The last day has come. The Judge, surrounded by his angels, appears in all his glory, and the martyrs who have suffered for the kingdom of God, who have endured hunger and cold, persecution and misery, in preaching the Gospel, surround the throne, for they are subject to no judgment.1 All the nations are gathered there before the seat of judgment, and are waiting in awful suspense the sentence that will fix their weal or woe. The Judge parts them from one another as a shepherd parts the sheep from the goats, setting the one on his right and the other on his left hand. Then he turns to those on his right hand and says, "Come, ye blessed of God! enter now upon the joy and glory prepared for you from eternity. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came unto me." The virtuous when thus addressed are filled with amazement, for they know not when they have had the opportunity of giving such support or showing such friendship to the glorious King." Lord," they reply, "when did we ever see thee in such plight that our lowly aid could serve thee? When have we ever done to thee as thou hast said?" The King points to the martyrs and confessors round him, and replies, Verily I say to you, that inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you have done it to me." 2 Then he turns to those on his left hand: " 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into the fiery lake prepared for the devil and those that serve him! For I was hungry, and you gave me no meat; thirsty, and you gave me no drink; a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you clothed me not; sick and in prison, and you visited me not." In terror and amazement at his words they begin to excuse themselves: "Lord! when saw we thee in such plight that we might lend thee aid? and when did we refuse it?" The stern answer of the Judge confirms the sentence: "Verily I say to you, inasmuch as you withheld it from one of the least of these, you withheld it from me." This it is that. decides our blessedness or misery on the great day! 3

66

We shall have another opportunity of showing that this conception of a great judgment, held by the Christ in person, took a prominent place among the expectations of the apostolic age. Our immediate purpose was simply to show, in 2 Compare Mark ix. 41.

1 Compare Matthew v. 10-12.

8 Matthew xxv. 31-46.

connection with the lofty promises of the Sermon on the Mount, what was the task of life which Jesus set before his friends and all who should attach themselves to him. It was no confession of faith, but a life inspired by active love of God and man which he required from every one.

In marking out the path his followers were to tread, Jesus could not be content with simply indicating their field of labor. He must, of course, speak of other things as well. For human life is many-sided. As corporeal beings we feel corporeal needs; as members of society we have social cares, wants, and wishes. Jesus accordingly gave his disciples special exhortations on the attitude they were to take with respect to worldly goods. We still possess a short address from the earliest period of his ministry on the question of what should be the greatest care of man. The near approach of the kingdom of God made it a matter of extreme importance to throw light on the duty of its future citizens in this respect also. The words will be found in the Sermon on the Mount. Let us listen to them:

66

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." (We must bear in mind that the word treasures does not mean the same as wealth. Great possessions in cattle or land for instance, or in money put out to interest, would not be included in the word; for it means only that which is stored away and not used for the present, whether gold and silver, or splendid robes and tapestries, or other such valuables, or corn.) "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where no thieves break through or steal." By these treasures Jesus means good deeds and all that merits an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. When the kingdom is founded, its citizens will receive here upon earth those treasures which God preserves for them meanwhile in heaven. And the words that follow show us why this choice is of such supreme importance: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."1

Luke, or rather his Ebionite authority, makes all this refer simply to the merits of voluntary poverty: "Sell all your goods, and give the produce in alms. Make yourselves purses that grow not old, and a treasure that never fails, in heaven." But what Jesus really meant was, that a man can

1 Matthew vi. 19-21; Luke xii. 33, 34.

not pursue divided aims.

"No one can serve two masters."

The absolute allegiance due from the slave to his master can

not possibly be divided.

"Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other; you cannot serve both God and Mammon" (that is wealth). To one of the two, and one only, can the heart cling and the life be dedicated. You can set before you as the object of your life either the support of all that is good and pure and noble, or the gaining of worldly goods; but the attempt to combine the two is vain.1

So the follower of Jesus must wean his heart from all worldly things. "Take no anxious thought for your life, what you shall eat and what you shall drink; nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than raiment?" Then will not God, who has given you the greater gift, provide the lesser also? "Consider the birds of heaven. They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you worth much more than they? Which of you by anxious thought can add a span to his lifetime? And why take thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothe the grass which grows in the field to-day and is cast into the fire to-morrow, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Then take no anxious thought, saying: What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these do the heathen seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these earthly things shall be given with it. Be not anxious for the morrow, then; the morrow will bring its own cares with it. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof." 2

In the same tone and with similar illustrations from Nature, he warned his disciples on another occasion not to shrink from mortal danger in preaching the kingdom of God. "Be not afraid of men who destroy the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear the might of Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a halfpenny? and yet not one of them falls dead to earth without your Father's will. Nay! the very hairs of your

VOL. III.

