The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-24

as it's advantages, It gives the ene-
 my a chance to attack when he will
 and where he will It enables him tc
 take advantage of any unexpected
 weakness of single intrenchment tc
 destroy the integrity of the whole DO. tsition beyond repair. Though you protect nineteen places effectively, the
 loss of the twentieth means the loss
 of the whole. Bolder generals there.
 fore have usually preferred wholly
 different policy They have striver
 to defend by attacking; to decide the
 campaign once and for all by for. ward movement against the enemy which shall conquer his army as a
 whole and make him once and for al incapable of attack This was Crom-
 wells way. It was Marlborough
 way. It was Napoleons way, It has
 been the way of all those great com
 manders whose genius gave them n- sight into the great principles of sue
 cessful strategy.
 We, too, are engaged in war; ir
 what Bunyan, in one of his less known
 works, calls the holy war, where mans solu is the prize. On this ground each
 one of us has to conduct a campaign
 of his own against the powers of evil.
 What principles of strategy are we to choose? What kind of fight shall we
 elect to make? Shall 1t be defensive one or an aggressive one? Shall 1t be | a war of positions, where each man is satisfied to lay out lines which seem safe and tenable, and rests content to Iabide resolutely within those lines? Or shall it be fight to a finish, where 1 leach man lays his plans to so out and Iconquer the forces of evil, wherever he nets them, and strive if he may to render them forever incapable of effec- tive assault against his soul?
 This is the alternative which is be- fore us to-day On the decis1on of this question will depend the whole charae- ter of your moral life. Is your re- ligion to be one of rules, dealing with { external things and chiefly negative in l character? Or is it to be one of pur- poses which go to the bottom of things and are essentially positive? The former seems the easy way. We have inherited from our fathers certain rules of conduct which are explicit , ando easy to understand. We are told that we must keep our hands clean , physically and morally; that we must avoid lying and cheating, and all the more obvious forms of deceit which when found out would bring us penal ty. These rules are supported by the sanction if social conventions and usage. A character and life based upon these rules Is buttressed by all the artificial advantages which soci- | ety gives. Small wonder, then, that many 8 man Is tempted to rest content with this ineligible and practical sys. | tenn of morals, and to set aside as 8 mere dream any religion or any stand ard of honor which seems to demand more than this.
 And yet man who chooses this philosophy of life or this standard o i character makes a hopeless mistake
 For the sake of aparent ease and ad vantage he not only renounces tht
 chance of doing anything morall, great, but he exposes himself to vex
 atious struggles and insidious peril 1 which are avoided by the man of bold
 CT and more aggressive morals, wh
 strives to keep his heart clean as wei
 as his hands, who refuses to lift II