^ A successful business man kept above his desk the motto, "Do the hard thing first," knowing, as every sincere person knows, that we are apt to shirk, procrastinate, and delay the most vital issues of life. Now, the Christian must do the " hard thing first." The way of life, the path leading to eternal day, is difficult, thorny, and rugged. The Christian way is the " way of the Cross," the righteous path is toilsome and weary, but we have the joy of knowing that
All this toil shall make us
Some day all His own. And the end of sorrow
Shall be near His throne.*
3. But we must be very careful that our cross is not a self-imposed one. It must not be our cross, but Christ's cross. They compelled Simon to bear Christ's cross. It was no willing choice. Indeed, a' self -chosen cross is very seldom the right
^ J. H. Renshaw,
470 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
one for us to carry. And it is just here we touch the true reason of so much religious failure. We mahe our own crosses instead of simply carrying Christ's ; we strive to do religious work instead of doing our own work religiously. Yet is it not clear that if Simon had cut down all the trees in Gethsemane and all the cedars of Lebanon, he would but have made for himself a heavier burden, and would have been no true helper of Jesus Christ ?
^ We may remember that sometimes the cross, which we are not compelled to bear, may be put down. Asceticism, pure and simple, is a sin. It is the shadow of suicide. There is no merit in bearing a cross, so far as the mere bearing is concerned. There is no merit in the cross itself. Many speak as if there were some moral worth in being distressed and hampered in the world. There is none. Bodily health is not merely a boon to be striven for, it is in some sense a virtue. Few of us are so well as we ought to be. The laws and precautions for the preservation of health are often very simple and plain, but the observance of them is tedious and troublesome. We might choose that little cross, if you like to call it so, of care and simplicity and regularity in living from love to our Father, that we may liave longer time to live and do His work on earth. There are those who bear the cross of ill-health who were not really coiri polled to do it; the matter was in their own hands. There is not a burden or a trouble in this world, viewed simply in itself, and apart from its associations and what it leads to, which we are not justified in laying down if we can ; or, rather, which it is not a positive duty to lay down if we can.^
^ We shall find our cross ; none of us, it is certain, will be excused. Christ had to bear His cross ; so must we. " He that taketh not up his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." But mark, that cross which we make our own is, in reality, Christ's cross, the one He gives us. " Take my yoke upon you." Simon did not choose his own. We have no right to manufacture and carry crosses of our own selection. Simon was turned back, converted. He was travelling his own self-chosen road once; after he met Jesus he must needs tread in the Saviour's steps. It is all symbolical. We cannot serve Christ, bear His cross, without conversion. We need to be changed, to take up His cross instead of our own. There is more in this than we think. What makes so many formal, unreal, unhappy Christians, but the failure to appreciate this
^ T. Gasquoine.
ST. MARK 471
truth? For instance, what good will the Lenten season do to any person if it be to him merely a season of selfish self-denial, of selfish cross-bearing ? Suppose a man leaves off smoking, or taking alcoholic drink, or novel-reading, or suppose he makes a practice of not going to any place of amusement, or of getting up an hour earlier during Lent, that is a cross-bearing, no doubt, for him, in a sense — a useful discipline in certain cases. Indeed, it is to be wished that more might follow it ; only remember, it must touch the spiritual life — it must help, not hinder, it. It must not be pharisaical, pretentious ; for if it be, Christ has not ordered it. He does not like it in the least. So, too, with sin. How frequently we read amiss our soul's state, and fondly imagine there is nothing much the matter with us ; that our faith, our works, are quite sound, when in reality there is some secret besetting root of evil eating the very life out of us, and drying up completely the springs of earnestness and love. What is needed is Divine advice and succour, a discipline and treatment not our own, but Christ's. This is the central truth of Jesus' dealing with Simon. The cross we try to lift must be pointed out, given to us, along with the strength to bear it, by our Lord Himself, not selected, shaped by ourselves. It will be, then,