edward S. Woods

Once a man begins to make this great discovery, all sorts of results ensue. Lost things are found again, among them that happy, guileless certainty of God which is childhood's heritage and which so often slips away when men grow older. Life gets crowded and men lose sight of God; some men even think He is not there because they have lost the knack of looking for Him. If you cannot see properly through a telescope it is rash to conclude that the object you are looking for is not there; it would be better to clean the lens. It is not God who deserts us; it is we who, blinded by sin, miss Him. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Here again it is not the "Saints" only who are gifted with this capacity for spiritual vision. It is the birthright of every man and woman born into the world. The path of purity is a right of way, and the place of vision has no fences round it; all who will may enter there, and there is none to forbid them but themselves. I believe there are numbers of men who have a dim consciousness of these great possibilities but who, from one cause or another, have never really begun to explore them. The one thing needful, for many a man, is simply that he should give his soul a chance. Early in the War there was killed in France at the age of twenty, a man of brilliant endowments and high promise--Charles Sorley, of Marlborough and University College, Oxford. A few months before his death he wrote these lines, which put into winged words this haunting sense of unexplored spiritual possibilities,--

"From morn to midnight, all day through,

I laugh and play as others do,

I sin and chatter just the same

As others with a different name.

And all year long upon the stage

I dance and tumble and do rage

So vehemently, I scarcely see

The inner and eternal me.

I have a temple I do not

Visit, a heart I have forgot,

A self that I have never met,

A secret shrine--and yet, and yet

This sanctuary of my soul

Unwitting I keep white and whole,

Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care

To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands

And listening ears Thy servant stands;

Call Thou early, call Thou late,

To Thy great service dedicate."

The War is creating a hunger for reality, and above all for spiritual reality. "Break me, O God, destroy me if you will, but save me from self-complacency and little interests and little successes and the life that passes as the shadows of a dream."

If purity is the condition of vision, it is also the secret of strength.

"My strength is as the strength of ten

Because my heart is pure."

Sir Galahad had made the discovery which true men always make. Sin is a source of weakness. Purity is a fount of strength. Unclean men are never conquerors--they have lost the first and most important of battles, that with themselves. It was not for nothing that Lord Kitchener emphasized the supreme importance of self control in his famous letter to the troops at the beginning of the War. "Success in War," says the Field Service Regulations, "depends more on the moral than on the physical qualities." Foremost among moral forces is that wonderful thing, all powerful though difficult to define, which men call discipline. Of the many qualities which make up discipline, there is one of unrivalled importance, which it partly evokes and partly creates, and that is self-control. It is of the essence of discipline that a man should learn entirely to subordinate his own wish or pleasure or safety to a larger common purpose. Standing in the ranks he must control the desire to move his head or fidget with his hands. In the face of the enemy he must control his desire to run away. At all times and in all places he must control his desire to consult his own comfort or convenience. Such self-control involves a considerable measure of moral strength. Will a man be strong here, where strength is so needed, if all the while he is gravely weak in the region of his inner life? Is it likely that he will be able to inspire others with cheerful fortitude in face of hardships and death if the very source is fouled whence his own strength must be drawn?

With all possible emphasis I would press this point upon you, that there is a vital connexion between purity and moral strength. And I urge it, not simply for your own sakes, but even more because of what you may be and do for others. "For their sakes I consecrate myself." The motive of that one perfect life is the only adequate motive for us who try to be His followers. How can I serve others, if my own soul is shackled in iron bonds? How can I fight for righteousness, in this War or in the Greater War, if in my own heart and life I have secret dealings with the enemy?

The Knights of Christ are men who have no use for dirt of any kind. "And I beheld a white horse, and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make War ... and the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean."[2] There is nothing so unclean but that Christ can cleanse it; and to all who would be His Warriors He can, and He does, give the white armour which they must have. Here is the greatest soldiering of all. It is worth the struggle to be a better man, it is worth the effort of faith which will let Him re-make your life, if thereby you may be fit to take your place in His Army and go after Him as He rides forth to conquer in the Holy War.

[2] Revelation xix. 11, 14.

LOYALTY