And it was to make strong souls that Jesus came.
Tj There is a story in the " Arabian Nights " of a prince who brought to the king, his father, a fairy tent folded into the con- fines of a walnut shell. When it was spread in the council chamber it sheltered the king and his counsellors. When taken out and spread in the courtyard, it provided shade for all the household. When taken out on the great plain, where the army were en- camped, it grew until all the hosts were beneath its canopy. It had flexibility and expansiveness which were indefinite. That gives us a fair symbol of the expansive, co-ordinating, all-inclusive capacity of the Kingdom of God, which gathers into its confines all the needs and all the treasures of men.1
2. There are many things which we get by aiming beyond them. Philosophers of the world tell us that we should aim at
1 W. MacMullen.
172 THE FIRST THINGS FIRST
what is near and tangible, and should not concern ourselves with what is shadowy and remote ; that to talk of and aim at such things as God's love and God's righteousness and a high and chivalrous rule of duty is wasting our time on things not within our reach. Now, that these high and far things are indefinite and misty to us at times is granted. If you get into argument with some philosopher of the lower school he can easily show you that his aims are more practical, as he calls it, that the things he aims at are more clearly in his view. But how if the Divine law holds good in spite of his practical philosophy ; how, if by aiming at what we admit is remote and dim, we make sure of getting all that is really worth having in these everyday things ? When we have aimed at getting reputation we have missed it ; when we have aimed at doing duty and helping man the reputation has come. Have we never found this law holding good even in the struggles of our inner life ? When we fought with a number of small faults we made little progress. When we aimed at some high, self-devoted goal beyond, they disappeared. The other things were added. When men fire the rocket of the life-saving apparatus out to a ship, they aim, not at the deck, but considerably above it.
T| A woodsman wielding his axe swings it upward to lop off the heavy branch, but finds it hard work. His skyward strokes are feeble, for the law of gravitation operates against him and to a certain extent neutralizes the power of his arm. He next swings it downward, and every stroke makes the hills resound. He works with and not against the law of gravitation; and the power of this central law of creation being added to the power of his muscles, he prosecutes his work with energy and success. Every stroke has a double power — the power of the arm and the power of gravitation. Thus man in pursuit of evil proceeds in the teeth of the most potent laws of the Divine Government — the odds are all against him, his strokes are all upwards; and sooner or later he must be made to feel the weariness of wrong-doing. But the good man places himself in harmony with the moral law of God, and thus the strength of the law becomes his panoply. His goodness is so far an advantage to him and not an impediment. And in prophecy the reign of goodness is always associated with the reign of plenty ; when the knowledge of God will cover the earth, then and not before will a harvest of wheat be reaped upon the tops of the mountains.
ST. MATTHEW vi. 33 173
Evil and famine on the one hand, goodness and abundance on the other, always go together.1
Tj A man gifted with powers and capacities for the calling desires to become an artist. He will aim high. He tells himself that he will not be content with mediocrity, nor allow himself to sink to the lower level of other men. Of him it shall not be true :
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it, and does it.
Rather will he be one who, if he fail, can cry :
Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed, As, God be thanked, I do not.
But how shall he become such a one ? Only when he has stood before the great masterpieces of all time, and felt the spirit of their creators breathe upon his own. He must enter into their mind ; he must feel the nobility of their conceptions touch his own faculty of imagination ; he must see the vision of the lesson they sought to write upon their canvas; he must catch the loftiness and grandeur of the spirit that animated them. And what follows ? In proportion as these things enter into his soul, possess his faculties, transfuse their own powers into his, will success and greatness meet him. Had he sought success and greatness for themselves alone he would have failed ; but, seeking first the spirit of a Master's mind, " all these things have been added unto him." 2