TJ As the doctor takes the key of his drug-store and selects from the specifics that are arranged around him, he kills or makes alive. His key means a power of absolution. When it is first put into his hand he is instructed with as solemn a responsibility as the Judge who pronounces death-sentences. When he selects this drug, or looks upon that as hopeless to apply under the conditions into which the patient has fallen, he is dealing with questions of life and death. And so Christ in His closing admonitions to the disciples teaches that they are not dealing with speculative truth only. The doctrine they are set forth to disseminate is not, like the curious and trivial questions discussed by some of the Eabbis, a matter that cannot possibly affect the spiritual well-being of a single human soul in the slightest degree. They are not following out questions that have a hypo- thetical value only. It is not for some idle debate in the groves that they are setting forth in the scanty outfit of couriers. They are commissioned to deal with grave, spiritual destinies. " Whose
3i4 THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained."1
^[ We are told that, throughout the strain of the civil war in America, Abraham Lincoln found a true priest in the godly and much-euffering woman who had charge of his children. He, who became more powerful than any monarch of modern times through the reverence of his countrymen for the man he was, tells us how he was sustained in that awful crisis of national calamity and personal sorrow by the prayers in his behalf of this stricken, yet believing woman. She knew God, Lincoln felt, so she became God's priest to Lincoln. He resorted to her for inter- cession on his behalf — he who would, as one truly remarks, have treated with " courteous and civil incredulity a proffer of sacer- dotal good offices from Cardinal Gibbons." 2
3. Yet the responsibility is always with the man himself. To each soul personally God gives the keys of his own destiny and bids him unlock life's closed doors ; puts in his hands the rudder and bids him steer his bark ; gives him the tools and bids him model his own character. This is the most solemn fact of all, for this is an undivided and unshared responsibility. I may throw on others the blame for the failure of the State and the sins of the Church ; but for my decisions respecting my own life I am alone responsible. In vain the reluctant receiver protests against taking the key of his own life ; in vain he endeavours to pass it to some other one ; in vain he seeks to avoid the necessity of deciding life's problems and making life's choice. Sometimes he seeks a father-confessor and asks him to take the key and bind and loose his life for him ; and the father-confessor may accept the trust. But it is in vain. Every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Whether the father-confessor sits in a priest's chair, or in a Protestant minister's chair, or in a religious editor's chair, he can take no responsibility ; he can give counsel, but that is all. To each soul God has given the keys ; each soul must bind and loose for itself.
^j A father whose wealth is in ships and warehouses and rail- roads, but who has an acre garden attached to the country home- stead, summons his boys one spring, as he is going to Europe, and says to them, " I put this garden in your charge ; spend what
1 T. G. Selby, The Imperfect Angel, 268.
2 A. Shepherd, Bible Studies in Living Subjects, 231.
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 19 315
you will ; cultivate according to your own best judgment ; send the product to the market ; and account to me for sales and expenditures when I get home." "But, Father," say the boys, " what shall we sow ? " "I cannot tell you ; you must judge for yourselves." " Where shall we sell ? " " Find out for your- selves." " What prices ought we to get ? " " Learn for yourselves." " But, Father, we know nothing about gardening ; we shall make dreadful mistakes." " No doubt you will," replies the father, " and you will learn by your mistakes ; and it is your learning, not the gardening, I care for." " But, Father, we are afraid we shall bankrupt you." The father laughs and replies, " You can- not bankrupt me, if you try, with a summer's gardening on an acre plot." " But, Father," finally protest the boys, " we are afraid that when you come back and see how poorly we have done you will find fault with us and be sorry that you gave us such a trust." And the father catches up a piece of paper and writes upon it : " Know all men by these presents that I hereby appoint my boys, James and John, my true and lawful attorneys, to do all things that may be necessary in the cultivation and charge of my acre garden, and I hereby ratify and confirm beforehand what- ever they may do." And he signs it, hands it to them, and goes his way. So God gives to us, His children, in this summer day out of eternity which we call life, and on this little acre plot of ground out of the universe which we call the world, the responsibility and the liberty involved in the charge of our own destinies, and with this He gives power of attorney promising beforehand to ratify and confirm whatever we do in loyal service to Him and in loyal allegiance to His name and honour.1