As he sits down in the snow outside the gates, musing of sunnier climes, he hears once more the leper's voice, " For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms." The knight turns to the sound and sees again the leper cowering beside him, lone and white :
And Sir Launfal said, " I behold in thee
An image of Him who died on the tree ;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,
Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,
And to thy life were not denied
The wounds in the hands and feet and side :
Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;
Behold, through Him, I give to thee ! "
So he parted in twain his single crust, and broke the ice of the stream and gave the leper to eat and drink. Then, lo ! a wondrous transformation took place.
The leper no longer crouched at his side,
But stood before him glorified,
Shining and tall and fair and straight
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate, —
Himself the Gate whereby men can
Enter the temple of God in Man.
And the voice that was softer than silence said,
" Lo, it is I, be not afraid !
In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now;
-4S THE MINISTRY OF SMALL THINGS
This crust is My body broken for thee, This water His blood that died on the tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In wliatso we share with another's need ; Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, Himself, his hungering neighbour, and Me."
Thus, with the true instinct of a prophet, did Lowell portray the right motive in its recognition. When Sir Launfal in scorn tossed the bit of gold to the leper, the Holy Grail was far away from the seeker ; but when he shared his crust in the name of Christ, he found what he sought. " Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss." l
2. Eeal goodness can never be confined to great acts only. It invests with sudden glory the life of him who ventures all and, leaving those things which men count dearest, goes to tell the story of the love of Jesus to men who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. But it also clothes with exquisite graciousness those who, by the lesser ministries of life, strive in all things to interpret the beauty of the spirit of God, and hour by hour to give fine revelations of the heart of Christ. It blazes out in some great piece of sacrifice or self-renunciation, but it shines with a persistent light in the exquisite self-forgetfulness of a life that desires only to do the will of Jesus. David consecrating great wealth to the building of a temple, and a poor widow casting two mites into the treasury ; Moses delivering a whole people from cruel bondage, and a simple unknown man giving a cup of cold water only to one who is hot after life's fierce battle — all these manifest one and the selfsame goodness, which is the heart's love and loyalty to God flowing through all our deeds and consecrating them all.
TJ When Edward Payson was dying, he said, " I long to give a full cup of happiness to every human being." If with such urgency of desire we should daily go out among men, how selfish- ness would perish out of our dealings with them ! What love would be in our homes ! What changes would be wrought in human society ! Now giving food to the needy, clothes to the naked, a toy to a child, opportunity for work to the unemployed,
1 J. 0. Owen.
ST. MATTHEW x. 42 249
a good book to one who will prize it as the thirsty do water — in such simple ways will streams be made to flow through life's deserts, and cups of comfort come to famishing lips.1
IV.
The Reward.
Some people tell us that it is defective morality in Christianity to bribe men to be good by promising them heaven, and that he who is actuated by such a motive is selfish. Now that fantastic and overstrained objection may be very simply answered by two considerations : self-regard is not selfishness, and Christianity does not propose the future reward as the motive for goodness. The motive for goodness is love to Jesus Christ ; and if ever there was a man who did acts of Christian goodness only for the sake of what he would get by them, the acts were not Christian, because the motive was wrong. But it is a piece of fastidiousness to forbid us to reinforce the great Christian motive, which is love to Jesus Christ, by the thought of the recompense of reward. It is a stimulus and an encouragement, not the motive for goodness. This text shows us that it is a subordinate motive, for it says that the reception of a prophet, or of a righteous man, or of " one of these little ones," which is rewardable, is the reception " in the name of" a prophet, a disciple, and so on; or, in other words, recognizing the prophet, or the righteousness, or the disciple for what he is, and because he is that, and not because of the reward, receiving him with sympathy and solace and help.