Bible Commentaries

CHRIST AND THE CHILDREN

‘And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them.… And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them.’

Mark 10:13-16

The scene here is one of surpassing beauty. Preachers, artists, poets, have conspired to do honour to it. Christ rejoiced in the simplicity and trustfulness of children, and in the joy and gladness of their lives. He watched their games in the market-place. He took a little boy in His arms in an earlier chapter (Mark 9:36). And some of His latest words were: ‘Feed My lambs.’

I. What Jesus saw.—He saw young children brought to Him that He might ‘… put His hands on them, and pray’ (Matthew 19:13). Mark says ‘touch.’ It is the touch of Christ that saves sinners and makes saints. Why is one child so different from another? Because that child is ‘touched’ by the grace of Christ. Grace makes the difference. But Christ also saw His disciples rebuking those that brought them. Yet none are too young to be blessed by Jesus. ‘They enter the narrow way easiest who enter earliest.’

II. What Jesus felt.—He was delighted that the young children should come to Him, and ‘He was much displeased,’ or, as R.V. has it, ‘He was moved with indignation’ with those who would have kept them from Him. The Great Head of the Church did not think boys and girls of little importance.

III. What Jesus said (Mark 10:14).—Children are found in the Kingdom of God on earth, and they occupy a prominent place in the Kingdom of glory.

IV. What Jesus did (Mark 10:16. See also Isaiah 40:10; Zechariah 13:7).—The Greek word used for ‘blessed’ is used here only in N.T.; it means He rained down blessings on them: He gave a particular blessing to those particular children. Let us ask Him to do for us what He did for them—to take us in His arms, put His hands on us, and rain down blessings on us, giving us the child-like heart. Then we are safe.

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘Some have thought that the Church is not warranted in the inference she has drawn from this incident, and expressed in the Office for Holy Baptism: “Nothing doubting but that He favourably alloweth this charitable work of ours in bringing this infant to His holy baptism.” But Christ not only took the infants into His arms, and communicated some grace to them, He also, at the same time, spoke about entrance into the “Kingdom of God,” i.e. the Church; and He associated these infants with that entrance, saying, “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” Thus He set His own seal to this act as a symbol of admission into His Kingdom, the Church, by that sacrament of baptism which He Himself afterwards instituted.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

RESPONSIBILITY FOR CHILDREN

Notice:—

I. The sin incurred by throwing obstacles (wittingly or thoughtlessly) in the children’s way which may hinder their coming to Christ. Parents who believe that infant baptism is according to the mind of God and the teaching of Christ’s Church, and yet, through indifference or indolence, neglect that holy rite, do grievous wrong to their own souls and to the souls of those committed to their care. Coming to the details of everyday life, how few consider the extent to which children are effected:—

(a) By the conversation they hear.

(b) By the unwise way religion is put before them.

II. Remember the paramount duty of bringing your children to Christ.—If you wish your child to grow up into a religious and God-fearing man, then you must teach it the distinctive features of Christianity, and imbue it with the Gospel.

III. We ourselves must be like children.—If only to influence them aright we should cultivate a child-like spirit; for none can do good to others, or be good themselves, who are not lowly in character and conduct. But how are we to become like little children? In this way. We must be receptive, trustful, yielding up our wills. When those little ones came to Christ, they received what He gave as a free gift. They could have had no thought that they deserved it. And so must it be with us.

Rev. James Vaughan.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Religion, as presented to the minds of children by too many nurses, teachers, and even parents, consists in saying, “No”; it is: “You mustn’t do this”; “you mustn’t do that.” And so religion seems to be nothing but forbiddings and negations; the Sunday a dull and disagreeable day; prayer, a task; the Bible a lesson-book only; God, how severe! how fault-finding, difficult to please; how punishing, and how fearful! See to it, then, lest, having brought your children to Christ in baptism, you afterwards frighten them away from that very Saviour with Whom you think you have left them.’

(2) ‘A childhood without reverence, a childhood without any upward affection, a childhood to which nothing is mysterious, and, therefore, nothing sacred; a childhood with no heaven, with no encircling world about it save that of the men and women who minister to its wants; with a spiritual imagination wholly undeveloped; a childhood discontented, wearied, and without interest, satisfied with nothing, not even with self, though with no guide or hope towards improving that self. What picture so sad as the material prime that followers an unreligious youth!’

THE FRIEND FOR LITTLE CHILDREN

‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’

Mark 10:14

This is inexpressibly touching; it is one of the most beautiful passages in the life of our Blessed Lord.

I. Jesus loves little children.—Rightly has the Church inserted this narrative into her service for the Public Baptism of Infants as her warrant for the dedication of children unto the Lord. If Jesus says, ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not,’ who shall gainsay His word?

There are those, unhappily, who from prejudice or ignorance make the Christian Church less merciful even than the Jewish Church, and whereas in the latter the little ones were brought within the covenant of Israel on the eighth day, refuse the same privilege to the children of the Gospel Dispensation, and leave them outside the fold of the visible Church, until such time as in after years they seek the baptism which has been denied them in their infancy. Of course such people do not mean to be unkind or cruel to their children, but unkind and cruel they are nevertheless.

(a) Is it not a comfort to you to think that you have already dedicated your children to Christ?

(b) See that you keep your little ones in a sense of their responsibility as God’s dear children in adoption and grace.

(c) Do we not seem to see a special Providence watching over little children? They are so surrounded by peril and danger, they are so weak and helpless, that unless God did especially watch over their tender years they would never come safely through their infancy.

II. The entrance to the Kingdom.—We must enter the Kingdom of God as little children, or not at all. We are to be little children in

(a) Our faith.

(b) Our understanding of our weakness.

(c) Our simplicity.

(d) Our innocence and purity.

As the aged servants of God grow old they likewise grow young, like little children in thought and feeling, because they are ripening for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Illustration

‘In one of the wards of a children’s hospital was lying a little boy. He had met with a fearful accident that shattered his frame, and caused him such terrible anguish that he had no rest night or day. All around him were lying on their tiny beds his little companions in suffering. A strange fatality seemed to hang over the hospital at that time, and one by one the children were called away by the Messenger of Death. One evening this boy was heard talking to a little girl who was lying in the next bed: “I cannot bear this pain any longer. Jesus goes up and down the ward and calls other children to Himself, and yet He always passes me by. I want to go to Him so much; I am in such pain that I wish to be at rest. To-night I shall hold up my hand, so that when Jesus comes He may see that I want to go to Him.” The night closed in, and the ward was quiet and dark. At the break of day the sister in charge made her rounds to see whether any of the children stood in need of her. When she came to this poor boy’s bed, there was a thin, white hand held up above the clothes, and on turning down the sheet the little wan face was seen at rest in the sleep of death. He had signalled to Jesus, and the Lord had seen his faith and had taken him to Himself.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

CHILD-RESCUE

Our Lord’s estimate of the worth of the children, and the part which they played in His ministry, ought to restrain the violence rained upon those whom Wordsworth felicitously describes as coming from God—

On trailing clouds of glory do they come

From God Who is their home.

