of our Lord's saying. "Whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile."

Before long Christ would be sending some of these very men with messages, royal messages, making them His ambassadors to the world. It may well be that at first some of the messengers were reluctant to start-like that rich young ruler in the Gospel history whom Jesus once invited to join the company of His immediate disciples; but the young man would not come, for the terms of admission seemed to him too hard, and he went away sorrowful.

But even those who came may have come at first with some degree of reluctance. His sayings were "hard sayings," they said; and the path in which he led them seemed a path of much self-denial, and the service costly. The compulsion that started these servants of Christ on their long journey of service seemed cruel and oppressive.

Why, even the old Hebrew prophets had sometimes found the message with which they were charged a very heavy burden. Moses shrank back from that formidable errand into Egypt; and Jonah was so eager to escape from the compulsion that was driving him to Nineveh, that he tried to run away to Spain. But no Hebrew prophet had ever been despatched on so long or so formidable an errand as would confront these disciples when

their Lord should say to them, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." It was a long mile that He compelled them to go, a burdensome office to which He elected them.

Now, that command has never been repealed, but rests upon the conscience of the Christian Church to-day. Unless we would be disobedient to our King, we can be compelled to go this same mile on which the apostles were sent; and the mile seems a very long one to travel-" to the uttermost parts of the earth." Many a disciple has complained that that command resting on the Church is hard to obey. At each new presentation of this infinitely varied appeal from the world-city missions, home missions, foreign missions, whatever it may be we sometimes feel as if the soldiers of the old Persian or Roman despot were swooping down upon us, tearing us away from all our own pleasure and our own work, and forcing us into this unwelcome errand. We go, perhaps, a little way, but it is with reluctant steps, and with many complaints. We find small pleasure in the journey; anyone can see that, unless we felt compelled, we would not go at all. Our Master seems to us an austere man, and his service hard.

Oh, but that is because we are travelling still in the first mile. Our gracious Master, if only we

would let Him guide us, would have brought us long ago into that second mile of Christian service, where the slavish compulsion changes to freedom and gladness; where you get out of the dull prose of it into the poetry and beauty and sentiment; out of the treadmill into the holiday; out of the desert into the Paradise. His rule is, "whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain." A very little observation has shown that to be a good rule in other relations of life; in our study, in our daily labor, in human friendship and love. Why should it not be a good rule also in our religion? If the Lord Himself is compelling thee to go one mile, go with Him twain. It is that second mileit is those things that you do freely and gladly, beyond the reach of compulsion-it is the unexpected attentions and courtesies to your Master, that will make your whole service fruitful and glad.

"Go with him twain," it says. "With Him;" and until you get into that second mile I think you would hardly know that you were travelling with your Master. When religion was only a matter of compulsion-when you gave only what you were compelled to give, did only what you could be compelled to do, prayed only when you could be compelled to pray, went only when you could be compelled to go-in those days you seemed to be travelling sadly alone. And the Lord, who had sent

you on that sad journey, seemed to you distant and foreign and tyrannical—almost as the Roman Cæsar himself seemed to these miserable Jewish subjects; so that your religion itself remained a kind of dragonnade.

Oh, but the moment you begin to render any of these Christian services freely, because you love to do it, because His loving service for you has made you love Him, so that you now outrun the constraint in your own desire to please Him, in that second mile have you not sometimes found the King himself your fellow-traveller? He himself seems to enjoy that part of the road and that kind of company, and has often elected to make Himself known to that kind of messengers. It is His own chosen rule, and it is as good a rule in religion as in ethics, "Whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him—with him twain." In giving you that commandment He elects you to the honor of making this journey with Him.

CHAPTER VIII

THE UPPER ROOM

WE are still following out this subject of election to its issue in duty, and have been confronted by the question, What must be added to the common ethical ideals of men to justify us in applying to them the adjective "Christian"? Our last chapter found materials for an answer in our Lord's saying about "the second mile," a saying from the Sermon on the Mount. The subject is important enough to warrant repeated illustration, and we may find further materials for an answer to the same question in what our Lord said to His two disciples when He sent them into the city to prepare for the eating of the passover. They would meet a man bearing a pitcher of water, and were to follow him into the house where he entered in. And then they should say to the good man of the house, "The Master saith, Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with My disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared; there make ready." 1

There have been many good men whom one

'Mark xiv, 13, 14.