Newport weekly independent., 1901-05-30
THE BATTLE OF LIFE
How the End of the Struggle May
 Be Frightened.
Lesson Which May Be Learned from Roasting of Benhadad, the King of Syria-Humanity En-
 couraged.
ECopyright, 19O1 by Louis Klopsch, N. VI
 Washington Dec 99

manity and shows how the evening of life may be frightened. The text is 1 Kings, 20:11: Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off"
 Harness is the obsolete word for ar nor. It means harness for the man, not harness for the beast; harness for battle, not harness for the blow. The ancient armor consisted of helmet for the head, breastplate and shield for the heart, greayes for the feet The text makes comparison between man enlisting for some war and veteran returning, the one putting on the ar nor and the other putting it off.
 Benhadad, the king of Syria, thought he could easily overcome the king of Israel. Indeed, the Syrian was so sure of the victory that he spread an ante bellum banquet. With 32 kings he was celebrating what they were going to do. There were in all 33 kings at the ca rousal and their condition is described in the Bible not as convivial or stim- ulated exaltation, but drunk. Their gilded and bannered pavilions were sur rounded by high -mettled horses, neigh ing a9d champing, and hitched to char iots such as kings rode in. Benhadad sends officers to the king of Israel de- manding the surrender of the city, say ing: Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold and thy wives and thy children" and afterward sends other officers, saying that the palace of the l.. Benhadad wants he will take without asking. Then the king of Israel called a council of war and word is sent back. to Benhadad that his ble de- mand will be resisted. Then Benhadad sends another message to the king of Israel, message full of,arrogance and bravado, practically saying: We will destroy you utterly. l will grind Sa maria into the dust, but there will not be dust enough to make handful for each one of my troops" Then the king of Israel replied to Benhadad, prac tically saying: ''Let me see you do what you say. You royal bra ggart, you miglt better have postponed your ban 1get until after the battle instead of spreading it before the battle. You huzza too soon. Let not him that gird- eth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off. !"
 An avalanche of courage and right eousness, the Israelitish army came down on Benhadad and his host. It was hand to hand fight, each Israelite hewing down a Syrian. Benhadad, on horseback, gets away with some of the cavalry, but is only saved for worse defeat, in which 100000 Syrian infan- try were slaughtered in one day. Now we see the sarcasm and the epigram- matic power of the message of my text sent by the king of Israel to Benhadad: "Let not him that girdeth on his har- ness boast himself as he that putteth it off
 All up and down history we see such too early boasting. Soult, the marshal of France, was so certain that he would conquer that he had procla- nation printed announcing himself king of Portugal and had grand feast prepared for four o'clock that after noon, but before that hour he fled in ignominious defeat, and Wellington of the conquering host sat down at four o'clock at the very banquet the mar shal of France had ordered for himself Charles V. invaded France and was so sure of conquest that he requested kaul Jovius, the historian, to gather her a large amounttof paper on
 to write the story of his many
 \, but disease and famine seized
 Troopers and he retreated in
 10 Benhadad's behavior has
 in all ages of the world.
 object, among other les
 that he who puts off
 hg finished the battle,
 ngratulated than he
 Hagement in this
 who have got
 struggle of
 klll appre-