In contrast to the Master’s love for these little ones, picture in your mind the unutterable horror of sinning against them, of offending those who have angels in heaven. That there is a crying need for the work of child-rescue is a sad blot upon our Christian land. Child-rescue is—

I. A work for the Lord.—Those who rescue the children from the reeling masquerade of life, from the coagulated scum of humanity, are acting in beautiful obedience to the command of our Lord: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me.’

II. A work for the nation.—The children are the people of the future. Try to grasp the numerical proportion of children to the total population. Child-life has been very strikingly called by a French bishop ‘the continuous recreation of the Fatherland.’ In the children the people of the immediate future are ever pressing forward. There is a ceaseless onward movement as the vacant places are in regular order occupied by those that follow after.

III. A work for eternity.—Once more, the labour is not only for earth, but for heaven; not only for time, but for eternity. If the evil men do lives after them, equally so the good. In the case of children the instruction imparted, the influence of a holy life, will live and bear fruit not only for days and for years, but for time and eternity. Are not the words of the great American orator, Daniel Webster, worthy of citation? ‘If we work upon marble it will perish; if we work upon bronze time will efface it; if we build temples they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we imbue them with just principles of action, with love of right and fear of wrong, we engrave on these tablets something which no time can obliterate, and these will brighten and brighten throughout eternity.’

Rev. E. Synnott.

Illustrations

(1) ‘Some of you may have seen the celebrated clock in Strasburg Cathedral. Every day in the week is represented by the figure of a particular animal. As you look at this marvellous mechanism towards the evening of one day you can see already the head of the succeeding emblematic figure of the next day appearing. So it is with the children of a people.’

(2) ‘Who bids for the little children,

Body and soul and brain;

Who bids for the little children,

Young and without a stain?

Will no one bid, says England,

For these souls so pure and white,

And fit for all good or evil,

That the world in their page may write?

‘Oh, shame, said true religion,

Oh, shame, that this should be;

I’ll take the little children,

I’ll take them all to me.

I’ll raise them up with kindness

From the mire in which they trod;

I’ll teach them words of blessing,

I’ll lead them up to God.’

MODERN CULTURE

‘Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.’

Mark 10:15

It has been remarked that the Church has neglected a great duty in not dealing faithfully with modern culture. There are from the standpoint of Christianity at least three grave charges against the so-called culture of the present day:—

I. It thinks more highly of itself than it ought to think. Its lofty pretensions would be ridiculous if not so sad. Art is but a plaything—a noble plaything if you will—but not essential to the stern work of human souls. St. Paul gave up culture for the Cross. He entered the Kingdom as a little child.

II. The one-sidedness of modern culture impresses us. The tendency of modern culture is to develop the intellectual side of man’s nature at the expense of his moral. The culture of character should stand first.

III. Modern culture is in the main selfish.—Those who have received the most of God’s gifts do not always make the best response to His bounty. No man has a right to enjoy anything that he is not willing to share with others. If we can, where is the sacrifice of our life? Where is our cross?

There in that one word ‘cross’ is the gulf which separates Christianity from modern culture.

—Rev. Canon S. A. Alexander.

Illustration

‘In the preface to his Souvenirs de l’Enfance et de la Jeunesse, the brilliant Frenchman tells a legend of his native Brittany. It relates to an imaginary town called Is, which the fishermen supposed to have been swallowed up by the sea far back in the ages of the past. But sometimes, so these simple folk believe, the spires of the churches can be seen in the hollow of the waves when the sea is rough, and during a calm, if you listen well, you may hear the bells ringing forth the hymn appropriate to the day. And M. Renan adds, pathetically enough: “I often fancy that I have at the bottom of my heart a city of Is, with its bells summoning to prayer a recalcitrant congregation.” Happy are they whose souls are still thrilled with the echoes of the texts and prayers learned in childhood—who are child-like and simple-hearted—grace, mercy, and peace be with all such in exceeding measure!’

THE LOST OPPORTUNITY

‘Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow Me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.’

Mark 10:21-22

There must have been something singularly beautiful in the character of this young man, something of more than common promise in his youth, if the Searcher of hearts loved him as He looked into his soul. And surely, too, there is a future before one so favoured. But the Master, as always, tested his reality. He was rich—was he ready to give up his wealth to follow Christ? We hear of him no more. This young man, with all his promise, passes out of Holy Scripture with the sad and warning epitaph: ‘He went away.’

I. Every one of us has the opportunity which he had.—In most lives there is some one decisive trial, some choice, some call, upon the issue of which all the future depends. The path divides before us, and we must choose whether we will go to the right or the left. The choice may involve the giving up of much that has made life happy for us. It may change the whole course of our career. All hangs upon it; it is the turning-point; our decision fixes our character and marks out our destiny. We often do not know this at the moment; but we recognise it afterwards, and look back with earnest thankfulness or sorrowful self-reproach to the opportunity which was given to us, and the choice we made.

II. The call from Christ our Lord to each one of us is: ‘Take up the cross and follow Me.’ Has that call been heard and answered? It has come with a distinct and special meaning to each separate life. How are you answering it now? Upon your answer more may depend than you imagine to-day. The call of Christ, if unheard or neglected, may be uttered never again for us. There comes a time when He Who has vainly pleaded with His sinful creature will plead no more; when the Judge’s most awful sentence shall go forth: ‘Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.’ And the worst fate that can befall a man is to be let alone of God.

III. We, too, stand face to face with Jesus Christ.—To some of us He says to-day: ‘One thing thou lackest’; there is something, perhaps sinful, perhaps in itself harmless, which is keeping us back from God. It must be bravely sacrificed, be it what it may, if we would not miss our opportunity as this man missed his. To all of us He says: ‘Come, take up the cross and follow Me.’ The Cross must have its place in our lives, if we would be like Him. This is your opportunity. Will you hear, and bow your head, and follow the Master? Or ‘will ye also go away?’

Rev. Professor H. C. Shuttleworth.

CIVILISATION AND WORSHIP

‘He was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.’

Mark 10:22

The present time is the richest of times, the heir of all the ages, the fullest of honours. This age, like the young ruler, has great possessions. Like the young ruler, too, this age keeps the great commandments; never was there less crime and never more goodwill. And, like him, having great possessions and keeping the great commandments, the age is unresting while it goes about asking new teachers what to do to inherit eternal life. The people of to-day are richer, kinder, more moral, more human; they are better than their fathers, but they show a fretful eagerness for change and a sensitiveness to criticism; they have not the peace of God, and they do not worship. Let, then, civilisation and worship be our subject, and let us consider: (1) Disappointment in civilisation, and (2) satisfaction in worship.

