17. Caleb.
1894 76 If ever a hopeful disposition were needed, it was when Israel fell into wailings of despair on hearing from the spies such an "evil report" of the dangers before them in Canaan, of the gigantic sons of Anak, and the cities walled up to heaven. But two or three men were undismayed. Caleb strode forward, for "he had another spirit in him," and had "wholly followed the Lord;" and he vehemently urged an immediate advance. "Let us go up at once and possess it," he said, "for we are well able to overcome it." Had the people taken his advice instead of trying to stone him, they would not have had to wander in the wilderness for forty years and leave their carcases there in the end.
Caleb was distinguished by a high, intrepid courage, which, like that of the great Macedonian, desired an empire of wars and difficulties for its sphere. When such a man is consecrated to the service of God, what can he not do? We then lose sight of the mere vulgar successes of earthly conquerors, and survey, in a far higher realm, conflicts more daring and victories infinitely more enduring. Horatius on the Tiber Bridge, defying the sixty thousand Tuscans, shows not a more audacious valour than that shown in the attempt to capture for God the millions of China by the missionary Morrison, or Japan by Xavier, or the Eskimos by Stachs, or the "inarticulate" Terra del Fuegians, in their dense and dreadful abasement, by Gardiner. Such victories may perhaps still be achieved by men, who, like Caleb, "wholly follow the Lord," and who have the impetuous courage of faith and hope.
Whilst, as a warrior, he bore a great resemblance to men like Clive, who with the three thousand, dashes against seventy thousand at Plassey, or Cortes wrecking his ships and marching against a whole nation with a handful of men; he bears most resemblance to Alexander the Great, who continually did such feats as these, but who, above all other men of his time, showed that temper of sanguine and princely generosity which is so often allied to a high and dashing valour. What will you have left for yourself," said Perdiccas to him, "if you give everything away thus?" "Hope," he replied, and, with such as he, hope is more than all beside.
The pessimism of unbelief is one of the deadliest of evils. If it were not for the Calebs who keep up faith and courage in spite of a whole nation's wailing and despairing, what enterprise would ever have been undertaken? In this way the early missionaries, midst universal discouragement, prepared their ventures to attack the citadels of evil: and we have seen with what marvellous result, when even men who reject Christianity, acknowledge with admiration, as Dr. Darwin did, the effects of the holy lives and teachings of the soldiers of the cross on people of the very lowest types. But those who supposed that the day for discouraging such work was past have of late been roughly undeceived, when we have a "Parliament of religions" convened to assist a played-out Christianity, and when in a concourse of ecclesiastical dignitaries it is announced that Christianity in Africa is a failure, and that Mohammedanism is better adapted to raise men in the low condition of the negroes! Mohammedanism, that debases and enslaves its womankind, that says the sword is the key of heaven, that sets the poor negro tribes slaughtering one another in order to carry off the survivors in chain-gangs for slaves! What would Vanderkemp, Moffatt, and Livingstone have thought of that? What would the missionary Shaw's wife have said? When they used to tell her how dangerous and far beneath any hope of christian influence the Kaffirs were, she replied, "If these people are so bad as to be guilty of such atrocities, there is all the more need that we should go forward and teach them better."
It is fit that such discouraging statements should be accompanied by calculations as to how much money it costs for each conversion. Go to, now; let us see then what it does cost to convert a soul! But set down first the labours, sufferings, tears and blood of the great Protomartyr and His disciples; and when that is done, let whoever has a heart capable of it, add on the sordid shillings and pence. Let him next bring the factors to a common denominator — if he can.
When the poor pilgrim got in the Slough of Despond, says the Dreamer, there came one to him who showed him certain stones on which to step, by which he was kept from sinking, and safely reached the solid ground. The Dreamer's sole and sufficient comment on this graphic figure is contained in the two words in the margin, "The promises." This was the reason that he did not sink into the mire of unbelief like the others. He rested on God's promises Five and forty years after Caleb had been promised the personal possession of Kirjath-Arba, he lodged his claim for it, and got it, — giants, walls, and all.
A man like this will retain his youthful heart and sanguine energy to the last, — unless it is broken down by some crushing disaster (which a more phlegmatic nature would perhaps better endure). When he is eighty-five years old, he asks to be given the work of capturing the most difficult fortress in the country, which he straightway storms with his usual dashing prowess, scaling the heaven-high walls, and overthrowing the giant sons of Anak. When too old, twenty years later, to lead an assault himself, he throws his heart into the fray, as Douglas threw the Bruce's heart amongst the Moors: he promises to give his daughter to the man who will capture Kirjath-sepher. In his later years we can detect a suggestion of that garrulity which we are so ready to excuse, and even to encourage, in a veteran with such a record, reminding us of old Nestor in the Iliad. His last recorded action is one of characteristic generosity. Achsah asked him for water springs, and he instantly gave her the upper springs and the nether springs, twice as much as she desired.