or much time spent in perplexed searching, to fall back upon the
principles that decide our conduct--that is essential to all successful
and victorious Christian life.

And it is the secret of all blessed Christian life. For there is a
lovely echo of these vigorous words of command to Joshua in a very much
more peaceful form in the 1st Psalm: 'Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, ... but his delight is in the law of
the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night'--the very
words that are employed in the text to describe the duty of the
soldier--therefore 'all that he doeth shall prosper.'

III. That leads to the last thought here--the sure victory of such bold
obedience.

'Thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest'; 'Thou shalt make thy
way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success,' or, as the last
word might be rendered, 'then shalt thou _act wisely_' You may not
get victory from an earthly point of view, for many a man that lives
strong and courageous and joyfully obeying God's law, as far as he
knows it and because he loves the Lawgiver, goes through life, and
finds that, as far as the world's estimate is concerned, there is
nothing but failure as his portion. Ah I but the world's way is not the
true way of estimating victory. 'Be of good cheer, I have overcome the
world,' said Jesus Christ when within arm's-length of the Cross. And
His way is the way in which we must conquer the world, if we conquer it
at all. The success which my text means is the carrying out of
conscientious convictions of God's will into practice. That is the only
success that is worth talking about or looking for. The man that
succeeds in obeying and translating God's will into conduct is the