ST. JOHN X. II 459
Better it is to give than to receive,
All to forsake than unto aught to cleave ; —
*Tis in the act of giving that we live.
All spiritual Being lives by this —
The ground and basis of the Godhood's bliss;
Who turn therefrom the Life Eternal miss.
For though discharged in full strict duty's round, If in the chains of self-hood thou art bound — Lifeless and void of worth thy works are found.
Throughout the extent of Nature's wide domain See this great law of sacrifice obtain, The creature's loss conditioning its gain.
The very elements this law obey, —
The beams that from the solar source outray,
The springing fount's perpetual sparkling play.
All living things are constituted so,
All organisms from out earth's womb that grow;
As is the outward, so the to- ward flow:
So that whate'er impedes or hindereth
The pores' free play, the issue of the breath,
Is the concomitant or cause of death :
Would'st truly live ? — let go ! *
2. " The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep." Christ's death illustrates the law of Redemption. Here is the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice : the sacrifice of one instead of another : life saved by the sacrifice of another life. Most of us know the meagre explanation of these words which satisfies some men : they say that Christ merely died as a martyr, in attestation of the truths He taught. But we must observe the strength of the expression which we cannot explain away, " I lay down my life /or the sheep." If the Shepherd had not sacrificed Himself, the sheep must have been the sacrifice.
There was something the Lord passed through, passed through once and for ever, something awful and unspeakable, in order that we might never share it. We Christians shall never die as He died. Our material bodies will wear away and cease, and they will be carried over the well-trodden way to the cenietery. . Men » W. Hall, Via Crucis.
46o THE GOOD SHEPHERD
will speak of us as having died, but we shall never die as our Saviour died. There was something in His death which His followers will never know. " He that believe th in me shall never taste death."
^ The danger which threatened us was not bodily death, foi from that we are not delivered. But it was something with which the death of the body is intimately connected. Bodily death is as it were the symptom, but not the disease itself. It is that which reveals the presence of the pestilence, but is not itself the real danger. It is like the plague-spot that causes the beholder to shudder, though the spot itself is only slightly painful. Now a skilful physician does not treat symptoms, does not apply his skill to allay superficial distresses, but endeavours to remove the radical disease. If the eye becomes bloodshot he does not treat the eye, but the general system. If an eruption comes out on the skin, he does not treat the skin, but alters the condition of the blood; and it is a small matter whether the symptom goes on to its natural issue, if thereby the eradication of the disease is rather helped than hindered. So it is with death : it is not our danger ; no man can suppose that the mere transference from this state to another is injurious; only, death is in our case the symptom of a deep disease, of a real, fatal ailment of soul. We know death not as a mere transference from one world to another, but as our transference from probation to judgment, which sin makes us dread ; and also as a transference which in form forcibly exhibits the weakness, the imperfection, the shame of our present state. Thus death connects itself with sin, which our conscience tells us is the great root of all our present misery. It is to us the symptom of the punishment of sin, but the punishment itself is not the death of the body but of the soul ; the separation of the soul from all good, from all hope, — in a word, from God. This is the real danger from which Christ delivers us. If this be removed, it is immaterial whether bodily death remain or not ; or rather, bodily death is used to help out our complete deliverance, as a symptom of the disease sometimes promotes the cure. Christ has tasted death for every man, and out of each man's cup has sucked the poison, so that now, as we in turn drink it, it is but a sleeping draught. There was a chemistry in His love and perfect obedience which drew the poison to His lips; and, absorbing into His own system all the virulence of it, by the immortal vigour of His own constitution, He overcame its effects, and rose again triumphing over its lethargic potency.^
> M. Dods.
ST. JOHN X. II 461
H A doctor in one of the London hospitals found a child- patient dying of diphtheria, and sucked away the suffocating film from the throat, with fatal consequences to himself. Was he justified ? There are many side issues to this problem, but they do not alter the main question. To answer it we must put ourselves on the spot at the given moment, and see the two human beings face to face with the emergency ; the child gasping for breath, the doctor conscious that he holds in his hands a possible means of retaining the life that has almost escaped. He uses it. Can this be called renouncement ? Surely not. It is an action love-prompted, generous, beautiful. He does not act thus in order to give away his own life, but to save the child's ; not to lose, but to win something not otherwise to be won.^