The Two Standards

Life is a Warfare: a warfare between two standards: the Standard of

Christ and the Standard of Satan. It is a warfare older than the world, for
it began with the revolt of the angels. It is awarfare wide as the world; it
rages in every nation, every city, in the heart of every man.

Satan desires all men to come under his Standard, and to this end
lures them with riches, honors, power, all that ministers to the lust and
pride ofman. Christ on the contrary, invites all to fight under His
Standard. But He offers no worldly allurement; only Himself. Only
Jesus; only the Son of Man; born an outcast, raised in poverty, rejected
as a teacher, betrayed by His friend, crucified as a criminal. And
therefore His followers shall not be confounded forever; they are certain
of ultimate victory; against them, the gates of Hell cannot prevail. The
powers of darkness shall splinter before their splendid battalions. Battle-
scarred but resplendent, they shall enter into glory with Christ, their
king .

Two armies, two Standards, two generals and to every man there
comes the imperious cry of command: Choose! Christ or Satan? Choose!
Sanctity or Sin? Choose! Heaven or Hell? And in the choice he makes, is
summed up the life of every man.
 The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate
a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicatewe can not consecrate
we can not hallowthis ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining before usthat from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotionthat we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vainthat this nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedomand that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth.
 My Shadow
Robert Louis Stevenson (1915)

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that theres none of him at all.

He hasnt got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, hes a coward you can see;
Id think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.