by Henry King
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From the introductory to: "How to Make a Rational Fight for Character." In trying to point the way to a rational fight for character I wish to connect all I have to say from the very first with Paul's statement of the outcome of his experience: "O wretched man that I am I who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans vii. 24, 25.) For I am not willing that any man should think, even for a moment, that in taking up some of those subsidiary considerations which we need to have in mind in this fight that we have to make in life, I am forgetting the one great way out. That is, let it be clear that there is no attempt here to find some lower substitute for Christ and the gteat motives of His gospel, but rather positively to state those conditions of all kinds, involved in our very natures, which we need to heed if Christ and the great Christian truths are to have the power with us they ought to have. Any man who believes that God is the Creator of him, body and mind, must also believe that in some true sense God has expressed Himself in this constitution of his being, bodily and mental. God does not mean to ignore the conditions involved in our constitution, nor may we. He has not contradicted Himself in the double revelation of Himself in our natures and in Christ And the great revelation in Christ will mean most to us, as we heed most carefully the laws of our natures. Not through deliberate disobedience to those laws, but through careful heeding of them are we to be saved. Let us not forget that the laws of this being of ours are laws of God, and, therefore, sacredly to be observed. In calling careful attention to the constitutional conditions under which we all have to live out our lives, I strive simply to answer a question that was brought me some time ago by an old pupil of mine who said, "What are we to do in those poorer moments when the higher motives have lost their appeal?" That is the question.
