Shod with that good news of peace, these Christians were going to
conquer the world, and to penetrate into distant lands from which the
Roman armies had been driven back in shameful defeat. To penetrate,
too, where the Roman armies never cared to go,--among the miserable
and crowded lanes of the great cities, and conquer there what the
Roman armies could not conquer--the vice, the misery, the cruelty,
the idolatry of the heathen.
The shield, again, guarded those parts of the soldier which the
armour did not guard. It warded off the stones, arrows, and darts--
fiery darts often, as St. Paul says, which were hurled at him from
afar. And the Christian's shield, St. Paul says, was to be Faith,--
trust in God,--belief that he was fighting God's battle, and not his
own; belief that God was over him in the battle, and would help and
guide him, and give him strength to do his work. To believe firmly
that he was in the right, and on God's side. To believe that, when
he was wounded and struck down,--when men deserted him, cursed him,
tried to take his life--perhaps did take his life--with torments
unspeakable,--to have faith to say in his heart, 'I am in the right.'
When he was writhing under the truly fiery darts of
misrepresentation, slander, scorn, or under the equally fiery darts
of remorse for his own mistakes, his own weaknesses, still to say
after all, 'I am in the right.
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