2. Our Lord places momentous emphasis upon struggle. The word " agonize " which He employs suggests the fierce desperate onset of the wrestler. In modern usage the word has come to stand for keen, bitter suffering, but it implied, at first, the tension of effort in the man himself, rather than the burden of pain laid upon him. He who would enter the Kingdom and find himself secure from all that threatens his well-being, must be a Samson Agonistes. Like Jacob, by the brook Jabbok, he must contend. The strong-willed, dauntless wrestler, whose heart dilates, whose muscles are stretched, whose veins expand, and who puts the entire weight of his body into the work, is the type of the spirit which cannot fail of salvation. A one-sided presentation of the gospel may sometimes depict this supreme task as free from hardship and difficulty. To do some things is child's play, because no barriers lie across the pathway by which we move.
284 THE NARROW DOOR
Formidable forces, however, bar our progress towards the door which is set before us — the terrible and diversified autocracies of unseen evil, principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world ; worst of all, in the heajrt of a man himself they too often find an ally. Sin is no trifling purposeless accident in the history of an irresponsible race, but a camp of unholy legions wedged in between man and his highest destinies, and it must needs be overthrown. He who does not put his whole strength into the task, and that right early, will irretrievably fail.
TI To send a consumptive nurse to minister to consumptives would be a hollow and extravagant affectation of altruism. Her highest duty is to care for herself and recover the health which fits for service. When the fire-alarm rings a dozen streets away, no one expects the patients in a fever- ward, or in an infectious hospital, to answer the call. It is humanity for all such to stay within bounds till they are convalescent. They may give a hand in putting out the next fire. It is no mark of barbarism to quarantine a plague-stricken ship, even though Eed Cross doctors, on the way to the battlefield, may be amongst the passengers. We must save ourselves, before curiously dropping our plummet into the mysteries of the last things, and working out in a curious sum the ratio of the redeemed to the reprobate.^
^ We have all been thrilled with the story of Lucknow in the war of the Indian Mutiny. An English army was mustering on the banks of the Jumna, eager to reach the Oudh capital ; but the mutineers in force guarded every approach. At last Havelock thought he was strong enough to try. He made a gallant effort to break the iron circle, — striking boldly, doing his utmost ; but in vain. He had to wait for reinforcements. When these came he tried again. Every inch of ground, as it were, he had to battle for. Slowly, painfully, in agonies of conflict, he made his way. And though, when he at last succeeded and reached the beleaguered city, there was boundless welcome for him, it might well be said that he had to agonize through " a strait gate " to his waiting and longing countrymen. So must we agonize to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.2
3. This call to a more vehement strife after salvation derives much of its intenseness and solemnity from that significant hour in the Master's own history and in the redemptive destinies of
1 T. G. Selby, The Strenuous Gospel, 191. ' Jaines Walker of Gamwathy 325.
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mankind which was so near at hand. The Son of Man had passed that last turn in His pathway which brought the cross into view, and His sensibilities already felt the strain and oppression of the great tragedy. It seemed to Him scarcely conceivable that men could be saved unless they entered into the inwardness of His redemptive passion. He had set Himself to work out the deliver- ance of the race, through conflict and infinite distress, and the experience of reconciliation with God in each individual member of the race must needs come through a conscious oneness with Himself. Salvation cannot be made so easy by the vicarious act of another that the recipient of it is released from all obligation to strive.
Tf Just as the tremors of the earth are registered by fine in- struments placed in a modern observatory, so the ci^oss was a sensitive seismograph in which the forces battling to frustrate and overthrow the Divine in man, displayed all their rage and con- vulsion. As the Son of Man hung there He felt within Himself the fierce tumultuous upheavings of the nethermost hell, and he endured the cross by a strong transcendent counterpassion. It was inconceivable that the forces which asserted themselves in the crisis of the agony, and were even now rending His sacred soul, would leave the individual to work out his salvation without stress or friction.^
^ The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world ; that was what lay heavy on His heart, and that is the cross we shall share with Him, that is the cup we must drink of with Him if we would have any part in that Divine love which is one with His sorrow.^