SOLDIERS AND SERVANTS. TWENTY ADDRESSES TO YOUNG MEN. BY MARY A. LEWIS. Published under the Direction of the Tract Committee. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W. NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO. 1884. TO THE MEMBERS OF MY HARPTON CLASS. MY DEAR FRIENDS,— I am very glad to be able to fulfil the promise which I once made to you of sending you a printed copy of the Bible Lessons we have had together. Some few of the papers you will not recognise, as they were written for my London Class, but I have no doubt that you will remember most of them; and, if they keep you in mind of good resolutions you have made, and encourage you to persevere in the Lord's service, I shall indeed be happy. Do you like the name I have chosen-" Faithful Soldiers and Servants?" Many years ago, in our baptism, these titles were given to us, and beautiful titles they are! How I hope we are showing our right to them by our lives! Are we all "Faithful soldiers?"—loyal, brave, and true: fighting for our heavenly King, guarding His territory without yielding up an inch to the enemy ? Are we all "Faithful servants?"-obedient to our heavenly Master, striving hard to deserve His affection and trust? He only knows; but if any have strayed, may God give him grace to return, and may He keep us all, day after day, and year after year, safe in His loving care, and enable us to "remain His faithful soldiers and servants unto our lives' end." I remain, Yours very sincerely, MARY A. LEWIS. PREFACE. FOR very many years the larger number of classes and meetings for grown-up people have fallen to the share of women. There are Mothers' Meetings and Girls' Bible Classes in plenty, but the young men have all the while been left very much to themselves. They have been looked on as rather formidable beings, who, so long as any other section of the community was unprovided with special teaching, should most assuredly not be meddled with. Now I venture to submit that this is a great mistake. Anything which promotes the too common impression that religion is a matter chiefly for women and children, surely dishonours God, and tends to deprive the men themselves of that strong support which they, in their active, bustling, and tempted lives, need certainly not less than their mothers and sisters. May I therefore put forward an earnest plea that in parishes where teachers fit to undertake grown-up classes are scarce, the young men should not always be the last to be attended to? And let me assure my readers that it is by no means a harder matter to form and keep going a man's class than a woman's. I can say with truth that (with the exception of a few Londoners, when newly brought in), |