192 FORGIVENESS
come stealing into the heart that trusts, just because it does trust, a strange calm like the centre in a cyclone, where there is absolute repose, and the sail hangs lank and straight in the windless air, however storms may rage madly all round about it.^
4. At the very moment when one would have thought it would do this woman good to be with the Lord for a little while longer, she is sent out into the harshly judging world. Yes, that is always the way by which Christian men and women who have received the blessing of salvation through faith can retain it, and serve Him — by going out among men and doing their work there. The woman went home. It was a home, if what they said about her was true, that sorely needed the leavening which she now would bring. She had been a centre of evil. She was to go away back to the very place where she had been such, and to be a centre of good. She was to contradict her past by her present, which would explain itself when she said she had been with Jesus. For the very same reason for which, to one man that besought to be with Him, begged that he might remain. He said, " No, no ; go away home and tell your friends what great things God has done for you," He said to this woman, and He says to you and me, " Go, and witness for Me." Communion with Him is blessed, and it is meant to issue in service for Him.
^ One day Brother Masseo said to St. Francis : " I wonder why the whole world runs after thee more than after others, and all men want to see thee and hear thee and obey thee ? Thou art not fair of body, thou art not deeply learned, thou art not of noble birth — why does the whole world run after thee?" When St. Francis heard this, he rejoiced in his soul and turned his eyes to heaven, and stood a long time thus, with soul lifted up to God ; and when he came to himself he kneeled down and gave thanks and praise to God, and turned to Brother Masseo and said to him with great spiritual power : " Do you wish to know why this happens to me ? Do you wish to know why the whole world runs after me ? For I knew that thing from the all-seeing God, whose eyes see the good and the bad over all the earth. For these most holy eyes have nowhere seen a greater, more miserable, poorer sinner than I ; because in all the earth He has found no more wretched being to do His wonderful work, which He wishes to have done, therefore He has chosen me, so as thus to put to shame the noble, the great, strength and beauty, worldly wisdom,
^ A. Maclaren.
ST. LUKE VII. 50 193
that all may know that all power and all virtue come from Him and not from creatures, and that no one can exalt himself before His face ; but he who praises himself, let him praise himself in the Lord, for His is the honour and the power for ever and ever." ^
^ If one reads a book like the Confessions of Saint Augustine, one sees what an intensely individualistic conception permeates it. The new light which breaks in upon him only enlightens him as to his relations with God, it does not arouse in him any impulse to the service of other men. It does not occur to him that to arrange comfortably and securely for one's own tranquillity and salvation, to have, so to speak, a private understanding with God, is in the least a selfish conception. It seems to Augustine the most natural thing in the world. Then that belief begins to alter insensibly, and the highest spirits begin to turn away in shame from a conception of religion which is merely a desire for moral security, a stoical ideal, a deliberate practising to become superior to pain and calamity by avoiding the desires and designs which are quenched and marred by suffering, an attempt at invulnerability. More and more do the highest spirits perceive that their duty is to the brotherhood of man ; that there is much preventible sorrow and misery in the world, and that their work is to persuade men to prevent it.^
^ J. Jorgensen, St. Francis of Assist, 74.
2 A. C. Benson, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 140.
ST. LUKE-
The Good Samaritan.
Literature.
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