Think, again, how it met Him on the Cross. From out the crowd that gathered about the city walls, there rings the fierce derision, " If thou be the Son of God, come down frpm the cross." Others have suffered perhaps as cruel a martyrdom, others have hung in anguish, mocked and derided ; but of all that ever went forth to die, He alone could say, " I lay down my life. No man taketh it from me." This is the glory and triumph of Christ that, conscious of a power which could have achieved so sublime and instant a triumph over all His foes, — His cross transformed into a throne, about Him all His holy angels, and He seated amidst the terrors of judgment summoning these His murderers to His feet, — for our sakes He set Himself apart and hung upon His cross and sunk until there came the final cry, " It is finished."
^ Is humiliation easy ? Was it easy for Christ to humble Himself ? Is it easy for us ? " There are certain animals," says George Eliot, " to which tenacity of position is a law of life — they can never flourish again, after a single wrench : and there are certain human beings to whom predominance is a law of life — they can only sustain humiliation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate still." ^
^ Manin, the last doge of Venice, was compelled to swear allegiance to Austria in the name of his compatriots. With a broken heart he made ready for the ceremony, but as he stepped forward at the appointed time to pronounce the fatal words, his strength and his faculties gave way together. He fell senseless at the feet of his foes, and died not long afterward.*
' George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss.
' W. M. Sloane, Naimleon Bonajiartc, ii. 24.
ST. JOHN XVII. 19 297
2. He made an absolute surrender of Himself. — There are times when Egoism can reach its best development only by what would be called a complete surrender of itself to the help of others. There is a tradition that one who desired to produce a fine kind of pottery always failed until he threw himself into the fire that was baking his work, and lo, the effort was now a success, the pottery came forth as he had desired. