Their Second Great Leader
By Emma Hildreth Adams
IN the administration of affairs in all the strong countries of the globe, men are appointed by kings and other rulers to positions of vast trust and responsibility. Such positions demand incumbents who possess qualities, accomplishments, and powers, of the very highest order. Men are chosen to fill them who have had distinctive, if not extraordinary, training in the lines of duties they are to perform, in the class of affairs they are to transact. They must be men of acumen, and of wide experience, men self-controlled and of broad mental grasp, men who can discern the distant and sometimes dim outcome and consequences of astute propositions and courses of action. A man, all of whose strong years had been spent in the study and practise of agriculture, would hardly be selected by the President to aid in the adjustment, on the puzzling field of diplomacy, of a subject tangled, complicated, and perplexing. He would choose a citizen skilled in international affairs, a man who would adhere to a just path in spite of the sometimes devious ways of plenipotentiaries. Moreover, he would equip him with all true data, documents, and information needful to success in his mission. And, so, also, when circumstances and events led to the decision to send out over the great seas the stateliest armada upon the longest cruise ever attempted in time of peace or time of conflict, supreme command thereof was not committed to a man picked from civilian circles, however skilled in trade or profession. No call was made for the millionaire owner of railroads; none for the greedy manipulator in stocks and bonds; none for the great body of learned lawmakers of the country; none for the artist whose brush entrances by its almost speaking products; and none even for him, who, thru his telescope, lives nightly amid the dual streams of flashing worlds, ever speeding into infinite distance. But there was notified to be ready, the one man, who, in rank, knowledge, skill, versatile experience, extended practise, and habit of command, gave clearest assurance of success to the unique and striking adventure—Admiral Robley D. Evans. Kindred, in a sense, to this summons, was that which, over thirty-three centuries ago, drew from amid the Israelitish host into remarkable publicity the man who was to conduct the immense, eager throng of men, women, and children, that day crowding the eastern edge of the Jordan, into their home land, a land long promised, waited for thru forty wearisome years, and now teeming with excited, alert, and powerful enemies. But that man's summons came not from a leader of one of the great nations of the world. His call came from the lips of the King of Kings, from the Lord of the whole earth. Listen to the ringing, the wonderful words of that appointment to office. They form a most intensely interesting and highly fitting introduction to the instructive book of Joshua. "The Lord spake unto Joshua, Moses' minister, saying: Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. . . . "There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage, for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, . . . to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee. . . . This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, . . . to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Truly, there was enough in the task thus suddenly set for Joshua to fill the mind of an ordinary man with fear and dismay. To have been ordered to enter, occupy, and subdue, successfully even an unoccupied wilderness land would have been to face a feat that would have demanded nerve, awakened dread, suggested inability. But to be told to arise and transfer into the domain of an apprehensive and vengeful enemy a body like that of Israel—numbering millions—craving no permission, offering no compensation therefor, but claiming the beautiful, blooming, and productive territory as their own, was an undertaking full of threatening, great like the mountains of Lebanon. There is scarcely a chapter in the book of Joshua which does not record some act or event, some incident or occurrence, of intense interest connected with the remarkable passage of the Jordan—then overflowed far beyond its banks—by the hosts of Israel, their impressive and startling entrance into Canaan, their quick and multiplied victories over the inhabitants, and the actual division, among the twelve tribes, of the land of milk and honey. All thru the changeful and fascinating narrative one notes the true greatness, the steady courage, the calm triumphs, and the clear, wise decisions of the new leader. One realizes that he was completely equipped to be the successor of the great Moses "whom God knew face to face." The conducting of that trying multitude of enslaved men and women out from sharp, stinging bondage in Egypt, over deserts, around mountains, amid watchful enemies, onward to the very doorway of smiling freedom beside the Jordan, bearing nobly, meanwhile, their censure, their criticisms, their murmurings, thru the forty years of wilderness wandering, was a magnificent display of successful generalship. But not less imposing, not less worthy of admiration, as an exhibition of superb ability to command, was that stepping promptly to the front of that waiting, probably impatient multitude, and shouldering the appalling responsibility of conducting that7host into its home land on the other side of that wide, impetuous tide, illuminating the pathway to settlement with brilliant victories over their enemies, and all the days holding the hearts of the now freed men faithful to God and to His law. It is said of Joshua, as of Moses, that he was "full of the spirit of wisdom." Aside, then, from natural traits and abilities, both men must have been quite faultless as leaders. The circumstances under which they wrought their great deeds were different. Only infinite wisdom, then, can judge them impartially. Both men seem to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, that peculiar characteristic which Mr. Henry Drummond terms "capacity for God," that is, power to estimate, to comprehend God, the being, the nature, the inherent qualities of God.