And others, who in their early years came to Christ, are now occupying leading positions all over the world. One of them remembers, when a lad of fifteen, hearing The General, whilst giving out the verse, "Sure, I must fight, if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord," say, "I would like to alter it, to--'Sure, I will fight, and I shall reign.'" The lad shouted, "Hallelujah!" and, as he was on the front seat in the theatre, The General both heard and noticed him, and remarked: "I hope you will make as good a fighter as you are a shouter." Thirty-three years of faithful warfare have replied to The General's encouraging challenge.
And we have no means as yet of calculating how many such youthful disciples have been equally helped by The General into a conquering life. May this record help to multiply the number, for it is the will of God to make all His children "strong in the power of His might."
It is, indeed, this bringing all, whether old or young, forward, in the development of all their powers for God, which constitutes everywhere a great part of The Army's work.
The enlarging influence of a close contact with Christ has hardly yet been fully realised even by ourselves. The peasant, whose whole circle of thought was so limited and stereotyped that his life only rose by few degrees above that of the animals he drove before him, is taught by The Army to pray and sing to the Maker and Saviour of the world:--
Give me a heart like Thine; By Thy wonderful power, By Thy grace every hour, Give me a heart like Thine.
In a few years' time you will find that man capable of directing the War over a wide stretch of country--dealing not merely with as many Meetings in a week as some men would be content to hold in a year, and with the diversified needs of thousands of souls; but taking his share in any business transactions, or councils with civic authorities, as ably as any city-born man.
What has so enlarged his capacity, broadened his sympathies, and turned him into the polite and valued associate of any one, high or low, with whom he comes in contact? His library, if, indeed he has any, beyond the few Army publications he needs for his work, is still scanty enough to make his removal at a few hours' notice remarkably easy, and he will not be found much in public reading-rooms either. He has very little time for fellowship with any of the intelligent friends who, for The Army's sake, might now be willing to help him on.