duty of strength, but on the duty of conscious strength, and on the
duty of measuring the strength that is at my back with the weakness
that is against me, and of being bold because I know that more and
'greater is He that is with me than are they that be with them.'

II. So much, then, for the first of the exhortations here. Now look
next at the duty of implicit obedience to the word of command.

That is another soldierly virtue, the exercise of which sheds a
nobility over the repulsive horrors of the battlefield. Joshua had to
be fitted to command by learning to obey, and, like that other soldier
whose rough trade had led him to some inkling of Christ's authority by
its familiarising him with the idea of the strange power of the word of
command, had to realise that he himself was 'under authority' before he
could issue his orders.

Courage and strength come first, and on them follows the command to do
all according to the law, to keep it without deflection to right or
left, and to meditate on it day and night. These two virtues make the
perfect soldier-courage and obedience. Daring and discipline must go
together, and to know how to follow orders is as essential as to know
how to despise dangers.

But the connection between these two, as set forth in this charge, is
not merely that they must co-exist, but that courage and strength are
needed for, and are to find their noblest field of exercise in,
absolute acceptance of, and unhesitating, swift, complete, unmurmuring
obedience to, everything that is discerned to be God's will and our
duty.