Let us not be deterred from Christ's service by fear of the cross. Heavy as that cross may seem, Jesus will give us grace to bear it. " I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me." (Phil. iv. 13.) Thou- sands and tens of thousands have borne it before us, and have found Christ's yoke" easy, and Christ's burden light. No good thing on earth was ever attained without trouble. We cannot surely expect that without trouble we can enter the kingdom of God. Let us go forward boldly, and allow no difficulty to keep us back. The cross by the way is but for a few years. The glory at the end is for evermore.
Let us often ask ourselves whether our Christianity costs us anything ? Does it entail any sacrifice ? Has it the true stamp of heaven ? Does it carry with it any cross ? — If not, we may well tremble and be afraid. We have everything to learn. A religion which costs noth- ing, is worth nothing. It will do us no good in the life that now is. It will lead to no salvation in the life to come.
We learn, for another thing, from these verses, the unspeakable value of the soul. What saith oar Lord ? " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?" These words were meant to stir us up to exertion and self-denial. They ought to ring in our ears like a trumpet, every morning when we rise from our beds, and every night when we lie down. May they be deeply graven in our memories, and never effaced by the devil and the world !
We have all souls that will live for evermore. Whether we know it or not, we all carry about with us something which will live on when our bodies are moul-
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dering in the grave. We have all souls, for which we shall have to give account to God. It is an awful thought, when we consider how little attention most men give to anything except this world. But it is true.
Any man may lose his own soul. He cannot save it : Christ alone can do that. But he can lose it, and that in many different ways. He may murder it, by loving sin and cleaving to the world. He may poison it by choosing a religion of lies, and believing man-made superstitions. He may starve it, by neglecting all means of grace, and refusing to receive into his heart the Gospel. Many are the ways that lead to the pit. Whatever way a man takes, he, and he alone, is accountable for it. Weak, corrupt, fallen, impotent as human nature is, man has a mighty power of destroying, ruining, and losing his own soul.
The whole world cannot make up to a man the loss of his soul. The possession of all the treasures that the world contains, would not compensate for eternal ruin. They would not satisfy us, and make us happy while we had them. They could only be enjoyed for a few years, at best, and must then be left for evermore. Of all un- profitable and foolish bargains that man can make, the worst is that of giving up his soul's salvation for the sake of this present world. It is a bargain of which thousands, like Esau, who sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage, have repented — but many, unhappily, like Esau, have repented too late.
Let these sayings of our Lord sink deep into our hearts. Words are inadequate to express their importance. May we remember them in the hour of temptation, when the