I. Disappointment in civilisation.—Civilisation is good; it is good that the poor man’s pain under operations should be soothed by chloroform, that he should eat as daily food the fruit of the tropics, and feel through his daily paper the impulse of the news of the world. It is good that common life should be fuller, richer, and happier. It is good to have possessions, but every good gained is but a step from which to see greater good. People know enough and have enough to be conscious of shortcoming. Hence their terror of solitude; hence their anxiety for excitement; hence the warlike temper and love of ostentation. Man, conscious of his being, is conscious also of capacity of fuller being. The modern, man wanders through his business and his pleasure, through lecture-rooms and churches, asking, What can I do to inherit eternal life?—to enjoy, that is, fullness of being. The greater the civilisation, the greater the disappointment.

II. Satisfaction in worship.—Man by his nature is unsatisfied with his own being. He measures himself with something higher. Men, therefore, from the dawn of history have tried to unite themselves with the Higher than themselves, which we call God. The means used to bring about this union is worship.

(a) The one thing necessary in worship, which is, in fact, the pursuit of the Highest we know, is the one thing necessary in all successful pursuit. There must be singleness of mind. The first condition of worship is not poverty, but a mind freed from the cares of wealth, and a single eye with which to see what is higher than the world’s highest. The pure—i.e. the single in heart—see God.

(b) Our object of worship must be near ourselves, and yet fill all ages. St. Paul found such an object in Christ. St. Paul found Christ near himself, and yet filling all things past and future; so that no longer living, but Christ living in him, he felt that nothing in heaven or earth, neither poverty nor riches, could separate him from God. St. Paul worshipped Christ and was satisfied.

Canon S. A. Barnett.

Illustration

‘Have you not moments when you hear a voice calling you to leave the traffic of business and pleasure so as to devote yourselves to the service of others’ needs? Have you not moments of insight in which you will to do great tasks? Do you not sometimes see yourself enduring sorrow and giving rest to the weary and heavy-laden? Have you not a sub-conscious self which is your better self, and which is in touch with a power which urges you, pricks you, draws you to be good and generous? Yes; there is no one, not the lowest, not the most wicked, who in himself has not this touch with the Most High. Further, do we not see standing, as it were, behind this power within ourselves the form of Jesus Christ? Does not His life represent the highest life we know? Does not heaven open and show us that He, Who is faithful and true, has guided mankind through wars and judgments to make man more faithful and true? Do we not see that the love which is in Jesus is the love of the King of kings and Lord of lords? The Christ which is in every man is also the Christ who fills all things and judges all men. We know Him in ourselves, and we know the wonders He has done in our fathers’ days.’

THE CHURCH AND WEALTH

‘And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished exceedingly.’

Mark 10:23-26 (R.V. marg.)

These, and the like, words of our Lord have stood over against the Church in many ages and many lands, convicting it of a great unreality; but over against no Church and in no age have they sounded a more solemn protest than against our own to-day. Are we of the Church of England to-day faithful, as a great body of disciples should be, to our Master’s teaching about wealth? This teaching is not a matter of a few words here and there. It is embodied in His whole life and method.

I. The powerlessness of the Church.—‘Surely I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for naught!’ Such a feeling is in the mind of very many of us as we take stock of the powerlessness of the Church, in spite of even splendid exceptions in this or that parish, to produce any broad, corporate effect, to make any effective spiritual appeal by its own proper influence, in England to-day. We are not in touch with the mass of the labouring people. Is not this because we are the Church of the rich rather than of the poor—of capital rather than of labour? By this I mean that in the strata of society the Church works from above rather than from below. The opinions and the prejudices that are associated with its administration as a whole are the opinions and the prejudices of the higher and higher-middle classes, rather than of the wage-earners. This becomes the more apparent if you contrast the Church of England in this respect with the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland or with the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, at least as they have stood, up to the rise of the vast industrial cities like Glasgow or Dundee, where I suppose that ‘labour’ stands as much aloof from any existing religious organisation as in our English cities.

II. The test of vitality.—It is the chief test of the vitality of a Church of Christ in any country that it should represent the poor, the wage-earners, those who live by manual labour: that it should be a community in which the labourers hold the prerogative position. There is our great failure. Yet we have laboured very hard for the poor and amongst them. At the hand of Him Who said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me,’ there is laid up a rich store of benediction for men and women, priests and laymen innumerable, whose unselfish, unremitting, unrequited toil is really known only in the heart of our Lord. That is our real comfort. We are sure that all this labour will not be in vain.

III. Lines of recovery.—It, as it were, authorises us to claim illumination and guidance in reversing the great wrong and in averting the great judgment; or rather it authorises us to claim strength to make the right use of Divine chastisements. Let me indicate some lines of hopeful recovery.

(a) The Church must set itself deliberately and of set purpose, as far as possible, to get rid of the administration of relief from the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, and to associate it with the State, the municipality, and voluntary organisations of citizens on a purely secular basis.

(b) We want to make the most of what we have already. We have a really considerable body of communicants who are artisans; but we need to give them their true place and influence, and to mass them, so that their corporate effect shall tell. We must prevent the parishioners of poor parishes being ousted by those who come from outside.

(c) To do all this safely we must act on the basis of a true sacerdotalism. The ministerial priesthood is in charge of the Word and Sacraments, and the clergy should help every confirmed person to claim his or her place in the priestly body, and to learn to act on the apostolic pattern.

(d) We must dissociate the clergy from being identified with the wealthier classes.

‘These things are difficult. Such fundamental social changes are hard to bring about. We are an unimaginative and conservative people.’ True, quite true. But the beginnings are in prayer and penitence and right desire, and in giving the first place in our minds and counsels to the matters that are really of first importance.

Bishop Gore.

