Battlement-Building

“Prophylaxis” may be a technical term, but it stands for practical truth. To guard against perils is better than subsequent attempts at remedy or consequent pains of remorse. God told his people of old that when they built their flat-roofed houses, on which many an hour would be spent, they must build a battlement. If they did not, and any one fell off, his blood would be on the owner’s head.
Ought we not to put guards at points of peril in our lives,—not for others alone, but for our own exceptional moments? We are not always at our best. We are not always safe where ordinarily we more without peril.

Every deepened conviction, every outward commitment, every vow and pledge and new act of consecration is putting a guard at the point of possible personal danger. Should we not learn the lesson, too, in our city life, that railings are better than ambulances, and building parapets than setting bones? Looking for the springs of evil is a better investment of time than groaning at the muddy mouth of the river; and preventing the sowing of seeds of sin, than taking care of harvests of shame. How much better to guard lives with new hopes and opportunities, new interests and outlooks, to fortify them in advance against danger, than to attempt the restoration and reformation of lives that have suffered remediless!

And who shall dare refuse, though he be strong and steady, to build battlements at dangerous edges of his life, lest a weaker brother may fall where he stood safe? Can any pleasure of “uncharted freedom,” any pride of personal self-indulgence, justify the moral catastrophe which our self-confidence may provoke, our example encourage? Better any barrier of loving self-denial than another’s blood through our loveless self-assertion. Let the brotherhood of Jesus Christ remember the weak brother, and interpret Christian liberty in the light of Christian love.

Maltbie D. Babcock 1858~1901 (excerpt from his book titled Thoughts For Every-Day Living)