"I have nothing to offer," said the Prime Minister on taking office, "but blood and toil, tears and sweat". That is a lofty offer, an offer being made by tens of thousands of our fellow-country men; it is an offer that all should make in some sense to the country that bore them. But when will it also be the mark of our offering on the spiritual front, in the war from which there is no acquittance? Every offering is scriptural. What was it that Jesus offered but blood on the Cross; toil on His dolorous way; tears over Jerusalem; and west in Gethsemane; as of blood?
Above the upturned faces of the brokenhearted men and women rose the calm features of Garibaldi, lit up with that serene and simple regard of fortitude and faith which gave him power to lead the feeble multitudes of mortal men.... The sonorous, thrilling voice was heard almost to the outskirts of the vast crowd: "I am going out from Rome....I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor provisions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart and not with his lips only, follow me."
Jesus also calls for an uncalculating devotion. "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath. he cannot be my disciple." "He that lovett father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that lovett son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Discipleship does not rest on a momentary burst of feeling, an enthusiasm that may wane as quickly as it blazes up. It is for those who have considered the worth of the enterprise of Jesus, and who are prepared to pay the price of sharing in it. An analogy to the kind of devotion Jesus demands is that which a recruit makes when he enters upon the adventure in which he must risk the loss of everything, even his life. A disciple's relatives must. take second place In his regard. The first place in his affections must be given to the Kingdom of Heaven. Discipleship demands a dogged endurance; the maintenance of the first ardour right through to the end. There is to be no half-hearted allegiance. Christians are expected to work in His cause ceaselessly and in spite of weariness. The field is large, the toilers few.
'The life of Jesus furnishes the principle that human life in all its phases is, at its best, a life of suffering service. The question of His neighbours who were familiar with the circumstance of Jesus' early life, "Is not this the carpenter?" shows clearly how fully He adopted the principle of toil and sweat.' It was amongst that class which is dependent for its livelihood upon its capacity for physical toil and endurance that Jesus gained His most thoughtful, whole-hearted adherents, while many of His most beautiful and effective similes are taken from the surrounding of the busy life, And, on the other hand, He reserved His profoundest commiseration for those upon whom superfluous wealth had imposed s: lfish idleness.
A charge, which has been brought again and again against the Christian religion is that it is too exclusive in its other-worldliness to be of practical value in the midst of life's stern realities, Such an accusation misinterprets completely the whole teaching of Christianity. It is the opposite that is true. Jesus calls men to an heroic self-sacrificing life. "He that doth not take his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me." For Jesus. the way of the Cross was the way of Life. For all others the same law holds. He who would live for the immediate present will lose eternal good. His values are of time, not of eternity; of sense, not of spirit; of self, not of God. Such a life disintegrates with the inevitability of "dust to dust, ashes fo ashes." It has no future. It partakes of the transitoriness ofthe materialism of a delusive world. Its end is death. But the man or the nation which renounces the vanity of selfish ends will galli eternal good. Wrapped up in the sanctuary of its life is a seed which, being sown in the ground of "blood and toil, tears and sweat," has the potency of eternity within it. For such life partakes of the very lite of God. Not only is it fruitful to others, it is fruitful in and by itself, Eternity is hid in its heart. Such a life may seem to the world to be imprisoned; but its prison is a womb. Its end is life.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.