Eternal Vigilance by R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 11, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 31.

Eternal Vigilance

By R.

SOME grow tired of this constant urging to vigilance: vigilance of the rights of men to prevent curtailment of liberty; vigilance in business to secure success; vigilance in personal education and training to reach the aim worth while; vigilance in matters of health to prevent disease and death and guarantee strength and happiness; vigilance in the realm of the soul lest the enemy of all righteousness cause us to fail in the great battle of life. If we do not appreciate the crying need of vigilance, it may be well for us to read these words from Mr. Chesterton:

“All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone, it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white, you must be always painting it again. . . . This which is true even of inanimate things, is in quite a special and terrible sense true of all human things.”

The admonition of the Master is, “Strive,” because many would merely “seek to enter in and shall not be able.” The parable of the talents, and especially of the fate of him who left his gift alone, hidden in the earth, points to the moral of vigilance as the price of progress and acceptance, and of letting alone, leading to the awful fate of decay, wickedness, and rejection.

The old Book says that the diligent man shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men. And it also says that what our hands find to do we should do with our might for death will bring an end of all endeavor, and it comes to us all too soon.

The wise man says, “I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.” And the picture was not meant alone for the keeper of the fields; it is a parable of the life and the soul. Letting the life alone will bring it into the same pitiable plight. The thorns, the nettles, and the broken-down defenses of the soul in this picture, are all too apparently apt and significant. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” R.