Illustration

‘Oh! how different would be the position of the Church if we clergy would sacrifice everything to concentrate ourselves upon really bringing out the social meaning of our Sacraments, upon really understanding and giving voice to the spirit of Christian brotherhood, upon really making ourselves the organs for expressing social justice and uttering effectively the Divine wrath upon all that degrades and crushes the weak and ignorant and poor. Oh! how different would be our moral appeal if Christ’s claim upon wealth—Christ’s claim for great sacrifices, great abandonments, as the normal exhibitions of a converted heart—were really once again the claim of the actual Church upon clergy and laity. But all this is only to ask that we should in penitence and prayer, give ourselves to teaching the faith and practice of Christendom as it is in the Bible. How, then, would many of the questions which now bulk biggest as Church questions take a very subordinate place! Truly we have protected the letter of Scripture, while its spirit of judgment and justice was being ignored; we have contended for ceremonial liberty, while the fundamental meaning of our sacraments of brotherhood was being parodied by a miserable religious selfishness.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

CHRISTIANITY AND RICHES

If we are right in understanding by eternal life the highest life the soul is capable of living, we see that in the case of this youth it could only be obtained by absolute surrender of all that he could call his own. Earthly possessions were keeping him back from true blessedness. Can Christ’s teaching, ‘How hardly shall they that have riches,’ etc., be reconciled with the condition of our modern world? There is a twofold danger—(a) of explaining Christ’s words away, and (b) of interpreting them too literally.

I. The spirit of Christ’s words.—Clearly we should be explaining those words away were we to say that they have no reference to property, or that those words contain no special and solemn warning for the well-to-do in regard to that hindrance to which Christ has pointed as besetting their entrance into life. The disciples asked each other in dismay, ‘Who then can be saved?’ And that question shows that they took their Master to be referring not to men of great wealth alone, but to a much larger class. The youth whom they saw going away sorrowful had great possessions, it is said; but who shall say what degree of wealth that expression describes? It has a different meaning in every rank of society, in every country, in every condition. There is, in fact, no absolute criterion of wealth; the affluence of yesterday becomes the competence of to-day and the poverty of to-morrow. Every increase of means involves increase of claims, and increase in many cases so great that a nominal fortune affords but an uncertain measure of what is really at the disposal of its possessor. The truth is that no inventory of goods and chattels, no figure we can name, will suffice to define what our Lord meant by a rich man, and for this reason: that from the moral and spiritual point of view, which was His, it is not the actual amount that matters, but the space it occupies in the heart, the hold it has got upon the affections.

II. Moral peril.—No man who is keeping guard over his desires, and asking himself, as we are all bound to ask ourselves day by day, what it is that for him makes life worth living, will underrate the moral peril of riches; who, indeed, will dare to say that for him it does not exist who remembers what a host of haunting terrors drop off and vanish for the happy man who attains to this small competence, and what an enviable escape from corroding anxiety and care there is for the man that has reached the independence of the safest investment? Can one wonder that to most people money-seeking should be the highest pursuit, and accumulated property the first and almost only thing worthy of a sensible man’s ambition? It was a saying of Carlyle’s that an Englishman’s hell is want of money and failure to acquire property. The advice of Iago, ‘Put money in thy purse,’ is no longer the cynical counsel of a mammon-worshipper, but the practical wisdom of a man of the world, who has explored all the avenues to success, and finds one, and only one, to recommend.

III. Take heed.—Living under such conditions as we do, in a society deeply and increasingly tainted with mammon-worship, if we are to remain Christians in any sense we must take heed to our ways, and watch narrowly all our thoughts. We require, one and all, to be revising the estimate of life and objects by the light of that teaching which shall never pass away. Let us distinguish between those who present, roughly speaking, two types of character. Of the one you can say money belongs to him; he is its master; it is his instrument. Of the other you say he belongs to his money; he has given it the mastery, and he is its slave; he drudges for it, and he will drudge in an ever-deepening servitude, till the hour when he must leave it all behind. And this is the rich man in Christ’s sense; this is the man who trusts in his riches; whose deity, whatever he may profess, is the almighty dollar, governing the whole extent of his energies, dictating his whole estimate of men and things.

—Rev. Canon Duckworth.

Illustration

‘Not a few have made the sacrifice from which the young man flinched. In the life of St. Anthony, the father of the monastic system, we read that going into the church one day in early years, when the story we are studying happened to be the Gospel, he took our Lord’s demand upon the young ruler as a direct message to himself, and at once proceeded to distribute to the inhabitants of his native village the splendid estates he had inherited, reserving only a small portion of property for his sister. Not long after he was moved to give this away as well, and to place his sister in a society of religious recluses, while he himself embraced a life of the most rigid asceticism. In the course of the Christian centuries there have been many imitators of St. Anthony. That same voice which spoke so clearly to him persuaded St. Francis of Assisi to forsake his own people and father’s house for a company of barefooted friars bound to lifelong poverty; and many more have been disquieted by the doubt whether the command on which these men literally acted was not somehow binding upon them.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE LOVE OF MONEY

‘Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,’ was the direct command of Jesus to the rich young ruler, noble in character, desiring perfection, but mastered, owned by his possessions, forced to make the Great Refusal. Ninety-nine rich Christians to-day out of every hundred are making just the same refusal, serenely confident that the order has naught to do with them.

I. It is the teaching of Jesus, it seems to me, that the best environment for our souls is neither poverty nor riches, but simple competence—that condition of life which He Himself consecrated by adopting it.

II. The most popular of English professions, money-making for personal enjoyment, is prohibited to the Christian. Obviously, no man following and believing Jesus, and desiring heaven, would deliberately adopt a mode of life which would make it hard to enter there.

III. We disguise the issue.—We disguise it by our orthodox confession that wealth is a trust, not an absolute ownership. It is true: it is Christ’s doctrine, and in theory we gladly acknowledge it. Money is a stewardship. The Christian possessing riches is merely a trustee. Consider, then. What sort of a name do you apply to a trustee who appropriates to his own personal use and indulgence nine-tenths of the property assigned to him in trust for the benefit of others? Is he fraudulent?

IV. If these are the Christian doctrines, if wealth is either to be no longer sought for, or if inherited to be distributed in benefactions, what will become of civilisation? Civilisation! We are not civilised. There is no such thing known yet on the earth. What we have is an industrial chaos, based upon egoism and strife and greed. Competition, not brotherhood is the note of it. It is for the few, not the many. It means, in this land, a million over-rich people at the top, a million paupers at the bottom, three millions wretchedly, cruelly poor, ten millions oppressed by care and terror. It means millionaires and sweated industries. It means palaces and slums side by side. It means the massacre of the innocents in all our large cities, a population physically deteriorating year by year. It means epicurean banquets and insane luxury, coexistent with starving school-children. It means huge fortunes for Stock Exchange gamblers and Napoleons of finance; half a crown a week and a loaf of bread for noble, honest labourers who have toiled hard for half a century. It means labour divorced from joy, men transformed into machines, life for the majority dull, grey-tinted, monotonous.

V. And because of all these cruelties and injustices, because Christians have discarded the social teaching of Jesus, because Christian teachers will not, or dare not, proclaim what He proclaimed, we have lost the hearts of the working-classes. ‘The common people heard Jesus gladly.’ They stand aloof from the Christianity of to-day. It is no use hiding the fact. The rich and the comfortable fill our churches; the masses are outside. The main cause of their alienation is the monstrous contradiction between Christian ethics and the state of society which Christians tolerate.

