I long to have the children feel that there is nothing in this world more attractive, more earnestly to be desired than manhood in Jesus Christ.
MANLINESS.
The manliness of Christian love, and the putting away from ourselves of all fear, because we are "perfected in love," is one of the highest lessons that the gospel teaches us, and one of the greatest things which the gospel gives us.
The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.
In proportion as man gets back the spirit of manliness, which is self-sacrifice, affection, loyalty to an idea beyond himself, a God above himself, so far will he rise above circumstances, and wield them at his will.
"The work of men"—and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one—we want to keep back part of the price; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the weight of it—as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to be—crucified upon. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."
