There is danger that some of the younger workers of the Advent Movement will go "soft." Beginners now often expect at the very outset of their service all the comforts and conveniences that older workers have toiled twenty or thirty years to secure. All too often there is a shrinking from the hardness of the lot of the "good soldier for Jesus Christ." These veterans, it might be added, justifiably have sought to make living conditions a bit easier, now that their strength has been weakened by the rigors of service in overseas fields or homeland frontiers, where inconvenience and privation often formed an inseparable part of the picture.
The soldier on the march obviously has no fixed abode. He has few conveniences, and no goods except his little kit. In warfare there are often forced marches and dire emergencies. Sheer weariness often softens his hard bed; and the necessities of the case frequently make impossible many desirable adjuncts. The rigors and demands of the battle and the campaign are exhausting. But these are gladly endured if the cause is just, and the warrior is fighting for a great principle or stake—for dear ones and home, for homeland and liberty.
Ours is no ordinary warfare, and we battle no ordinary foe. We fight under the banner of King Jesus. We have the challenge and the emergency of a glorious cause. We fight for the recovery of a lost world for God, and for an eternal home. We battle for dear ones and friends. We are on the side of right and God. Ours is not a lost cause, not a forlorn hope. Victory is assured, and we have invincible heavenly allies. But victory has not yet been achieved.
Our foe is intensely real. It is none other than Satan and his infernal legions. His mercenaries and henchmen are sin-befuddled men and women, confused over the issues and ranged on his side. His methods are utterly unscrupulous. His favorite weapons are outlawed by every principle of right, justice, and humanity. We cannot and will not match them in kind. But we must meet him as he is. We must battle him in every front. We must carry the campaign into the enemy's territory on every continent and island of the sea. Many must go overseas where conditions, customs, languages, and food are strange, and not infrequently unpleasant, We must press the battle in obscure places, as well as in strategic strongholds that call for mass attack. It is a relentless conflict. We must never give up.
The life of a soldier is anything but soft and easy, and it is not without casualties. It calls for hardness; endurance; privation; suffering from heat, cold, exposure, and pain; and perhaps death for a great and noble cause. It demands willingness to forgo much that this world holds dear and indispensable. There are bound to be wounds and casualties in this war. There are much weariness and exhaustion in store, absence from home, and much that is unpleasant. These are the inevitable accompaniments of being a soldier of Jesus Christ. That is the challenge of soldiery for God. It is the challenge of the heroic.
L. E. F.
