2. The ivay also is narrow. — The word used by the Bevisers here is " straitened." The figure contemplated is that of " double- dykes." There is a path between two properties, each measured off with its wall. Both walls approach as closely and compress- ingly as possible to the centre of the thoroughfare, which is the public " right of way." The " double-dykes " almost meet, and there is, at points here and there, bulging on either side, while all along loose stones have fallen down, and make the way incon- venient, so that the traveller can only painfully and with trouble pick his steps as he moves along. It leads, however, to life, that is, to everlasting life, to the home of everlasting bliss. Being a narrowed way, it will not admit of latitudinarianism of demeanour. Neither will it admit of accompanying parade and pomp. It would not be possible to drive along it in a coach and six. When kings would go by it they must step out of their coaches and walk. Princes and peasants must travel there on an equality. What is this narrow way? When we get down, through the envelopments of imagery, to the real base or essential substrate of the representations, we hear the voice of Jesus Himself saying, " I am the way ; no man cometh unto the Father " (or " to the Father's house") "but by me" (John xiv. 6). As the martyr Philpot said, " The cross- way is the high- way to heaven." There is no other way.
Tf The word Strait, applied to the entrance into Life, and the word Narrow, applied to the road of Life, do not mean that the road is so fenced that few can travel it, however much they wish (like the entrance to the pit of a theatre), but that, for each person, it is at first so stringent, so difficult, and so dull, being 1 J. D. Jones, The Unfettered Word, 106.
202 CHOOSING A ROAD
between close hedges, that few will enter it, though all may. In a second sense, and an equally vital one, it is not merely a Strait, or narrow, but a straight, or right road ; only, in this Tightness of it, not at all traced by hedges, wall, or telegraph wire, or even marked by posts higher than winter's snow ; but, on the contrary, often difficult to trace among morasses and mounds of desert, even by skilful sight ; and by blind persons, entirely untenable unless by help of a guide, director, rector, or rex : which you may conjecture to be the reason why, when St. Paul's eyes were to be opened, out of the darkness which meant only the consciousness of utter mistake, to seeing what way he should go, his director was ordered to come to him in the " street which is called Straight." l
(1) How is the way straitened ? Did God make it so ? The Bible recording that the one way is narrow and the other broad does not make them so, any more than a medical book recording smallpox makes smallpox to exist. The fact is, God has done His best to reverse these terrible facts. God has striven to make the way to the good broad, and the way to the evil narrow.
Tj " When I was a young man," says Dr. Albert Goodrich, " I taught in the ragged schools of London. On one Sunday I had this passage for my lesson. ' I say, teacher,' merrily sang one of those sharp, ragged boys, ' it says, don't it, the way to the good is narrow and the way to the bad wide ? ' ' Yes, it does,' I replied. 'I know that's true,' he said, with a knowing wink; ' but,' he added, dropping his voice, • is it fair ? Oughtn't God have made them both the same width ? He'd have given us, then, a fair chance.' "
(2) Who or what, then, makes the two ways so different? It is not the will of God ; it is the sin of man. Man's injustices to man, man's inhumanity to man, narrows the way. By hard- ness, by provoking one another, by tempting one another, we make the way narrow. Employers make it narrow to their employees ; employees make it narrow to their employers. Children make it narrow to their parents; parents make it narrow to their children. What need there is to consider one another, lest we make the way to life even more narrow than it is.
TJ What is it, Augustine asks, which makes this gate so strait to us, and this way so narrow ? It is not so much " strait " in
1 Ruskin, Fors Clavigcra, Letter 59 ( Works, xxviii. 441).
ST. MATTHEW vn. 13, 14 203
itself, as that we make it strait for ourselves, by the swellings of our pride ; — and then, vexed that we cannot enter, chafing and impatient at the hindrances we meet with, we become more and more unable to pass through. But where is the remedy ? how shall these swollen places of our souls be brought down ? By accept- ing and drinking of the cup, wholesome though it may be distaste- ful, of humility : by listening to and learning of Him who, having said, " Enter ye in at the strait gate," does to them who inquire, " How shall we enter in ? " reply, " By Me ; " "I am the Way ; " " I am the Door." "