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The Warriors

The Warriors

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Warriors, by Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

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Title: The Warriors

Author: Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

Release Date: November 10, 2003 [EBook #10004]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARRIORS ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE WARRIORS

BY ANNA ROBERTSON BROWN LINDSAY PH.D.
AUTHOR OF
WHAT IS WORTH WHILE? CULTURE AND REFORM THE VICTORY OF OUR FAITH

PREFACE

This work was begun nearly five years ago. Since then, the whole face of American history has changed. We have had the Spanish-American War, and the opening-up of our new possessions. In this period of time Gladstone, Li Hung Chang, and Queen Victoria have died; there has also occurred the assassination of the Empress of Austria and of President McKinley. There has been the Chinese persecution, the destruction of Galveston by storm and of Martinique by volcanic action. Wireless telegraphy has been discovered, and the source of the spread of certain fevers. In this time have been carried on gigantic engineering undertakings,—the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Trans-Balkan Railroad, the rebuilding of New York. We have also looked upon the consolidation of vast forces of steel, iron, sugar, shipping, and other trusts. We have witnessed an extraordinary growth of universities, libraries, and higher schools,—the widespread increase of commerce, the prosperity of business, the rise in the price of food, and the great coal-strike of 1902. Perhaps never before in the world's history have there been crowded into five years such dramatic occurrences on the world-stage, nor such large opportunities for the individual man or woman.

It is interesting for me to notice that since the first outlines of the book were written, many things then set down as prophecy have now been fulfilled. It was my purpose, in projecting the essays at what seemed to me to be the dawn of a great religious era, to help the onward movement by a few earnest words. History itself has swept the world far beyond one's dreams, and in completing them, I only ask that they may stand a further witness to the overwhelming majesty and influence of the Christian faith.

ANNA ROBERTSON BROWN LINDSAY

Philadelphia, November 1_st_, 1902

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. CHORDS OF AWAKENING: THE HIGHER CONQUEST
II. PRELUDE: THE CALL OF JESUS
III. PROCESSIONAL: THE CHURCH OF GOD
IV. THE WORLD-MARCH: OF KINGS OF PRELATES AND EVANGELISTS OF SAGES OF TRADERS OF WORKERS

I. CHORDS OF AWAKENING: THE HIGHER CONQUEST

[CUTLER]

     _The Son of God goes forth to war,
           A kingly crown to gain:
     His blood-red banner streams afar:
           Who follows in His train?

     Who best can drink his cup of woe,
           Triumphant over pain;
     Who patient bears his cross below,
           He follows in His train!

     They met the tyrant's brandished steel,
           The lions gory mane;
     They bowed their necks the death to feel:
           Who follows in their train?

     They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
           Through peril, toil, and pain:
     O God, to us may grace be given
           To follow in their train!_

REGINALD HEBER

The universe is not awry. Fate and man are not altogether at odds. Yet there is a perpetual combat going on between man and nature, and between the power of character and the tyranny of circumstance, death, and sin. The great soul is tossed into the midst of the strife, the longing, and the aspirations of the world. He rises Victor who is triumphant in some great experience of the race.

The first energy is combative: the Warrior is the primitive hero. There are natures to whom mere combat is a joy. Strife is the atmosphere in which they find their finest physical and spiritual development. In the early times, there must have been those who stood apart from their tribesmen in contests of pure athletic skill,—in running, jumping, leaping, wrestling, in laying on thew and thigh with arm, hand, and curled fist in sheer delight of action, and of the display of strength. As foes arose, these athletes of the tribe or clan would be the first to rush forth to slay the wild beast, to brave the sea and storm, or to wreak vengeance on assailing tribes. Their valor was their insignia. Their prowess ranked them. Their exultation was in their freedom and strength.

Such men did not ask a life of ease. Like Tortulf the Forester, they learned "how to strike the foe, to sleep on the bare ground, to bear hunger and toil, summer's heat and winter's frost,—how to fear nothing but ill-fame." They courted danger, and asked only to stand as Victors at the last.

Hence we read of old-world warriors,—of Gog and Magog and the Kings of Bashan; of the sons of Anak; of Hercules, with his lion-skin and club; of Beówulf, who, dragging the sea-monster from her lair, plunged beneath the drift of sea-foam and the flame of dragon-breath, and met the clutch of dragon-teeth. We read of Turpin, Oliver, and Roland,—the sweepers-off of twenty heads at a single blow; of Arthur, who slew Ritho, whose mantle was furred with the beards of kings; of Theodoric and Charlemagne, and of Richard of the Lion-heart.

There are also Victors in the great Quests of the world,—the Argonauts, Helena in search of the Holy Rood, the Knights of the Holy Grail, the Pilgrim Fathers. There are the Victors in the intellectual wrestlings of the world,—the thinkers, poets, sages; the Victors in great sorrows, who conquer the savage pain of heart and desolation of spirit which arise from heroic human grief,—Oedipus and Antigone, Iphigenia, Perseus, Prometheus, King Lear, Samson Agonistes, Job, and David in his penitential psalm. And there are the Victors in the yet deeper strivings of the soul—in its inner battles and spiritual conquests—Milton's Adam, Paracelsus, Dante, the soul in The Palace of Art, Abt Vogler, Isaiah, Teufelsdröckh, Paul. To read of such men and women is to be thrilled by the Titanic possibilities of the soul of man!

The world has come into other and greater battle-days. This is an era of great spiritual conflicts, and of great triumphs. To-day faith calls the soul of man to arms. It is a clarion to awake, to put on strength, and to go forth to Holy War. If there were no fighting work in the Christian life, much of the intense energy and interest of the race would be unaroused. There are apathetic natures who do not want to undertake the difficult,—sluggish souls who would rather not stir from their present position. And there are cowards who run to cover. But there is in all strong natures the primitive combative instinct,—the let-us-see-which-is-the-stronger,

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