VI. There is only one remedy: ‘Back to Christ.’ Some day there will arise a Christian commonwealth which will loyally accept His teaching, and believe the words of the Son of God. In that Kingdom of Heaven on earth there will be neither rich nor poor. It will contain no ‘leisured class,’ no idle drones. ‘He that will not work, neither should he eat.’ It will be a league of brothers, not a hateful, warring, discordant chaos of anarchic commercialism. Captains of industry will displace the fortune-hunters. Work shall be a joy, not a curse. Luxury—whatever forms of it are pure and of good report—music, art, knowledge—will be enjoyed in common. And every man faithful to duty and righteousness shall live with hope in his heart. Already there are signs of the dawn of a brighter day.

—Rev. W. Hudson Shaw.

Illustration

‘I had a parishioner once, a most pious Christian who knew all the Church collects by heart, possessor of a fortune of £60,000. Suddenly he lost it all, and was reduced to a modest income of £3 a week. It broke his heart: he turned his face to the wall and died; life was no longer worth living. What the Emperor Hadrian said in the second century is, alas! largely true of the English to-day. “They have,” he declared, “but one God—money: it is he alone that Christians, Jews, and all the rest adore.”’

MULTUM IN PARVO

‘For My sake.’

Mark 10:29

Here indeed is multum in parvo. Here is the concentrated essence of religion. Here is a terse compendium of piety. Here are big thoughts in three little words.

I. The words are unique.—Read Moses and David and all the prophets of the Old Testament, and add all the Apostles and Evangelists in the New, and then tell me when did they ever say, ‘For my sake’?

II. The reason is not far to seek.—Christ has done what no one else has done. Pointing to Calvary, He can say, ‘Do this, do that, “for My sake.”’ Christ excites human hearts as a friend or as a lover does. He rules them through their love.

III. Have some special work of which you can say, ‘I will do this for Christ’s sake.’ The work you and I can do may be very small, but let us do it for Christ’s sake. Let us not aim at being flaunting hollyhocks or tiger-lilies. It is enough that we are violets, and throw sweetness round us. I like the margin in the Revised Version of Matthew 21:28 : ‘Child, go work to-day in the vineyard.’ Therefore none are too young or too weak to serve Christ, if only they have a good will.

IV. These three words make secular things sacred.—You may go to your farm or to your merchandise; you may sing songs, or paint pictures, or build houses, or make shoes, or heal bodies, and all these things become sacred if they are done for the love of Christ—‘for My sake.’

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustrations

(1) ‘A poor man passing a fortress saw a Russian soldier on guard one terribly cold night, and took off his coat and gave it to the soldier, saying, “I shall soon be home and warm, and you will be out here all night.” The poor man who gave the coat to the soldier was soon after dying, and in his dream saw Christ, and said, “O my Lord, you have my old coat on.” “Yes,” said Christ, “this is the one you lent Me on that cold night by the fortress.” “For My sake.”’

(2) ‘Young men of wealth or talent forsake home and friends and all in order to preach Jesus Christ in India, China, Japan, or Africa. Henry Martyn leaves his books, David Livingstone his loom, Mackay the engineering shed, Charles Studd the bar, and Stanley Smith fresh from the University crew; all these, and myriads more, of whom the world is not worthy, have gone forth for life or death; and here again the only explanation is—“For My sake.”’

BARGAINING IN RELIGION

‘But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.’

Mark 10:31

The Apostles were standing by, and when they saw the young man go away and refuse to do what Christ bade him, it is plain that they began to draw a contrast between themselves and that young man. St. Peter, always the first to speak, turns at once to our Lord and says: ‘Behold we have forsaken all and followed Thee. What shall we have therefore?’ You cannot help seeing that the emphasis lies on the word we. We, in contradistinction to the young man who had just gone away. He was to have had eternal life if he had done so and so. We have already done it. What are we to have?

I. An untrustful speech.—It is most instructive to see that Christ begins by treating the case very tenderly, and then towards the end He conveys the reproof which was rendered necessary. The speech of St. Peter was, as all of us must feel, a cold, hard, untrustful kind of speech, and no one could have wondered if our Lord had met it with some direct reproof. Still, He does not. There is not a word of direct reproof for the question itself. First, the question is answered, and answered encouragingly, and then afterwards comes the maxim of our text.

II. Our Lord’s reply.—It is as if our Lord meant to imply: ‘Have you any doubt of My keeping faith with you? Have you any doubt of My rewarding you abundantly? Put away all such doubts. You will be rewarded—everybody will be rewarded—a hundredfold.’ Then, when our Lord has answered the question, then He puts in the warning which the spirit of the question rendered needful.

III. The warning.—The Apostles were His first followers; so He says: ‘Beware! for though you shall not fail of a hundredfold reward, yet there is such a thing as the first being put last, even though a hundredfold rewarded!’ We may fancy how this must have grated on the ears of the Apostles! After all the high promises they had been listening to, to be told that after all, though they were first now, and though they should certainly be rewarded a hundredfold, and have the everlasting life which had been offered to the young man, yet even then they might still be turned down and put last.

The spirit which God chiefly hates in religion is the spirit of bargaining. The spirit which God chiefly loves is the spirit of prompt uncalculating obedience, the spirit to trust Him without any bargaining at all, leaving it to God to reward us when and how He pleases, and knowing that He is sure to take a greater pleasure in doing well by us than ever we can do in being rewarded by Him.

Illustration

‘Those who think of serving God just so much and no more; those who think about measuring out their services to Christ’s poor or to Christ’s Church according to any spirit of bargaining, are simply mistaking the spirit of God’s service altogether. We are in danger of committing this sin in a spiritual sense every time we come to church, thinking more of the good we are to get by it than of our desire to set forth God s praise. Praise and worship should be our first thought when we come into His courts. Chiefly, and above all, should it be our first thought in Holy Communion, when we commemorate the great love of Christ. And, perhaps, there is no blessing which flows from frequent communion more great than this—that the devout communicant comes to think less and less of himself, and more and more of Christ the Saviour and the Sacrifice, until worship and adoration come to swallow up all other thoughts, and the love of God becomes supreme over all.’

FEARERS YET FOLLOWERS

‘And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid.’

Mark 10:32

How is it that a real follower may be a real fearer? I find the answer on that road up to Jerusalem. Why did the disciples fear?

I. They had not adequate ideas of Him Whom they followed.—They did not know what they learnt afterwards, what exceeding care He takes of His own. Therefore they misread their own future. So it is with you. If you knew the character of Christ, if you knew the work of Christ, you would be rid of that fear.

