There came from out the cloudless sky
A hand, the dagger's hilt That caught, and then fell presently
Five drops, for mortal guilt
Christ's dear wounds once freely spilt: And then a little leaf there fell To that youth's foot through miracle — A leaf whereon was plain
These words, these only words enwrit, Enwritten not in vain,
Oh ! miserere mei ; then
A mourner, among mourning men, A sinner, sinner slain Through love and grace abounding, he Sank down on lowly bended knee,
Looked up to heaven and cried, "Have mercy, mercy, Lord, on me For His dear sake, who on the tree
Shed forth those drops and died ! "
II.
TnE Standard of Judgment.
The standard of judgment is intensely human and practical. It is no ecstatic rapture, no ritual observance, no external profession that is to be the test. It is plain humanity, a cup of cold water, a morsel of bread — social service, in a word. In this tremendously Divine word, with its sweep of authority so amazing, here is the kind of test most natural to man, as it is true to His own example.
1. The final test for every soul is its relation to Christ Himself. It does not seem to be so much a verdict passed by one
ST. MATTHEW xxv. 40 413
who has heard the evidence and sums it up impartially as a sentence which results from the touchstone of His presence. He implies that He — partly the word He has spoken, partly the works He has done, but essentially He Himself — is the standard by which men will be tried. In some of His sayings the idea of the Judge almost melts away, becomes an inappropriate image. Rather there appears simply the gracious Saviour of men, the only One who could really save them, and for that reason the only One who could really judge them. He is there, not only in the last day, but now always in the course of human history, in our midst, willing to save all who will accept His call, rejecting literally no one, but for that reason passing an unwilling verdict on those who will not come unto Him that they might have life. It seems to be in this sense that He regards His function of judgment as beginning from the time of His manifestation to men. And we almost gather that the scene of a judgment-bar, and the dramatic division of all mankind into two classes at one moment, is sketched for the sake of pictorial representation to the multitude, but that what fills the mind of Jesus is the intrinsic determination of men's destiny by contact with Himself in the field of human experience. Following up this suggestion, which comes more from a study of His modes of thought than from an accumulation of particular utterances, we arrive at the idea that He is the appointed Judge of all mankind for this reason : at the long last, when the ultimate destiny of every human being will be determined, the one factor which will be decisive must be the relation of each to Jesus.
^| The place assigned in the last judgment to Himself in the words of Jesus is recognized by all interpreters to imply that the ultimate fate of men is to be determined by their relation to Him. He is the standard by which all shall be measured ; and it is to Him as the Saviour that all who enter into eternal life will owe their felicity. But the description of Himself as Judge implies much more than this : it implies the consciousness of ability to estimate the deeds of men so exactly as to determine with unerring justice their everlasting state. How far beyond the reach of mere human nature such a claim is, it is easy to see. No human being knows another to the bottom ; the most ordinary man is a mystery to the most penetrating of his fellow-creatures ; the greatest of men would acknowledge that even in a child there
4i4 UNTO ME
are heights which he cannot reach and depths which he cannot fathom. Who would venture to pronounce a final verdict on the character of a brother man, or to measure out his deserts for a single day ? But Jesus ascribed to Himself the ability to deter- mine for eternity the value of the whole life, as made up not only of its obvious acts but of its most secret experiences and its most subtle motives.1
Thou didst it not unto the least of these,
And in them hast not done it unto Me. Thou wast as a princess rich and at ease —
Now sit in dust and howl for poverty. Three times I stood beseeching at thy gate,
Three times I came to bless thy soul and save: But now I come to judge for what I gave,
And now at length thy sorrow is too late.2
2. Christ interprets our relation to Himself by our conduct to the least of His brethren. We cannot spend our treasures as Mary did in ministering to the personal honour or refreshment of our Divine Lord. He is far withdrawn now beyond need or reach of human ministry into the serene heaven of His glory. But, though absent, He has left His proxies behind Him. No disciple may excuse himself to-day from imitating Mary's open-handed gratitude on the plea that the Saviour is out of reach. For every purpose of devotion — for giving Him pleasure, for testifying our own thanks, for winning in the end His praise — it is really all the same if we minister to His poor ones as if we spent our money ou Himself. Through this appointed channel is our homage to reach Him there where, priest-like, He stands at the heart of this ailing race, a sharer in each man's sorrow.