to make a very thorny life for the persistent follower of Jesus Christ.

And not only is there courage needed for the application of the
principles of conduct which God has given us, but you will never have
them handy for swift application unless, in many a quiet hour of
silent, solitary, patient meditation you have become familiar with
them. The recruit that has to learn on the battle-field how to use his
rifle has a good chance of being dead before he has mastered the
mysteries of firing. And Christian people that have their Christian
principles to dig out of the Bible when the necessity comes, will
likely find that the necessity is past before they have completed the
excavation. The actual battle-field is no place to learn drill. If a
soldier does not know how his sword hangs, and cannot get at it in a
moment, he will probably draw it too late.

I am afraid that the practice of such meditation as is meant here has
come to be, like the art of making ecclesiastical stained glass, almost
extinct in modern times. You have all so many newspapers and magazines
to read that the Bible has a chance of being shoved out of sight,
except on Sundays and in chapels. The 'meditating' that is enjoined in
my text is no mere intellectual study of Scripture, either from an
antiquarian or a literary or a theological point of view, but it is the
mastering of the principles of conduct as laid down there, and the
appropriating of all the power for guidance and for sustaining which
that word of the Lord gives. Meditation, the familiarising ourselves
with the ethics of Scripture, and with the hopes and powers that are
treasured in Jesus Christ, so that our minds are made up upon a great
many thorny questions as to what we ought to do, and that when crises
or dangers come, as they have a knack of coming, very suddenly, and are
sprung upon us unexpectedly, we shall be able, without much difficulty,