^ Nobody can tell us what makes a carbon a diamond. The same substance is in both, but the one will shine in the dark and the other will not. We cannot see what makes the difference, except that the diamond, which is carbon after all, has managed to feed upon the light somehow, and store it, and shine by its lustre. Holiness is character, the shining light that never was on sea or land ; holiness is character with a fragrance ; holiness is an influence of itself, and it is begotten of communion with the Un- seen, and without that you never have it, and no man has ever had it. When you speak about the men you know in business life who are living well and nobly without any particular faith in God, with nothing more than a faith in right, you know, as well as I know, and as well as they know too, that if you place a Spurgeon and a Catherine Booth alongside them, the difference is that of the diamond and of the carbon, and the difference is made by prayer. The one is mighty in the communion with the Unseen, and the other is not. The witness of holiness to the efficacy of prayer is this, that no saint ever prayed and doubted about his answer ; if it came not in one way, it came in another. Unvary- ing, unaltering is the witness of holiness to the fact that God does hear prayer, however it is done.*
* R. 0. Moberly, AtonemeTit and Personality, 251.
* E. J. Campbell, OUy Temple Sermons, 43.
254 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
If The early Christian missionaries of Scotland, on their long missionary voyages from lona, found their burdens grow lighter, and their fears become less dismal, and their hopes break into a warm enthusiasm, when they reached the most difficult part of the way, and they said to one another, " The secret prayers of our aged master, Columba, meet us here at the points where we need them most." If we were but unchangeably confident in God we should be conscious again and again in our neediest hours of the inbreathing into our feeble life of the strength of Jesus Christ.^ » W. Watson, Prayer, 112.
A Man's True Life.
«n
Literature.
Ainsworth (P. C), A Thornless Worlds 65; Albertson (C. C), The Gospel according to Christ, 139. Bersier (G.), Twelve Sermons, 107. Bigg (C), The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, 232. Binney (T.), Money : A Popular Exposition, 36. Faithf ull (R. C), My Place in the World, 127. Hill (J. E.), Queen Charity, 365. Inge (W. E,.), All Saints' Sermons, 69. Knight (J. J.), Sermons in Brief, 51. Liddon (H. P.), Passiontide Sermons, 259. Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 88. Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, ii. 1. Sampson (E. F.), Christ Church Sermons, 274. Shepard (J. W.), Light and Life, 101. Sinclair (W. M.), Difficulties of our Day, 96. Voysey (C.), Sermons, xx. (1897), No. 46. Wardell (R. J.), Studies in Homiletics, 139.
Ch/ristian World Pulpit, xiii. 209 (J. 0. Dykes) ; Ixiv. 341 (H. Hensley Henson) j Ixxiii. 104 (H. Hensley Henson).
A MAN'S True Life.
And he said unto them, Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. — Luke xii. 15.
1. The Evangelist connects the text with a striking yet familiar episode ; " One out of the multitude said unto him, Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me." Here was clearly a twofold issue, moral and legal. There was the question of right and there was the question of law. The one must be answered by the individual conscience, the other by the public tribunals. Christ declines to take over the duties of either. •' He said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you ? " Then He turned to the multitude and resumed His work as a spiritual Teacher, charged to set forward the eternal truths which con- science, however falteringly, attests, and to lay down the moral principles which underlie all human happiness worthy the name. " And he said unto them, Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."
2. Evidently this Jew was a younger son, who could not easily forgive his elder brother for enjoying a double share of their father's estate. The elder brother, it is plain, was also one of our Lord's hearers, and likely to be, in whatever degree, attracted by Him ; but, on the other hand, it may be taken for certain that he had no mind to part with any portion of his estate, or the appeal against him would not have been necessary. "Master," cried the younger man, " speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." Our Lord might, it is clear, have met this appeal by a direct discussion of its intrinsic merit. But in fact, placing Himself at the point of view of the speaker, who could not yet know at all that He Himself really was, He asks
ST. LUKE — 17
258 A MAN'S TRUE LIFE
what commission He could be supposed to hold for deciding such questions at all. " Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you ? " And then, as if glancing at both the brothers — the elder, who held so tenaciously to his legal fortune, and the younger, who was so eager to share it — He rises into a higher atmosphere, and His words become at once instructive to all men and for all time. " Take heed," He said, " and keep yourselves from all covetousness," for one reason among others, but especially for one — that covetousness involves a radical mistake as to the true meaning and nature of life : " a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."