II. They did not love Him as He deserved.—If they had, the love would have absorbed the fear; they would have rejoiced to endure with Him, even to the death; the dignity, the happiness of partnership with Him, would have swallowed up every other consideration. That is a very high stage, but it is a true one. It is that which gives a superiority over death; and when once you have a superiority over death, you are above everything else.

III. They had not what their Master had—one, great, fixed, sustaining aim.—It was that that bore Him so bravely, and that would have borne them. There is nothing so ennobling, there is nothing which makes a hero, a martyr, a saint, like an object, distinct, lofty, worthy.

IV. The disciples had their fears undefined.—It was the indefinite which terrified them. I should hardly say too much if I said that fear is indefiniteness. The terror is the mist which enwraps it.

V. Take, then, four rules—

(a) Fortify yourself in the thought of what Christ is.

(b) Love Him very much, and realise your union with Him.

(c) Set a high mark, and carry your life in your hand.

(d) Often stop and say deliberately to yourself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ and do not go on till you have got an answer.

—Rev. James Vaughan.

CHRIST’S FOREKNOWLEDGE OF SUFFERING

‘And He took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto Him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles.’

Mark 10:32-33

It concerns us to remember that all His sufferings were fully known to Christ long before they became matter of history.

I. Christ’s perfect foreknowledge.—Men, through the great mercy of God, know not what of pain and suffering and loss the future has in it for them.

(a) It extended throughout His whole career. We cannot, of course, trace it in the obscurity of Nazareth and Capernaum, but from the commencement of His public life, and while that life continued, we can discern its presence.

(b) It was unbroken throughout His career. There were no seasons of intermission and forgetfulness. On the Mount of Transfiguration, radiant with His glory, enjoying, as it seemed, a brief respite from the toil and sorrow of His life, ‘He conversed of His decease at Jerusalem.’

(c) He regarded His sufferings not as a possibility, but as a certainty. To His mind the Cross was as certain as the manger, Calvary as certain to be as Bethlehem had been.

(d) It was definite and full. This passage reads like a record of the past, rather than a prediction of the future.

II. Some features in Christ which His foreknowledge of suffering reveals:—

(a) The intensity of His sorrow. His whole life was a daily crucifixion. Of a truth He could say, ‘I die daily.’

(b) The moral majesty of His nature. He bore unflinchingly the burden which this knowledge imposed.

(c) The supreme compassion of the Saviour’s heart. This knowledge of His own sufferings did not affect the exercise of His compassion.

Illustration

‘Men hope to the last, and refuse to accept as certainties events that appear inevitable, and in whose shadow they already stand. The men who rode the mad battle charge at Balaclava, saw at a glance, as they stood in their stirrups that morning and swept the ground before them, that death was almost inevitable, that the many, the most must fall, yet not a man accepted death for himself as a dread certainty. But to Christ the Cross was certain.’

EXCELSIOR!

‘Grant unto us that we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left hand, in Thy glory.’

Mark 10:37

The subject to which I wish to call your attention is the duty, I might almost say the necessity, of having high aims in religion.

I. In your inner life.—Christ is really your only ground of confidence, and you sincerely desire to please Him, and to be like Him, and to dwell with Him for ever. Yet there is a walk so close with God that, Enoch-like, it seems only to want one more step to be translation. There is a heavenly-mindedness which is a very well-spring of purity and peace. And there is an expectation and longing for the Second Advent which knows neither death nor parting—a ripeness always ready for the gathering.

II. Take a higher estimate of the work which you have to do for God in this world. Remember, you were created and recreated for work. What have you done? If you have done something, and feel it to be nothing, as you will, then to you I say this, Raise it, raise it! put more of Christ into it, have more faith in your work, do it more lovingly.

III. Do not be afraid to pray, to hope, to strive, for a high place in heaven.—Do we not know, has not Christ told us, that there are degrees in that world of order, and ranges of angels, and archangels, and saints, ever ascending up to the very throne of God? And why has He told us this, if it be not that we are to try for the best? Away with that false humility which says, ‘Only let me be anywhere in heaven!’ Go in boldly for the ‘right hand’ and the ‘left.’

Illustration

‘Is ambition wrong? What is ambition? Ambition is an instinct of nature, a desire to rise; and, like all other instincts, capable of good and evil. Satan took hold of it, and said, “Ye shall be as gods.” Jesus enshrined it, “Ye shall sit on thrones.” “Be ye perfect, even as your Father Who is in heaven is perfect.” When a man wishes to go out of his own line into another, to which evidently God has not called him, his ambition is wrong. When a man tries to get to the very top of his own line, his ambition is right. When a man seeks great things for himself, only for himself, it is a worldly ambition. When a man pursues great things for usefulness, for the Church, for Christ, it is the same principle, but it is consecrated, pious, and good.’

THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS

‘Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?’

Mark 10:38

In more or less degree the great sacrifice of the Master must be reflected in the disciples. All suffering, mental, bodily, and spiritual, is to be for service of God or men.

I. The cup is in the Father’s hand.—‘The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?’ (John 18:11). If He teaches us to see the loving fingers of God holding out to us the mixed cup of life, and if by His patient example we drink thereof, content to know that God’s will, and not ours, is being done, He has taught us all we need to know.

II. Christ said to His Father, ‘The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them.’ Part of the gift to His followers was the heritage of suffering. This heritage is the preparation for the revelation of God’s glory. To be a partaker now with Christ in suffering, is nothing else than sharing His glory.

III. Christ’s answer to His ambitious disciples leads to the certain conclusion that nearness to Him in this world, and especially in the next, largely depends upon our capability of sharing the cup of sorrow. To sit on His right hand and on His left will be given to those for whom it is prepared; and those who will sit near to Him at the Lamb’s great supper will be clothed in the robes of salvation, which have been washed in the waters of tribulation, and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

Illustration

‘Some seem marked out to drink the cup of self-denial to the bitter dregs with a cheerful and unshaken heart. Their names are in all men’s minds, and their memory is green upon the earth. Of our own time such may be mentioned as Livingstone, Gordon, Patteson, Hannington, Sister Dora, Father Damien. Livingstone wrote, in the central savagery of Africa, “I feel I am not my own; I feel I am serving God when shooting a buffalo for my men, or when taking an astronomical observation.” Father Damien said, when the fatal signs of the foul leprosy appeared upon him, “I would not be cured if the price of my cure was that I must leave the island and give up my work.” These are Gordon’s words: “I do nothing; I am a chisel which cuts the wood. The Carpenter directs it. If I lose my edge, He must sharpen me; if He puts me aside and takes another, it is His own good will.” For the most of humankind this heroic spirit of martyrdom, although an effectual incentive, is too idealistic to be attained. “The daily round, the common task” furnish, nevertheless, plenty of opportunity for proving the power of Christ’s example.’

