ST. MATTHEW vn. r3, 14 199
safe rule, that a feeling of security is a warning to be suspicious, and that our safety is to feel the stretch and the energy of a continual strife.
TJ There is an extraordinary confirmation of His teaching about the broad way in the attitude of those who among our- selves have rejected Christ and His laws. Their thought tends to Pessimism ; and so far as they believe anything, they believe in extinction — i.e., the broad path leading to destruction. What is the attitude of Nietzsche or Max Nordau in Germany ? or of Daudet, Loti, Guyau in France ? or of Bjornsen and Ibsen in Norway ? The way of Jesus is surrendered or rejected, and blank destruction stares the thinker in the face.1
T[ There is in man an instinct of revolt, an enemy of all law, a rebel which will stoop to no yoke, not even that of reason, duty, and wisdom. This element in us is the root of all sin. The independence which is the condition of individuality is at the same time the eternal temptation of the individual. That which makes us beings makes us also sinners. Sin is, then, in our very marrow, it circulates in us like the blood in our veins, it is mingled with a41 our substance. Or rather I am wrong : temptation is our natural state, but sin is not necessary. Sin consists in the voluntary confusion of the independence which is good with the independence which is bad.2
But two ways are offered to our will — Toil, with rare triumph, Ease, with safe disgrace;
Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance ! The man's whole life preludes the single deed
That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Or with the unnoticed herd that only sleep and feed.
II.
The Way of the Few.
In reading the Gospels one is often struck with what, for lack of a better term, one might call Christ's frankness. He makes no secret of the conditions of discipleship. He does not attempt to deck the Christian life out in gay and attractive colours. On the
1 R. F. Horton, Tlie Commandments of Jesus, 227.
2 Amiel's Journal.
200 CHOOSING A ROAD
contrary, He scores and underlines and emphasizes its hardships and difficulties. He wants no man to follow Him under the impression that he is going to have a pleasant and easy time of it. And so at the very beginning He confronts him with the "narrow gate " of an exacting demand. " If any man would come after me," He said, " let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Self-denial and the cross — these constitute the " narrow gate " by which a man enters upon the service of Jesus Christ.
1. The entrance is narrow. — Like the broad way, this way of the few has, at its outset, a gate. It is a narrow gate and may be taken as expressing the initial act of repentance and the com- mencement of a life dedicated to Christ. The entrance ioto the Christian life may aptly be described as a narrow gate, for it is a definite and decisive act into which one is not likely to drift with a multitude by chance. Like a narrow gate, it may easily be overlooked ; and the main difficulty of the Christian life is perhaps that it escapes notice altogether. Multitudes of people seem not to have so much as heard that there is a Christian life. They follow the broad path because it is broad, and they never notice that unostentatious entrance into the way of life, repentance and faith. But, while it is narrow, the gate is broad enough for entrance, always provided that one is content to enter stripped and unburdened.
The entrance into the way of life is by the strait gate of penitence and renunciation. If men could carry the world along with them, if young people could carry their love of pleasure along with them, multitudes would crowd into the gate of the Kingdom. But to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof is too hard a command. To put away the old man with his deeds is more than they can bring themselves to do. The gate is " narrow." That is why Christ added that solemn word, " Few there be that find it."
Tf " Thou didst send for me," said Savonarola to Lorenzo the Magnificent, the tyrant of Florence, as he lay on his dying bed. " Yes," said Lorenzo, " for three sins lie heavy on my soul," and then he told the monk how he was tortured by the remembrance of the sack of Volterra, and his robbery of a bank whereby many poor girls had lost their all and been driven to a life of shame,
ST. MATTHEW vn. 13, 14 201
and the bloody reprisals he took after a political conspiracy igainat him. " God is good," replied Savonarola, " God is merciful. But," he at once added, " three things are needful." " What things ? " asked Lorenzo anxiously. " First, a great and living faith in God's mercy." "I have the fullest faith in it," replied the dying man. " Secondly, you must restore all your ill-gotten wealth." At this Lorenzo writhed, but at last he gave a nod of assent. " Lastly," said Savonarola to the cowering prince, " you must restore to Florence her liberty." And Lorenzo angrily turned his back upon the preacher and said never a word. The gate was too " narrow." 1