3. This, then, is the teaching of Christ in relation to the individual soul. But if that were all, more than half of our deepest interests would be left out. More than half of human life would be unappealed to. The expansion of the soul in love would not only be unsecured, it would even be injured. If that were the whole of religion, it might end in fixing our thoughts only on ourselves, and so end, through engendering selfishness, in the death of religion. Men have made this personal religion all; but that was not the way of Christ.' He secured a personal religion by bringing each of us into the closest contact with our Father, but He swept us far beyond that individual relation. His whole life and His death maintained that we were to pass beyond ourselves into union with mankind, and that only in sacrifice of self for those not ourselves could we win our true life. He that loveth his life shall lose it, he that loseth his life the same shall find it. Die for men ; die for the truths that bless and redeem men ; die for the love of your brethren, if you would live. Death of self for love's sake is life eternal.
Not cloistered saints, that bid the world Remember they forget — its lure defy,
Whose abnegating robes accost the glance Of lost humanity ;
^ Dr. M'Laren of Manchester, IS9. ^
ST. JOHN VI. 68 299
Not they whose moving lips attest
Eepeafced prayer, to shame the throng or mart, Whose fingers outward clasp a crucifix;
Not they who stand apart — Are Thy swift followers alone,
Sweet Christ! Unveiled, untonsured, they there be Who hold their mired brothers to their heart.
Even for love of Thee, Who didst remember to the end
Thy world, though they had Thee forgot and fled — A hillside Calvary Thy holy lot.
Mountain and sea Thy bed.^
* Martha Gilbert Dickinson.
The Will to Know.
801
Literature.
Abbey (C. J.), The Divine Love, 301.
Banks (L. A.), Christ and His Friends, 215.
Butler (A.), Sermons, ii. 168.
Clifford (J.), The Dawn of Manhood, 83.
Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 136.
Davies (J. LI.), Sermons on the Manifestation of the Son <sf God,, 124.
Dawson (G.), Sermons on Disputed Points and Special Occasions^ 249.
„ (W. J.), The Threshold of Manhood, 20. Drummond (H.), The Ideal Life, 297. Horton (R. F.), The Trinity, 229. Illingworth (J. R.), Sermons in a College Chapel, 105. Ingi-am (A. F. W.), Under the Dome, 28. Laidlaw (J.), in the Modern Scottish Pulpit^ No. 28. Macdonnell (D. J.), Life and Work, 4A2. Mellor (E.), In the Footsteps of Heroes, 230. Pattison (T. H.), Tlie South Wind, 167. Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel^ ii. 200. Porter (N.), YaU College Sermons, 118. Robertson (F. W.), Sermons, ii. 94. Shepherd (A.), Men in the Making, 221. Simon (D. W.), Twice Born, 34. Smith (D.), Christian Counsel, 183. Watson (J.)y The Inspiration of Our Faith, 133. Christian Age, xlv. 194 (Howe). Christian World Pulpit, xxiv. 37 (Matthews) ; xxix. 156 (Van Dyke) ;
xxxviii. 281 (Batchelor) ; 1. 38 (Black) ; Ix. 228 (Spurr) ; Ixxii. 125
(Selbie). Churchtnan^s Pulpit : Sermons to the Young : xvi. 629 (Gibbon). Examiner, May 3, 1906, p. 420 (Jowett).
THE WILL TO KNOW.
If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself.— John vii. 17.
1. The Feast of Tabernacles was in progress in Jerusalem when Jesus entered the Temple to teach. A circle of Jews were gathered round Him, who seem to have been spellbound with the extraordinary wisdom of His words. He made no pretension to be a scholar. He was no graduate of the Eabbinical schools. He had no access to the sacred literature of the people. Yet here was this stranger from Nazareth confounding the wisest heads in Jerusalem, and unfolding with calm and effortless skill such truths as even these Temple walls had never heard before. Then "the Jews marvelled, saying. How knoweth this man letters, having never learned ? " What organ of spiritual knowledge can He have, never having learned ? Never having learned — they did not know that Christ had learned. They did not know the school at Nazareth whose Teacher was in heaven — whose school- room was a carpenter's shop — the lesson, the Father's will. They knew not that hidden truths could come from God, or wisdom from above. What came to them was gathered from human books, or caught from human lips. They knew no organ save the mind ; no instrument of knowing the things of heaven but that by which they learned in the schools. But Jesus points to a spiritual world which lay still far beyond, and tells them of the spiritual eye which reads its profounder secrets and reveals the mysteries of God. " My doctrine is not mine," He says, " but his that sent me " ; and " my judgment is just," as He taught before, " because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." And then, lest men should think this great experience was never meant for them, He applies His principles to every human mind which seeks to know God's will. " If any