Practical Wisdom by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 21.

Practical Wisdom.

By W. N. G.

"The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Luke 16:8. Nothing could better illustrate the truth of this expression than the training of the gladiator. For every gladiatorial contest, whether it be a football game, a rowing contest, a wrestling match, or a prize fight, the contestants recognize the necessity of earnest preparation. With a persistent continuance in a self-denying drill worthy of a better cause, the man who may be but a drunken loafer at other times, will maintain a strict abstemious diet for weeks at a time, that he may be fitted to contend for the mastery over his opponent. He will place himself under the absolute control of the most skillful trainer, who not only orders his exercise and his rest, but also his meat and drink, and if need be his raiment. He not only throws off every artificial weight that might be a hindrance, regardless of etiquette or fashion, but he seeks to reduce his superfluous flesh, that he may not be unnecessarily hindered. Whether he eat, or drink, or sleep, or run, or walk, or labor, or converse, he does all with special reference to winning the contest before him.

An incident is told of a well-known "champion," whose appetite for drinking and gormandizing is ordinarily uncontrollable, that shows how much he appreciated the necessity of self-denial when training for a fight. On one occasion, when some companions called upon him, his trainer allowed him to take a glass of beer with them. Even with the appetite thus whetted, on the glass being filled again and raised in his hand, and he looked at the trainer for a nod of approval, the latter merely shook his head, and down went the glass on the table, the tempting draught untouched. "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." 1 Cor. 9:25. Shall we, then, who run the race for eternal life, be less earnest, less self-denying, less obedient to our Preceptor, than he who contends for the gold that rusts and the empty applause of earth's lowest rabble? God forbid!

W. N. G.