War & Peace Quote by William Gurnall

Gurnall’s line turns faith into a draft notice. In a century where English life was repeatedly militarized by civil war, sectarian policing, and the hard fact of death arriving early, “active duty” wasn’t a metaphor you toyed with. It was a category that reorganized your days: obedience, vigilance, readiness to suffer. By yoking “the soldier” and “the Christian,” Gurnall collapses the distance between battlefield discipline and spiritual practice, making devotion feel less like private sentiment and more like an assignment with consequences.

The intent is recruitment and correction at once. He’s not flattering believers as noble warriors; he’s warning them off spiritual complacency. “Summoned” implies external authority and limited choice: God calls, you report. That word also smuggles in accountability. A summoned person can be absent without leave, can desert, can fail inspection. Gurnall’s Puritan-inflected worldview treats the soul as contested territory and daily life as a front line where temptation isn’t an occasional crisis but a standing enemy.

The subtext is psychological: fatigue is not an excuse, and peace is suspect. The soldier’s life is structured around alertness; Gurnall wants that same posture toward prayer, moral restraint, and doctrinal steadiness. It’s persuasive because it offers believers a coherent identity - not consumers of grace, but agents under command - and because it reframes ordinary struggle as meaningful conflict. If you’re exhausted, it’s not proof you’re failing; it may be proof you’re actually in the fight.