se? I merely speak, and I am obeyed. I am merely spoken to,
and I obey. Shall not God merely speak, and be obeyed likewise?
There is discipline and order among men, because it is necessary.
An Army cannot be manoeuvred, a Government cannot be carried on,
without it. Is there not a discipline and order in all heaven and
earth? And that discipline is carried out by simple word of
command. A word from me will make a man rush upon certain death. A
word from certain other men will make me rush on certain death. For
I am a man under authority. I have my tribune (colonel, as we
should say) over me; and he, again, the perfect (general of brigade)
over him. Their word is enough for me. If they want me to do a
thing, they do not need to come under my roof, to argue with me, to
persuade me, much less to thrust me about, and make me obey them by
force. They say to me, 'Go,' and I go; and I say to those under me,
'Go,' and they go likewise.

And if I can work by a word, cannot this Jesus work by a word
likewise? He is a messenger of God, with commission and authority
from God, to work his will on his creatures. Are not God's
creatures as well ordered, disciplined, obedient, as we soldiers
are? Are they not a hundred times better ordered? A messenger from
God? Is he not a God himself; a God in goodness and mercy; a God in
miraculous power? Cannot he do his work by a word, far more
certainly than I can do mine? If my word can send a man to death,
cannot his word bring a man back to life? Surely it can. 'Lord,
thou needest not to come under my roof; speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed.'

By some such thoughts as these, I suppose, had this good soldier
gained his great faith; his faith that all God's creatures were in a
divine, and wonderful order, obedient to the will of God who made
them; and that Jesus Christ was God's viceroy and lieutenant (I
speak so, because I suppose that is what he, as a soldier, would
have thought), to carry out God's commands on earth.

Now remember that he was the first heathen man of whom we read, that
he acknowledged Christ. Remember, too, that the next heathen of
whom we read, that he acknowledged Christ, was also a Roman
centurion, he whom the old legends call Longinus, who, when he saw
our Lord upon the cross, said, 'Truly this _was_ the Son of God.'
Remember, again, that the next heathen of whom we read as having
acknowledged Christ, he to whom St. Peter was se