ONE of the founders of the “Boys’ Brigade” movement, describing the origin of the movement in a recent number of the Independent, says:—
All healthy boys have a love of soldiering born in them.
This intended defense of the military spirit that is permeating the churches, is the strongest condemnation of it. It is very true that boys are born with a love for war, but it is also true that these boys must be “born again” before they can enter the kingdom of heaven. John 3:3. And to the Church was committed the teaching of this vital truth: but instead of condemning the fruits of the natural heart, among which are “emulation, wrath, strife,” the concomitants of war, and teaching that all these belong to the natural heart, to escape which all must be born again, the Church is fostering the natural heart and stamping it with the approval of the Christian Church. The excuse is made that this natural desire of the carnal heart is taken advantage of to get the ear of the boy to teach him that he must be born again. But to do this is to “do evil that good may come,” a proposition condemned by the Scriptures. Romans 3:8. With the one hand the Church is building what with the other it professes to destroy. “Ye cannot serve two masters.” [171]