ead of saving my life I should lose it. I will not go in.
So failed this dastardly plot to get Nehemiah to sin, in order that his
God might desert him. The sentinel stood unmoved at his post, Nehemiah
goes on steadily with his work. Should such a man as I flee? And in
fifty-two days after its commencement, in less than two months, the wall
was finished, vi. 15.
With a huge army, with hundreds of horses, and with twenty elephants,
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, crossed over from Greece to Italy to conquer
the Romans. No elephants had ever before been seen in Italy; and when
the two armies met, and the huge animals advanced with their dark trunks
curling and snorting, and their ponderous feet shaking the earth, the
horses in the Roman army were so terrified that they refused to move,
and Pyrrhus won an easy victory. After the battle was over Pyrrhus
walked amongst the dead, and looked at the bodies of his slain foes. As
he did so, one fact struck him very forcibly, and it was this, the
Romans did not know how to run away. Not one had turned and fled from
the field of battle. The wounds were all in front, not one was wounded
in the back.
'Ah,' said Pyrrhus, 'with such soldiers as that the whole world would
belong to me.'
Soldiers of Christ, let us be brave for the Master. Let the language of
the heart of each in the Lord's army be that of Nehemiah, 'Should such a
man as I flee?' Nay, I will not flee, I will not desert my post, I will
stand my ground, bravely, consistently, perseveringly, unto death.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Paidagogos.
The Tarpeian Rock was the place where Roman criminals who had been
guilty of the crime of treason were executed. They were thrown headlong
from this rock into the valley below, and perished at its base. The rock
took its name from a woman named Tarpeia, who has ever been a disgrace
to her sex, and whose name was hated in Rome, for she was a traitress to
her country. For a long time the war had raged between the Romans and
the Sabines. The Romans were at last compelled to shut themselves up in
their strong fortress, which the Sabines attempted to take, but in vain.
So steep were the rocks on which it stood, so strong were the walls,
that the Sabines must have given up their attempt in despair, had it not
been for the treachery of Tarpeia, the governor's daughter. She looked
down from the fortress into the Sabine host, and she noticed that,
whilst with their right arms the Sabines he
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