Sell, Christian; Battle Scene; Atkinson Art Gallery Collection; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/battle-scene-66267

Sell, Christian; Battle Scene; Atkinson Art Gallery Collection; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/battle-scene-66267

In a well-disciplined army, the officers are not only trained to handle arms and resist an attack from the enemy, but are instructed in the most efficient find successful modes of laying siege to fortresses, defending important stations, from assailants, and, in short, are prepared in every way to meet any plans that may be laid against them. “In this, as in many other cases, it is sadly true that ‘the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.’ The Christian soldier, contending for the truth, is too often content with making a vague trust in God’s help a cloak for indolence and slackness in making use of the powers which were given him to be used against the enemies of the truth. We have to deal with an unsleeping, ever-ready antagonist, one who knows every inch of the battle ground, and has an eagle eye to spy out our weak points. Do we meet him prepared as we should be for the battle?

 

Elizabeth Jane Whately, How to Answer Objections to Revealed Religion (London: Religious Tract Society, n.d. (1875)) p. 2