But application is not all; to that must be added perseverance. No advance will be made in anything, unless a man first applies his mind to his task, and then perseveres in it till he has fulfilled what he undertook. Nothing is more common than to begin a thing and to be disheartened at the first difficulty, and to throw it up. At school the child is given the habit of perseverance.
That is not all. No work will be carried out thoroughly without order and system. You see people who work all day and work hard, but never make any way, because they work in a muddle, and with no regular plan. At school the child is given the habit of orderliness.
I have instanced only a few of those necessary habits which we try to impress on children at school. We endeavour to impress them on the young, because then they are open to instruction, their characters are soft and take impressions, as warm wax does from a seal. We train them up in the way in which they should go, trusting that when they are old they will not depart from it. We teach what is good, that good may become a habit with them, and when anything has become a habit, it sticks. It is not shaken off.
LXV.
RELIGIOUS ZEAL.
Dedication Festival
Ps. lxix., 9.
"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."
INTRODUCTION.—David spoke the truth. The one great desire of his heart was the glorification of God by the erection of a temple befitting His worship at Jerusalem. Although he had plenty of cares to distract him, yet he never had this out of his heart. "I will not come within the tabernacle of mine house; nor climb up into my bed; I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyelids to slumber; neither the temples of my head to take any rest; until I find out a place for the temple of the Lord; an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob."
One of the first things he did after he was anointed King over Israel, was to go to Kirjath-jearim, and bring up thence the ark of God from the house of Abinadab in which it had lodged. And David went before the ark playing his harp, and his heart was so full of joy that he danced before the ark, singing and striking the strings of his harp. Then Michal his wife, Saul's daughter, looked out of a window, and sneered at him, "and despised him in her heart." She was one of your cold-blooded people, with no enthusiasm in her, with no zeal for God, no heart for God's glory. Better David dancing for joy of heart, than captious Michal with a contemptuous curl of her lips.