Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/161

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merely keeping school rules and doing what is right yourself and keeping out of the way of any fellows who you know are doing wrong, or if you stand by and listen to them saying what they ought not, without reproof, you are doing wrong. No, that won't do. It is part of the essence of good to fight against evil. You must set your face strongly against all that is bad, and must put down not only all that you find in the course of your walk, but you must go out of your walk to find it in order to put it down."

There has been much complaint these last years because in high places in this land there have been men who were troublers of the nation. The great need of the nation has been men who were prepared to make trouble in order that, at last, righteousness might come. Things that have thought themselves secure will be shaken; long vested interests that have believed themselves to be sacred will have their sanctity scrutinized; and men will come at last into their rights and their righteousness, if we are prepared, following the old Tishbite, to live our lives before the God Who is alive.

And this same principle brings peace and quiet and tranquillity to men. Elijah shook once, we know, but only once. Every time we see him on the public stage, no matter whom he is confronting—Jezebel, Ahab, Obadiah, Ahaziah—he is standing with confident soul, quiet and