^ In one of Westcott's letters he has this most significant reference to the words of the text : " Of all the changes in the Eevised Version, that in Luke xxi. 19 is the one to which perhaps I look with most hope. We think of our souls as something given us to complete, and not as something given to us to win." It is a most suggestive distinction, and the failure to recognize it has been fraught with perilous mistakes. There is a very big difference between possessing a thing and making it entirely your own. For instance, I may possess a book, but the winning of its treasure is quite another thing. I may have come into possession of a musical instrument, but to woo and win its secret melody is quite another thing. It was one thing for Britain to come into possession of the Transvaal ; it is quite another thing to win the people of the Transvaal to our rule. And these analogies may help us in the interpretation of the text. To win the soul is to bring all its rebel powers into willing homage to King Jesus. To win the soul is to elicit all its latent music and cause it to spring forth in constant praise. To win the soul is gradually to constrain all that is within us to praise and bless His holy name.*
I.
The Promise.
"Ye shall win your souls.**
1. What is meant by a man winning his own soul ? We can understand winning others to the side of right ; but here it speaks of a man winning his own soul as if he could be, so to speak, the maker of his own soul, along with its Creator. If we thoughtfully turn over the subject for a little while we shall see that there
^ J. D. Jones, The Hope of the Gospel, 98.
2 J. H. Jowett, in The British CongregcUionalist, March 4, 1909, p. 178.
ST. LUKE XXL 19 417
is deep significance in this fact. We do not come into the world fully developed. Man is born with a great many potentialities. Grbd creates nothing perfect, but everything for perfection. There is a certain sense in which a man wins his body. When we look at a child lying helpless in its cot, we think what a long way it has to travel, so far as its bodily structure is concerned, before it can stand forth in the full strength of manhood. If that child were restrained from all exercise of its powers it would be help- less all its life. But as it puts forth its power it gains power, and the result is that at length it stands forth in the strength of man- hood. It is precisely the same in regard to the mind. If any one were kept in absolute intellectual sluggishness, the mind would never be developed. Education depends not so much on putting knowledge into the child's mind as on drawing power forth from it by the exercise of power. Thus it may be said that a man may win his mind. And we can understand the same thing in regard to the bodily and mental power ; but the time will come when the body and the mind have done their work, when the spiritual nature should receive its full development. And when this has been achieved, then a man may be said to have won his own soul.
^ Every time we choose the hard right way rather than the easy wrong way we gain soul. Every time we sacrifice ease and comfort to do service to our fellows, we gain soul. Every time we say a kindly word and do a loving deed, we gain soul. When F. N. Charrington gave up a fortune to fight the drink, he gained soul. When Frank Crossley gave up comfort in Bowdon, and went and lived in Ancoats to minister to the poor, he gained soul. When Dr. Peter Eraser give up position and fame at home to go and be a missionary in the far-off Khassia hills, he gained soul. For the soul lives and grows and expands on love and kindness and sacrifice. Our heart is always enlarged when we run in the way of God's commandments.^
2. There may be a loss or shrinkage of soul. The heat and drought of worldliness cause the souls of men to shrink. Their very souls seem sometimes to become dry, hard, and small in selfish- ness. The process of soul- wasting and soul-shrinking is continually going on in the world. There was a man born apparently for large things. His mother's eye brightened as she looked down through
» J. D. Jones, Tlu Hope of the Gospel, 108. ST. LUKE — 27
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4i8 THE WINNING OF THE SOUL
the years away into his golden prospects. His father's pride saw him climbing thrones of power. At thirty, at fifty, people who knew him when a boy, speak of what a man he might have been. Some sin at the root of the life has shrivelled the soul, which once began to grow. When a soul is dissipated before the body decays, when man's worldly interests destroy his capacity for truth and honour, chivalry and love, when sin exhausts his force as weeds do the soil, then a man is losing soul. Every departure from love and truth means shrinkage of soul ; every trick, every falseness leaves a man so much less a living soul.