rmous advantage. Carey the cobbler had mental talents to grace a
Cambridge chair. It took a little longer time to get him into shape for
the pioneer work he did in India. Duff's training gave him a great
advantage.

But God is never in a hurry. He can wait. What He asks is that we shall
bring the best we have natively, with the best possible training, and let
Him use us absolutely as He may wish. And always remember that every
mental power is a gift from Him; that actual power in life must be through
Him only; and that mental gifts are not serviceable save as they are ever
inbreathed by His own Spirit.

This word of Paul's finds most graphic illustration in the book of Judges.
Judges should be put alongside of the first chapter of First Corinthians.
It is a series of pictorial illustrations of what Paul is saying there.
These two books, Joshua and Judges, side by side in the Old Testament
stand in sharpest contrast. The keynote of Joshua is victory; of Judges
defeat. There's music in both, but contrasted music. Joshua rings with
songs in the major key, triumphant, militant, joyous, victorious.

The music of Judges is in the minor, sad and weeping, with the harps
hanging on the willows. Joshua is upon the mountain top with sun shining
and air bracing and outlook inspiring. Judges is down in the valley
bottoms, dark and gloomy, and depressing. Yet Judges has bright spots, and
has spurts of good music interspersed. It is a study in lights and
shadows, bright lights, and dark shadowings, but with the blacker tints
intensifying and overcoming the others.

There are here seven striking illustrations of God's use of strange
unusual means, such as are reckoned weak and trivial. A _left-handed_ man
uses that peculiarity to get a great victory and eighteen years of freedom
for the nation.[24] A farmer with as homely a weapon as an _ox-goad_
delivers his people from oppression.[25] Men came to be so scarce, that is
men that were men enough to take their true place as leaders, that a
_woman_ had to step into the breach, and assume leadership. But the
student of history and of modern times is used to that. The result was
great victory, and a forty years' rest from the nation's enemies.[26]

A _nail_ or _tent-pin_, only a wooden peg, in the hands of a woman with a
hammer helps to make the enemy's defeat more decisive.[27] _Three hundred_
young men with _pitchers and trumpets_ completely rout the three armies of
three nations, and