POSITION IN HEAVEN

‘But to sit on My right hand and on My left hand is not Mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.’

Mark 10:40

I. There are degrees in glory.—Our Lord does not deny that there are right and left places, but admits it. Otherwise He might reasonably have made answer: ‘You ask for right and left places, but there are no such things as degrees of glory; all will be equal.’ From this declaration we may draw out reasonings which will at least lessen our difficulty in accepting the decrees of God as regards the Day of Judgment. It will be seen that for every condition of the judged, from utter depravity to matured saintliness, there is the corresponding punishment or reward in that future system of rewards and punishments, when ‘God shall judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He hath ordained.’

II. Heavenly rewards given to those for whom they are prepared.—Christ declined when upon earth to promise to two of His favourite disciples their future reward. He did not say that James and John should not sit on His right hand and on His left, He merely said those places should be given to those for whom they were ordained of the Father. As much as to say—Deserve the places, and you shall have them. Fulfil the conditions for a crown, and you shall have a crown. Rewards on earth may be given in an arbitrary way. But it is not so with heavenly rewards. There must be a fitness and a meetness for the stations there to be entered on; it is the carrying the Cross which often makes men fit, by well-endured humiliations, to wear the crown with dignity. The reward is only to him that overcometh.

III. The moral training of the acts of every day fit us for heaven.—This is expressed in the idea of our sowing on earth and reaping in heaven. In rewarding virtue or punishing sin, God does not reverse any process which is going on; He only allows everything to proceed to its natural end.

—Rev. G. J. Davies.

CHRISTIAN SERVICE

‘Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister: and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all. For verily the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.’

Mark 10:43-45 (R.V.)

So our Lord sums up for us the secret of His sway over our hearts.

I. The authority of influence.—We remember that our Master, albeit to the innermost circle of the disciples He spoke with joy of His commission from the Father, yet in His public teaching appealed in proof of His message to the conviction it inspired in the conscience of His hearers. To the simple and sincere the teaching commended itself; it went home to heart and will, and rekindled the flame of faith in God. ‘Lord,’ they said, ‘Thou hast words of eternal life’; that is, ‘You have given us by your teaching a spring of living faith in the living God.’ ‘Never man,’ they said, ‘spake like this Man’; that is, with such compelling authority upon the conscience. Our Lord’s authority, then, was an authority to which the honest heart could not but respond; it was the authority of influence.

II. Christ gave Himself.—The Son of Man came to minister, and what He ministered was Himself. He gave His life a ransom for many. And all true rulers of His Church must in like manner give themselves; and their success will, under God’s blessing, be proportioned, first, to the whole-heartedness of their devotion, and, secondly, to the breadth and depth of the manhood which they have to give.

III. Qualities of leadership.

(a) Goodness. ‘The grace of God was with Him,’ and grace, as we know, is God’s answer to human faith. Human goodness then means the heart right with God, ‘the conscience as the noonday clear,’ the desire lifted upward, the life lived from day to day in communion with the Father.

(b) Wisdom. We speak less often of the wisdom of the Master than of His holiness; but if we turn over the Gospel pages with this thought in our mind, we are met with abundant evidence of it.

(c) Courage. Every leader of men must be bold to take his own line in many things, following his own conviction. He will take counsel with those best fitted to advise; but in the end he will accept his own responsibility and follow his own judgment.

Goodness, wisdom, courage—the high virtues of redeemed humanity—all working by love, and all sustained by communion with God, these are the powers in the life which the servants of Jesus Christ—just because they are His servants—are called to minister to His flock

—Rev. Canon Beeching.

THE ATONEMENT

‘The Son of Man came … to give His life a ransom for many.’

Mark 10:45

There can be no doubt at all that the main message of the New Testament is the Death, Passion, and Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the attendant circumstances which led up to the crowning fact.

I. The view of Holy Scripture.—The Atonement has been explained in many ways. But there is no doubt what is the view of Holy Scripture—and where else can we look for a better guide? At the Baptism of our Lord, John the Baptist uttered the memorable words: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!’ At the Transfiguration, ‘Behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.’ After the retirement to the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, and the declaration of Simon Peter, our Lord spoke more explicitly of that which was ever present in His mind. And again on the last journey to the Holy City. So you see the sacrificial character of our Lord’s death was no mere theological afterthought, suggested after the event by His disciples; it was woven into every part of His mission.

II. The apostolic age.—And so immediately after His Resurrection and Ascension the Apostles began to teach. It was always the same message: the sacrificial death, the Resurrection, faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost (note St. Peter’s sermon at the Gate Beautiful; Philip and the Ethiopian; St. Paul’s epistles). In the same way the Revelation rings with the praises of the Lamb that was slain, Who hath redeemed us to God by His own blood.

III. The witness of the Sacraments.—The two great Christian institutions imply the full doctrine of the Atonement: Baptism, for the remission of sins through faith in the sacrifice of Christ; Holy Communion, which is the Christian counterpart of the memorial feast of the Passover, which commemorated the deliverance of God’s people from Egypt, and is itself the closest memorial of the redemption of the world by the Death and Passion of our Saviour Christ. Church history follows without one single break in the steps of the Sacraments.

—Archdeacon Sinclair.

Illustrations

(1) ‘The Atonement is the reconciling work of Jesus Christ the Son of God, in gracious fulfilment of the loving purpose of His Father, whereby, through the sacrifice of Himself upon the Cross once for all, on behalf and instead of sinful men, satisfaction was made for the sins of the world, and communion between God and man restored.’

(2) ‘“Some have endeavoured,” says Bishop Butler, “to explain the efficacy of what Christ has done and suffered for us beyond what the Scripture has authorised; others, probably because they could not explain it, have been for taking it away, and confining His office as Redeemer of the world to His instruction, example, and government of the Church. Whereas the doctrine of the Gospel appears to be not only that He taught the efficacy of repentance, but rendered it of the efficacy which it is, by what He did and suffered for us: that He obtained for us the benefit of having our repentance accepted unto eternal life: not only that He revealed to sinners that they were in a capacity of salvation, and how they might obtain it; but, moreover, that He put them into this capacity of salvation, by what He did and suffered for them; put us into a capacity for escaping future punishment, and obtaining future happiness. And it is our wisdom thankfully to accept the benefit, by performing the conditions upon which it is offered, on our part, without disputing how it was procured on His.”’

(3) ‘So remarkable is the unanimity of the two great primary preachers of Christianity, St. Peter and St. Paul, that it leaves no room to question the statement of the modern contemporary German writer Harnack, that “the primitive community called Jesus its Lord because He sacrificed His life for it, and because its members were convinced that He had been raised from the dead, and was then sitting at the right hand of God.”’

