CHAPTER IV.

The Struggle.

"I KNOW all that you will say, Miriam," began Hamil, who was the first to break silence, looking down gloomily at the dusty grass before him. "You don't suppose that I've not often thought of my promise, and tried to keep it too. I had not so much as entered a public since I received your letter, till a few days ago, and then two of my comrades, jovial fellows, laughed me out of my resolutions, and got me to stand treat."

"And so the door was opened to the enemy," suggested Miriam, sadly; "you did not find it easy to close it again."

"I'll not deny it, I took more than was good for me, and I was near getting into a scrape at the time. But the worst of it is," continued Hamil more rapidly, kicking up the dust with the heel of his boot, "the worst of it is, that now the thirst and the longing is awakened again, and it seems as if I could not resist them! I do not want to disgrace myself, nor to vex you, Miriam, but I hardly am my own master in this. No one knows, but those who have felt it, the difficulties which beset a man who would get rid of a taste for spirits."

"Hamil, you are a soldier, a brave, noble soldier, one who never, in the field, was daunted or kept back by difficulties," said Miriam, pressing the arm of her brother. "Remember the fearful mountain passes through which you went with the army in Abyssinia. Of what long weary marches you have told me, when you had to struggle up heights, through stony, almost impassable defiles, till your breath failed, and your muscles were strained, and you felt that your limbs could scarcely support your weight. But difficulties did not turn you back then. You were the Queen's faithful soldier and were willing to serve her to the death."

"I could not have held back then," observed Hamil.

"And can you hold back now?" cried Miriam. "Oh! Hamil, remember what our curate said to us before our confirmation; you and I can never forget that sermon. He told us that we are all the enlisted soldiers or Christ, with His weapons to bear, and His battles to fight, and that for His sake we must all learn to 'endure hardness.' *

"Life is our one great campaign, sin is our great enemy, and the Lord Christ Himself the Captain of our salvation. If we follow Him we must expect to have to face some difficulties, if we follow Him we must fight. Oh dear brother, after hearing that sermon, do you not recollect how you and I went together to the wood in the hollow, and, under the great beech-tree, prayed that we might indeed be Christ's faithful soldiers and servants to the end of our lives?"

* 2 Tim. ii. 3.

Hamil heaved a deep sigh; sweet and holy was the remembrance of that day in their early youth, when he and his twin sister had resolved that, come what might, they would ever keep steady in the service of Him who had Himself triumphed over Satan, and who could make them more than conquerors by the strength of His Holy Spirit. The whole scene came back on the soldier's mind; the golden sunlight streaming through the boughs on the ground strewn with the brown fallen beech-mast, the sound of a stream gurgling near, the hum of a bright insect on the wing that had hovered around the twins where they sat on the mossy seat afforded by the gnarled roots of the tree.

Hamil passed his hand across his eyes as he murmured, "Would I were now what I was then!"

"You may be more, much more than you were then," cried Miriam. "You and I were but as young untried recruits, who knew little of what might be before us, but who were ready boldly to face an enemy, whenever one might attack us. Now, you are as one bearing the burden and heat of the day, you know your enemy—"

"A great deal too well," interrupted Hamil; "he has not only attacked, but has got the better of me at last."

"Only for a time!" cried Miriam, eagerly. "Never despair, the struggle is not yet over! You were, as one may say, a straggler from the ranks, you were not on your guard, the enemy took you at disadvantage. He struck you down for a moment, but you are up and at him again, you won't give in, you'll fight to the end. Is it not written in the Bible, 'Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you?' * Wrestle against temptation, and overcome it, dear brother, in the name and in the strength of the Lord!"

* James iv. 7.

Miriam's eyes sparkled as she spoke, and, as Hamil looked on that bright animated face raised so earnestly to his own, the voice of his only sister roused his spirit like the call of a trumpet sounding to arms.

"Ah! Miriam," cried the young soldier, "if I had you always beside me to keep me up to the mark, I think that something might be made of me yet. Come what may, you are always ready to rush to the rescue. It's the old story of the viper again; I wish that you could stamp your foot upon my enemy, intemperance, as you did on the venomous reptile."

"You must do that for yourself, or rather you must ask God to do it for you, Hamil, struggling hard yourself all the time. There is such comfort in that text which you and I learned together years ago; 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'" *

* 1 Cor. x. 13.

"Victory over sin is certainly worth a struggle," said Hamil.

"It is worth the hardest, the longest struggle!" cried Miriam, who felt that her words were making an impression on the mind of her brother. "Oh! Hamil, was it not joy when, after all that you had suffered, after all that you had done, you stood a conqueror in King Theodore's fortress of Magdala! Was it not joy when you returned to old England to receive such a welcome as is given to victors alone? But what is such joy compared to that of the Christian soldier, one who has been enabled to triumph over enemies without and within, the world, the flesh, and the Devil, if, at life's close, he can say with St. Paul, 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.'" †

† 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.

"Miriam, my sister, I thank God for sending you to me," said the soldier, pressing the hand of his twin. "I was throwing down my weapons, I was yielding to the foe, or rather, like a deserter, going over to his side. I have been worse than a coward in the battle of life. But from this hour, God helping me, I'll stick to my colours, and follow my Leader! I'll never set my foot within the door of a place where I know from experience that the enemy would have me at an advantage. I'll pray not to be led into temptation, and I'll keep, as far as I can do so, out of the way of temptation."

The heart of Miriam bounded with joy. She looked on the fine, manly, bronzed countenance of her brother, with the expression of calm resolution upon it, and felt how great, how glorious is the Christian's struggle against besetting sin, when he engages in it, "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." *

* Eph. vi. 10.