2. Each has his particular cross to bear. This we have each to discover for ourselves, and bear as we follow Him. Never are we
1 Canon Newbolt. ' E. F. Sampson, Clirist Church Sermons, 265.
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 24 327
to invent crosses for ourselves, and most anxiously are we to take heed that we do not make them for others, for this would indeed be to sin against God, and to bring continued misery on those beside us. Our own cross is close at hand, and we are to see rising high above it that awful yet most blessed and now vacant cross on which the Son of God suffered that He might win us back to the Father. We think how much easier it would be for us, and how much more devout and vigorous a Christian life we should lead, if we could but " change " our own cross for some other one that we imagine we could readily name, thus wishing even our trials to be bent to our own self-will, and suited to what we think for our comfort. We think that we can judge of the crosses which others have to bear, and that ours is often so much heavier than theirs. We may even magnify our own cross until it almost shuts out of view that awe-inspiring cross on which our Saviour offered Himself unto death. We may have sore trial from some beside us, owing to our "choosing that good part" which He sets before us, and we may have daily to bear this cross, which in His wise permission He allows to be laid upon us, although we feel that by only a little change in their disposition they themselves would be blessed, and all life made different to us.
Tj There is a poem called The Changed Cross. It represents a weary one who thought that her cross was surely heavier than those of others whom she saw about her, and wished that she might choose another instead of her own. She slept, and in her dream she was led to a place where many crosses lay, crosses of divers shapes and sizes. There was a little one most beauteous to behold, set in jewels and gold. " Ah, this I can wear with com- fort," she said. So she took it up, but her weak form shook beneath it. The jewels and the gold were beautiful, but they were far too heavy for her. Next she saw a lovely cross with, fair flowers entwined around its sculptured form. Surely that was the one for her. She lifted it, but beneath the flowers were piercing thorns which tore her flesh. At last, as she went on, she came to a plain cross, without jewels, without carving, with only a few words of love inscribed upon it. This she took up, and it proved the best of all, the easiest to be borne. And as she looked upon it, bathed in the radiance that fell from heaven, she recog- nized her own old cross. She had found it again, and it was the best of all and lightest for her.
328 THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
God knows best what cross we need to bear. We do not know how heavy other people's crosses are. We envy some one who is rich ; his is a golden cross set with jewels. But we do not know how heavy it is. Here is another whose life seems very lovely. She bears a cross twined with flowers. But we do not know what sharp thorns are hidden beneath the flowers. If we could try all the other crosses that we think lighter than ours, we should at last find that not one of them suited us so well as our own.1
III.
Following the Master.
44 And follow me."
1. Christ pictures Himself here, not as the Redeemer, but aa the Leader and Pattern. It was a great event for the world when there was born into it the Perfect Man. Formerly the children of men were aware that they fell short of the perfection that was in God ; but they did not suspect that one born of woman could actually attain such holiness. Jesus disclosed what man could be and do.
Tj Mechanics are well aware that the engines on which they spend their powers are far from perfect. But, if some day a machine immensely superior to any that had been produced were devised and constructed by one of themselves, the whole trade would at once undergo a revolution. Employers, designers, draughtsmen, moulders, finishers, fitters, the whole population of the place, would vie with one another in their efforts to equal or surpass the achievement. If, perhaps, like ignorant Russian peasants, they broke the splendid instrument, or if they put it into a glass case as a mere curiosity, yet, after a while, a wiser counsel would prevail. Our great Fellow-workman produced a matchless work ; and although for a time His jealous comrades endeavoured to crush it and to suppress the very mention of it, yet, in the end, they began to copy it. The life of Jesus, if it had been an example and nothing more, must certainly have left its mark on the customs of the world.2
2. It has been suggested that this phrase, though authentic, may perhaps be misplaced as we have it here in Matthew, and may