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consequently unable to devote himself to any lucrative employment, must be in great measure protected against the debasing passion of avarice.
The inspiration of the life is Promotion from Above.
Evidently the soldier's compensation is not the inspiration of his calling; and it is perhaps more true of him than of any other man that his chief inspiration is honorable advancement in his profession.
Call it love of glory, if you please; even at that it is almost infinitely more elevating and ennobling than love of money, which is the ruling motive of much the larger part of mankind, certainly in this age and land.
But the soldier does not call it love of glory.
He is no moral philosopher or theorist; he is a practical man, and his inspiration, that of which he talks and dreams, that for which he serves and strives, is all embodied in one word -promotion. This is “the life of the service.”
So peculiarly true is this that the soldier's progress has well nigh appropriated.
the term “promotion,” as the soldier's life has appropriated the title “service.”
But it is not the desire for promotion, however inspiring, to which I wished chiefly to ask your attention, but rather the peculiar law of military promotion, namely, that it is promotion from above. Before you estimate the importance of this feature, let me ask you another question: What is the second great demoralizing influence of our age, and particularly of our country?
I have not here the Word of God for answer; but in these days of unblushing demagogism I am sure of your concurrence when I say, it is flattery and service of the mob, cowardly concession to it, in order to secure promotion from below. I mean no reflection upon the right or principle of suffrage; but the practice of suffrage, and the means commonly resorted to to control it for personal ends are at once a disgrace to free government and a degradation of the candidate and the voter.
No honest man can now pass through a political contest without being disgusted, if happily he be not also surprised, at the means employed against him.
The true soldier knows nothing of such contests or influences.
He never dreams of promotion by any other power
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