Discipline and Obedience
Illustration★★★I suppose every man here was thrilled in his boyhood days by the story of how Wolfe took Quebec. Who has not read the story alone, perhaps in some field or meadow, or in some lonely corner of the schoolyard, and lived the scene over again-how the boat dropped down the river St. Lawrence, and the one order to the men was this: “Perfect silence.” No shout, no whisper, but wait.
And then, in the dead silence, the awfully perilous ascent of the heights of Quebec, a company of men through the night winding their way up the narrow pathway. If the enemy once hear them, if the enemy once suspect their presence, nothing can save them, for half-a-dozen men can hold the defile at the other end. Everything depends upon discipline, silence,—the mounting of the heights until the last man is ready for the captain’s word to strike the blow. And we know how those men ascended; no sound was heard, up and up while the hours passed on until, when the last man was upon the height, the word was given, and Quebec was taken.
It was a perfect picture of the truth that consecration to work expresses itself in discipline and obedience, something that we ever need to remember (Neh. vi. 15).-DR. CAMPBELL MORGAN. The Art of Sermon Illustration
The point
Recalling how General Wolfe's soldiers silently scaled the heights above Quebec under strict discipline before capturing the city, the preacher draws a lesson that true consecration expresses itself through discipline and obedience.