failed each other in need; have broken up, scattered, or perished, or
at least remained as settlers or as slaves among the Arab tribes.
With that moral discipline, they held together, and continued one
people till the last, till they couched, they lay down as a lion, and
as a great lion, and none dare rouse them up.

You who are here to-day--I speak to those in uniform--are the
representatives of more than one great body of your countrymen, who
have determined to teach themselves something of that lesson which
Israel learnt in the wilderness; not indeed by actual danger and
actual need, but by preparation for dangers and for needs, which are
only too possible as long as there is sin upon this earth.

I believe--I have already seen enough to be sure--that your labour
and that of your comrades will not be in vain; that you will be, as
you surely may be, the better men for that discipline to which you
have subjected yourselves.

You must never forget that there are two sides, a softer and a
sterner side, to the character of the good man; that he, the perfect
Christ, who is the Lion of Judah, taking vengeance, in every age, on
all who wrong their fellow men, is also the Lamb of God, who shed his
own blood for those who rebelled against him. You must recollect
that there are virtues--graces we call them rather--which you may
learn elsewhere better than in the camp or on the drilling ground;
graces of character more devout, more pure, more tender, more humane,
yet necessary for the perfect man, which you will learn rather in
your own homes, from the innocence of your own children, from the
counsels and examples of your mothers and your wives.