1 Matthew vi. 24 (Luke xvi. 13).

2 Matthew vi. 25-34 (Luke xii. 22-31).

8

head are all numbered. Fear not, then! you are worth more than many sparrows."

"1

Let us pause a moment, and think over what we have heard. Will this kind of reasoning hold good? Can we really banish human cares by thinking of flowers and birds? Do we think it a lofty virtue to be so careless of material wants, so indifferent as to worldly goods? Far from it. Indeed, such confidence is often put to shame. Though Nature is so ordained upon the whole that man and beast are saved from perishing of want, yet there are exceptions to the rule; and instances, alas! are not so rare, especially in our Northern climates, of human creatures dying of hunger or cold, or both. Besides, this view of life is altogether one-sided. It takes no account of the great and certain facts that work, at once a duty and a blessing, is holy in the highest sense; that forethought, not to be confused with vain anxiety, is not a sin, but the dictate of a healthy conscience; that the faithful performance of the daily duties of our occupation is a great part of religion; that we are not only permitted but positively bound to do our best to make our way in the world by honest work, and so contribute to the material well-being of society. A piety that shrank from the world was far too common among the Christians of the first century, and reached its culmination in the monastic life of later times; and though it is not actually recommended in these words of Jesus, there is a great deal in them that might nourish it.

But in spite of all this there is a deep truth hidden in the words, a truth which we can feel even when we cannot define it. They fascinate us by their freshness, by the bright and joyous spirit they breathe, by the glow of conviction that surrounds them. It is true, in the first place, that God requires us to dedicate to him, not certain hours, certain forins, or certain specified actions, but our whole and undivided heart and life; in other words, that all our affections and all our powers must be consecrated to the spread of what is good; that God should be not only the last and highest, but the only goal of our thoughts and efforts, our work, our care, our wealth, all that we have and are. In the next place, what gave Jesus such perfect trust in God was his absolute belief in His almighty providence, coupled with his deep and holy confidence that every thing material is subordinate to the moral life, and must be made subservient to its development. He never for a moment doubted theoretically in God's abso

1 Matthew x. 28-31 (Luke xii. 4-7).

lute supremacy over all Nature and all the events of life, but we may well believe that the special strength and intensity of his trust in God was the result of his own experience. He, more than any other, had experienced the fact that his heavenly Father never let him want the needful nourishment and strengthening of spirit; never failed to protect his soul in time of need, nor to uphold him in the fiercest temptation, so that opposition and suffering could not prevail against him, but were turned at last to blessings. And had not the supply of his material wants been thrown, as it were, into the bargain? He had set aside all thought of them for the kingdom of God's sake, yet never had he lacked his daily food, and many a danger had been warded from his head. His own experience, then, compelled him to speak as we have heard.

Again, to do full justice to this lesson, we must transport ourselves to the time, and place ourselves am.d the surroundings, of Jesus. We will lay no special stress upon the fact that in the East Nature is far more bountiful, and human wants proportionately easier to satisfy, than with us. It is much more to the purpose that the duty of increasing the material prosperity of the world could hardly be dreamed of at such a time as that of Jesus and the Apostles. Outside the circle of Jewish devotees, society was godless to the very core, and the world was licentious beyond all parallel. Moreover, Jesus and all the pious Jews believed most firmly that the founding of the kingdom of God would soon put an end to the whole existing order of society, the corruption of which did much to strengthen the belief. But the most important point of all that we must notice is, that a new religious movement, such as that which Jesus caused, must of necessity give rise to special efforts and special regulations; must compel those who take part in it to break off connections, to relinquish enjoyments, and to defy difficulties which will assuredly reassert their claims in the ordinary course of life. When first the faith in man's higher destiny burst forth in all its clearness and power, was it not inevitable that men should neglect all lower, all material things in the joy of that discovery? And finally, we must observe that these words are uttered not by way of consolation, but of rebuke. Jesus gives all doubting, hesitating souls the result of his experience and thought, and urges them to imitate his deed of faith, to set the visible below the invisible, as he had done.1 Surely he, too, must have asked himself when on the point of laying down his occupa1 Compare 2 Corinthians iv. 18; Hebrews xi. 1 ff.