A PARABLE OF LIFE

‘Blind Bartimæus, the son of Timæus, sat by the highway side begging.… And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.’

Mark 10:46-52

We may take the story of the blind man of Jericho as a parable of our life.

I. A beggar.—He sat by the wayside begging. So do we. We are by the wayside of life, begging. We are all beggars to God.

II. Blind.—So are we, morally. Here is a man who is selfish, utterly given up to following his own way; he will not deny himself anything which he can get; yet he calls himself a Christian. That man is blind.

III. He cried out.—When once we realise that Jesus is close to us, we, too, cry out.

IV. The Lord called him.—Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. How often He has called you by the teachings of the pulpit, by the altar, by the whisper of conscience; but some of you have not hearkened, have not done as the blind man did: ‘he, casting aways his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.’

We all need to pray that we may receive our sight, to see our sins, our folly, our weakness; that we may see the love and mercy and forbearance of Jesus; that we may see the wondrous things of His love, and learn His way to be the right way, and be enabled henceforth to walk therein.

THE HIGHER LIFE

‘Rise; He calleth thee.’

Mark 10:49

What is religious life? A continual series of small progressions.

I. Now at a low level.—It may be that your religious state has gone down to a very low level. A hope that you once felt has died; and everything that is good lies buried under an accumulation of long neglect. The very Christ in you seems dead! You cannot live and pray now as you used to do. You cannot lift yourself out of the dust—the dust unto which, every day, your heart feels more and more assimilating. The text is for you.

II. Professing Christians.—Your religion wants elevating. Look at your own room, and your private devotions; your reading the Bible; the way you say your prayers; your attendance upon church; the Holy Communion—are these things what they might be, and what they ought to be? Is it real communion you have with God? Is not it very low, very dull, very lifeless? If you are religious at all, is not your standard very low down? Could not you raise it?

III. Those entangled.—You have got entangled; a wrong connection has thrown its chains about you. You are trammelled by a sin you hate, but yet you allow! You despise yourself for it. And yet you are going on with it! It only wants one resolute will; a real prayer; an honest determination; and one resting of your poor, weak self upon the Mighty God—and you will do it. Then you will feel so blessed; your conscience will be so quiet; without, you will be so happy when you can once say, ‘The snare is broken, and I am delivered!’

Many persons fail to ‘rise’ at all—because they do not try to be great Christians. The life of your imagination is greater than the life of your realisation; but there is a greater life than that of your imagination. And let me tell you that to be higher is to be nearer Jesus.

GARMENTS TO BE CAST AWAY

‘He, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.’

Mark 10:50

We all of us wear such an outer garment wrapped about our soul. Habits (the word habit means a garment, something worn), more or less confirmed, may not only impede our progress, but trip us up and make us fall.

I. Spiritual sloth.—It is the cause of many another sin which is not commonly traced to it. Religion demands effort, and sloth is not willing to give it, but excuses itself in a hundred ways. How shall we get rid of this closely clinging habit? Clearly it must be by a resolute effort, and succession of efforts: by putting on with prayer the opposing habits of industry, promptitude, punctuality, self-restraint; by discovering what are to us the occasions of sloth, and placing our watch there.

II. The habit of making excuses—the cloak we wrap around ourselves to shelter ourselves from blame or criticism which, like a keen wind, would search us through and through. The word tells its own story, for what is an excuse but an effort to withdraw ourselves and our conduct from blame or suspicion, or to escape some irksome or disagreeable duty? [The case of Adam (Genesis 3:9-12); Aaron (Exodus 32:21-24); Saul (1 Samuel 13:11-12; 1 Samuel 15:13-15; 1 Samuel 15:20-21).] It is a great proof of moral courage when a man frankly owns himself to be in the wrong, no matter what the consequences.

III. Wandering thoughts.—We are so apt to forget our responsibility in the matter of our thoughts, and yet our powers of mind are of all our natural gifts the most precious, as they are the most wonderful. Our thoughts cannot be kept inactive. If we would keep them from forbidden ways we must direct them to right ways. Satan finds mischief for idle thoughts, as well as for idle hands. We must be diligent to give them constant employment.

IV. Fault-finding.—This habit makes its wearers to be continually on the look-out for the mote in their brother’s eye, while they disregard the beam that is in their own. Nor does it stop short at finding fault with the actions of another; it must go on to impute unworthy motives to those actions. Instead of being on the look-out for some ground of complaint, we must try to be on the look-out for some ground of rejoicing.

These are hindrances to Christian progress, as was the outer cloak of the blind beggar, and they are also hindrances to self-knowledge.

—Rev. W. G. Mosse.

OPENED EYES

‘Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.’

Mark 10:52

Bartimæus sat by the wayside, and he made no step of advance towards the Holy City; but when he had obtained mercy and the gift for which he asked he followed Christ, and that brought him to Jerusalem. So now many souls in poverty and blindness halt on the way, far from the heavenly Jerusalem.

I. The Incarnation has brought the Son of God into touch with human life and human needs, that souls, blind and poor, may find through Him light and grace, sight and wealth. As Bartimæus prayed with faith and penitence, so must we, ‘Lord, that I may receive my sight.’

II. Self-knowledge is the source of penitence. It is for us to know our need, and then, praying with faith and true self-knowledge, we obtain what we ask.

III. Christ’s light is given to us that we may see Him and follow Him daily. The early Christians spoke of the Christian life as the way, and walking in it we have fellowship with the Lord.

IV. Spiritual qualities, e.g. faith and prayer, self-knowledge and personal devotion—are necessary for the lives of our souls.

V. As we follow Christ seek each day a duty to be done, a war to be waged, a cross to be borne, and a grace to be made ours.

Rev. John Wakeford.

Illustration

‘Thus we come to follow Jesus in the way; and that way is the way of holiness, the narrow way which leads to life everlasting, the upward way to the Heavenly Jerusalem. That, too, is a path which takes us away from self, and from self-pleasing, and from many pleasures which the world calls innocent. It is not always a smooth way; it climbs up the Hill Difficulty, and anon winds down into the Valley of Humiliation; it is a road where there are many thorns to pierce, and where there are bitter gall and sharp vinegar of self-denial; it is a way which is often wet with tears; it passes through a garden of Gethsemane, a place of agonised prayer; it leads to a cross, a lifelong cross sometimes; it carries us to a grave, but, thanks be to God, to a grave from which the stone is rolled away, and which is bright with the light of a glorious resurrection. And withal it is a way of pleasantness, and a path of peace—of peace such as the world cannot give, and it is a way which ends in heaven.’