e nor leisure to give ear to
Satanic suggestions."[26]

VI. _Staying not the Hand_

We are told in the Second Book of the Kings[27] that when the prophet
Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died, Joash, the King
of Israel, came unto him. The man of God commanded him to take the
arrows and smite upon the ground, whereupon the King, weak in ambition,
and with no vision of God's destiny for him as a national deliverer,
smote thrice upon the ground and stayed. "And the man of God was wroth
with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then
hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." If he who goes
forth to fight for God would utterly consume the enemy, he must seek
the vision of His purpose for him, and if he is truly ambitious of
heavenly honours it is not far to seek.

We can quite safely say that God never predestined any soul barely to
win the victory. He plans high things for all his children, but how
many are there who never attain them because, like the king of Israel,
they are giving Him a {145} spiritless service. They smite thrice with
the arrows of deliverance and stay their hand. They are content to
remain on a low spiritual plane, within the pale of divine grace
indeed, but satisfied with this, and using their further energies for
passing earthly things instead of devoting them with a burning
splendour of enthusiasm to an ever higher service in the kingdom that
shall have no end.

How disappointing are such lives to God! He had meant to promote them
to great honour, and they have no aspiration above the lowest place.
Nor can they plead that they know not His purpose for them. The
Scriptural revelation is full of the highest assurances. God lays wide
open before us the plan He has prepared for our glory. He tells us in
a hundred passages, every utterance eloquent with love, what it all is,
and He stays in His description only when the finite mind of man cannot
follow Him; and then He cries: "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him."[28]

If we are to rise up to satisfy the divine measure of our predestined
glory, we must smite not thrice, but five or six times. We must smite
not only {146} until we feel the assault stayed, but until we are sure
that the tempter has acknowledged himself defeated. Some spiritual
guides advise the soul pursuing the tempter,