* T. H. Darlow, The Upward Calling, 47.
" Amiel's Journal Intime. ' George Frederic Watts, i. 84.
ST. LUKE xiii. 24 281
imposed by them. This gate is perfectly open to all who come just as they are. For there are no limits in the invitation, no conditions in the coming, and no objections to the comers. Hear the King's own word : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." Could words be plainer, sweeter, than these ? If there were not another word, were not this enough ? But, as if to anticipate every possible objection, He adds : " Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The door is not narrow in the sense of keeping out any who come as they are invited. The thirsty comer never found the fountain sealed. The purseless comer never was denied the wine and milk because he brought no price — he was expressly told to come purseless. The beggar from the highway has never wanted room at this banquet because he came in rags to the door ; the weary and the heavy-laden never came and were refused rest; the greatest sinner that ever lived will not come in vain — when he comes as the chief of sinners, to be saved.
^ Dr. John Paton, the great missionary to the New Hebrides, tells us in his autobiography a very tender incident. He tells us that his brother Walter was a sailor, that he went to sea when quite a young lad, and that after a voyage or two no more was heard of him. The sea has great secrets to tell some day. But that mother's heart could never conclude that she would never see her boy's face again. At least she resolved that, should he ever come by day or by night, there would be a welcome for him at the old fireside. And so the last thing she did every night before she retired to rest was to take the door off the latch and leave it open to admit the lost boy. Should he ever come, even in the midnight, there was to be no bar against his entrance. And that mother's heart was only a faint picture of what the great Father's heart is in Jesus Christ.
4. But the door, now open, will be shut one day, and the effort to enter will be unavailing. Many do not seek entrance till it is too late. What a time to begin to think of entering — when the Master of the house has risen and shut-to the door ! Is a man to keep God and the universe in everlasting suspense ? Is the world to wait for ever to see whether I will make up my mind ? If not, there is the possibility of beginning too late ; of refusing to be serious till the door is shut, and seriousness no longer avails.
282 THE NARROW DOOR
" To-day, if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Delay becomes fatal, because it begets irresolution, and nothing more easily than irresolution becomes chronic, incurable, irre- parable. Decent people probably lose more by it than by all the sins they confess put together. They lose eternal life by it when it makes them, as it eventually does, incapable of the grand decisive renunciation by which alone we can pass the strait gate.
^ J. M. Barrie has given us in A Window in Thrums a very pathetic picture of Jamie's homecoming. When some of the neighbours saw Jamie prowling about in the gloaming near the old home, his face seemed to them like that of a man who had come " straucht frae hell." He had gone back to the old home. He meant to go back in penitence to find safety and rest, at the old fireside, and in the shelter of a mother's wounded but forgiving and tender love ; but he was too late. The door of the old cottage was shut upon all that, and father and mother and sister were gathered to God, and he was alone.
"There is a nest of thrushes in the glen;
When we come back we'll see the glad young things," He said. We came not by tliat way again,
And Time and thrushes fare on eager wings!
" Yon rose " — she smiled — " but no, when we return, I'll pluck it then." 'Twas on a summer day.
The ashes of the rose in Autumn's urn
Lie hidden well. We came not back that way.
We do not pass the selfsame way again. Or, passing by that way, nothing we find
As it before had been ; but death, or stain, Hath come upon it, or the wasteful wind.
The very earth is envious, and her arms
Eeach for the beauty that detained our eyes;
Yea, it is lost, beyond the aid of charms,
If, once within our grasp, we leave the prize.
Thou traveller to the unknown Ocean's brink, Through Life's fair fields, say not, "Another day
This joy I'll prove " : for never, as I think. Never shall we come back this selfsame way!
ST. LUKE XIII. 24 283
II.
How AKE WE TO EnTEK ?
1. " Strive to enter in." Our Lord turns from the speculative question to the practical one, and declares that effectual salvation must begin in strenuous personal action. Whether many or few attain final blessedness is not an issue fixed by a Divine decree into which we may venture to probe, but rests with each separate seeker after life. In so many words, the Great Teacher says, "Before you concern yourselves with your neighbours' destiny, and that of the race, look well to your own soul." Does not the Master, for the moment, here seem to put Himself on the side of spiritual selfishness ? Such counsels run counter to some things we hear at the present time, and half justify the taunt directed against the evangelical faith of our fathers that its one watchword was, " Give heed to yourself first and make sure of heaven." But no broad survey of the words of Jesus can justify the criticism that, in caring for the spiritual state of the individual. He over- looks the multitude. To give heed to ourselves may be the noblest way of serving our neighbours. By zealously working out individual salvation, we shall further, with supreme success, the spiritual well-being of the community.