by our mere existence; some by our best actions; some
because we have helped and not hurt others; and some
out of nothing else but the pure original devilry
of their own evil hearts. And then, when we
take all these men home to our hearts, what hearts
all these men give us! Who, then, is the man
here who has done to other men the most hurt?
Who has caused or been the occasion of most hurt?
Let that so unhappy man just think that the gallant
commander, the Captain Innocent himself, with his
white colours and with his golden doves, is standing
and knocking at your evil door. O unhappy man!
By all the hurt and harm you have ever done—by
all that you can never now undo—by those
spotless colours that are still snow and not yet scarlet
as they wave over you—by those three golden
doves that are an emblem of the life that still lies
open before you, as well as an invitation to you to
enter on that life—why will you die of
remorse and despair? Open the door of your heart
and admit Captain Innocent. He knows that of
all hurtful men on the face of the earth you are the
most hurtful, but he is not on that account afraid
at you; indeed, it is on that account that he has come
so near to you. By admitting him, by enlisting
under him, by serving under him, some of the most
hurtful and injurious men that ever lived have lived
after to be the most innocent and the most harmless
of men, with their hands washed every day in innocency,
and with three golden doves as the scutcheon of their
new nature and their Christian character. Oh
come into my heart, Captain Innocent; there is room
in my heart for thee!
5. ’And then the fifth was that truly
royal and well-beloved captain, the Captain Patience.
His standard-bearer was Mr. Suffer-long, and for a
scutcheon he had three arrows through a golden heart.’
Three arrows through a golden heart! Most eloquent,
most impressive, and most instructive of emblems!
First, a heart of gold, and then that heart of gold
pierced, and pierced, and then pierced again with arrow
after arrow. Patience was the last of Emmanuel’s
pickt graces. Captain Patience with his pierced
heart always brought up the rear when the army marched.
But when Captain Patience and Mr. Suffer-long did
enter and take up their quarters in any house in Mansoul,—then
was there no house more safe, more protected, more
peaceful, more quietly, sweetly, divinely happy than
just that house where this loyal and well-beloved captain
bore in his heart. Entertain patience, my brethren.
Practise patience, my brethren. Make your house
at home a daily school to you in which to learn patience.
Be sure that you well understand the times, the occasions,
the opportunities, and the invitations of patience,
and take profit out of them; and thus both your profit
and that of others also will be great. Tribulation
worketh patience. Endure tribulation, then, for
the sake of its so excellent work. Nothing worketh
patience like tribulation, and therefore it is that