^f When Bernard of Quintavalle, convinced of the rare grace granted by God to Francis, and longing to come under its power, determined to join him, the saint, notwithstanding his joy, ;j;;ive proof of that sound judgment upon which the commune had learned to draw, by proposing that since the life of renuncia- tion was hard, they must lay the whole matter before the Lord, who would Himself be its judge and their counsellor. So they repaired to St. Nicholas' Church, and, after the office, knelt long in prayer for guidance. The curate of St. Nicholas was their friend, and he consulted the gospel text when their minds were prepared to accept its mandates. The first time he opened it these words met his eyes : " Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, take up thy cross, and follow me." The second time, the very gospel which had lately impelled Francis to preach was on the open page (Luke ix. 1-6), while the third test of Bernard's Eaith was found to be the great and strenuous commandment: " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Bernard bowed his head in
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 24 321
obedience to all three, and leaving the church, he and Francis at once set about selling his houses aud possessions, and bestowing the money realized on hospitals, poor monasteries, the neediest townsfolk. Then, having finished this affair, the brothers passed down to the plain, and a new stage in the Franciscan movement was initiated.1
There are three things in the text —
I. Self-denial — " Let him deny himself." II. Cross-bearing — " And take up his cross." III. Following — " And follow me."
I.
Self-Denial.
"Let him deny himself."
1. " If any man would come after me," said Jesus, " let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Here Jesus makes the duty of denying self an essential requisite of Christian discipleship. A man cannot be a follower of Jesus unless he denies himself, or, as the Greek term indicates, denies himself utterly. The requirement is not the denial of anything, either little or much, to self, but the utter denial of self — a very im- portant and too often unrecognized difference.
As the term stands in the Greek, the injunction of our Lord to His every disciple, to " deny himself," includes the idea of turning oneself away from oneself, of rejecting self as the desire of self. It suggests the thought of two centres — self and Christ — the one to be denied and the other accepted as an object of attraction and devotedness. Its use in the original seems to say : " If you would turn toward Me, you must turn away from yourself. If you would accept Me as the chief object of desire, you must renounce yourself as such an object. If you would henceforward live in My service, you must at once cease to live for your own pleasure and interest."
It is a very common mistake concerning the nature of self- V^ denial to suppose that it involves a constant thought of self, in order to the entire subjection of self. As a matter of fact, he who \-
1 Anna M. Stoddart, Francis of Assisi, 96. ST. MATT. — 21
322 THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
lives the truest life of self-denial has very little trouble with himself. Being absorbed in an object of interest outside of himself, he forgets himself ; living for something worthier of his devotion, he does not give any worrying thought to that self from which he has turned away in his enthusiastic pursuit of a nobler aim. A soldier is worth little as a soldier until he forgets himself in his interest in his military duties. If he even thinks of pro- longing or protecting his life, he is more likely to lose it than if he is absorbed in the effort to do his work manfully as a soldier. An unselfish interest in our fellows causes us to forget ourselves in our loving thought of others. An unselfish interest in our Friend of friends takes us away from ourselves, and fills our mind with a simple purpose of pleasing and serving Him. A life of self- denial is not a life of conflict with self ; it is rather a life turned away from self in utter self-forgetfulness.
TJ Self-denial is not an outward act, but an inward turning of our being. As the steamship is turned about by the rudder, which is swung by the means of a wheel, so there is within our being a rudder, or whatever you may call it, which is turned by a small wheel, and as we turn the entire craft either leeward or windward, we deny either self or God. In its deepest sense we always deny either the one or the other. When we stand well we deny self; in all other cases we deny God. And the internal wheel by which we turn the entire craft of our ego is our intention. The rudder determines the course of the ship ; not its rigging and cargo, nor the character of the crew, but its direction, the destination of the voyage, its final haven. Hence, when we see our craft steering away from God, we swing the rudder the other way and compel it to run toward God.1