So Did Not I

A S we walk through history with a Diogenes’s lantern in our hand, it is always pleasant to come upon an honest and a noble man. Such an one was Nehemiah, the rebuilder and reformer of Jerusalem. He stands in the Scripture gallery of characters as John Hampden’s statue stands in the line of illustrious worthies which flanks the entrance to the British Parliament.

Nehemiah was a man who understood the power of that prodigious word;’JVb.” When he left the Persian capital at Shushan, he went down to Jerusalem determined to do something to relieve his suffering people there. The dear old city was in ruins. The Jews who had returned thither from Babylon were oppressed and plundered. The same kind of abuses had crept in which have disgraced some of our city governments. Nehemiah lays hold of practical reforms with an unsparing hand. First he arouses the people with a trumpet-peal to “rise up and build77 the ruined walls. Then he abolishes the oppressive taxation, and the desecrations of the Sabbath and the Temple. His predecessors in office had been receiving big salaries, and had allowed their underlings to fleece the people. Nehemiah might have cited their example as a precedent, and followed in their wake — after the manner in which greedy officeholders or plunderers thrust their arms into public treasuries in our day. But his simple, manly statement is: “So did not I, because of the fear of God.” Nobly said! We wish every young man would write those sharp, ringing words in his note-book, and determine to make the same answer whenever he is tempted to do a selfish or a wicked act. The most tremendous word in the English language is the short yet mighty word NO. It has been the pivot on which innumerable destinies have turned, for this world and the next. Spoken at the right moment, it has saved multitudes from disgrace, from ruin — yes, from an endless hell! The splendid career of Joseph turned on the prompt “no” spoken at the very nick of time. Had he stopped to parley with that wanton woman (as too many young men stop to talk with a brighteyed temptress in the street), he would have been lost. “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” saved him from the dizzy edge of the precipice. Daniel might easily have said to himself: “Oh! every body about the court here drinks wine and lives high on the king’s meat. I do not want to be thought queer or puritanical.” He dared to be singular. At the end of two weeks he had a cleaner countenance and a sweeter breath than any of the fastlivers in the palace. “So did not I” was the motto of this sturdy young teetotaler. If he had yielded to the current of temptation and drifted with it, we never should have heard of such a man as Daniel.

All the people who make a marked success in life and who achieve any good work for God are the people who are not ashamed to be thought singular. The man who runs with the crowd counts for nothing. It is when he turns about and faces the multitude who are rushing on to do evil that he commands every eye. Then by a bold protest he may “put a thousand to flight.” So the young monk, Luther, turned about and faced the hosts of the Papacy. His heroic “No,” nailed up on the church-door of Wittenberg, aroused Europe from its delusive and deadly dreams. Standing alone, he was re-enforced by the Almighty.

But it is not only the Luthers, the Wilberforces, the John Quincy Adamses, and the Sumners who make their mark by being singular. Every young man and woman, in their humbler spheres, must come out and be separate from the company of sinners, if they wish to save their characters and their souls. The downward pull of sin is tremendous. To be able firmly to say “Yet will I not” requires the grace from above in the heart. There is a subtle pull, also, in the drift of sinful fashion and usage which carries away every one who is not well established on a Bible conscience. Three fourths of all the persons who are drowned on the sea-shore are swept out by the undertow. This is the secret influence which takes hold of so many church-members and carries them off into extravagant living, into sinful amusements, and all manner of worldly conformities. Every true Christian is bound to be a nonconformist. If he is not well anchored for Christ, he is swept away by the undertow. The bottom of the great deep is strewed with such backsliders.

I would press this truth home upon every young man who reads this article: your salvation depends on your ability to say “No.” When your principle is put to the test, ask God’s help and stand firm. The messmates of Captain Hedley Vicars sneered at him as a “Methodist” and a fanatic. He put his Bible on the table in his tent and then stood by his colors. A British soldier once told me that Vicars was a spiritual power in his regiment. We had just such Christian heroes in our army during the war.

In every school the difference is clearly marked between the boy who has moral pluck and the boy who is mere pulp. The one knows how to say “No.” The other is so afraid of being thought “verdant” that he soon kills every thing pure and fresh and manly in his character and dries up into a premature hardness of heart. Five lads were once gathered in a room at boarding-school, and four of them engaged in a game of cards, which was expressly forbidden by the rules. One of the players was called out. The three said to the quiet lad, who was busy at something else: “Come, take a hand with us. It is too bad to have the game broken up.” “I do not know one card from another.” “That makes no difference,” exclaimed the players. “We will show you how. Come along.” Now, that was a turning-point in that lad’s life. He nobly said: “My father does not wish me to play cards, and I will not disobey him.” That sentence settled the matter and settled his position among his associates. He was the boy who could say “No”; and thenceforward his victories were made easy and sure. I well remember the pressure brought to bear in college upon every young man to join in a wine-drink or to take a hand in some contraband amusement. Some timber got well seasoned. Some of the other sort got well rotted through with sensuality and vice. The Nehemiahs at college have been Nehemiahs ever since. The boy was father of the man.

The only motive that could hold back the brave nonconformist at Jerusalem was a godly conscience. “So did not I, because of the fear of God J1 This ever-present principle held him firm when temptation struck him, as the undercurrents strike against the keel. What the fear of God did for Nehemiah, faith in the Lord Jesus will do for you. Christ must be to you a pattern, and he must be to you a power. It is not enough to believe on

Jesus. You must “add to your faith courage11 (for that is the real meaning of the word translated “virtue” in our English Bibles). Then, with Christ as your model and Christ as your inward might, you will always be able to face down temptation with the iron answer: “So will not I.”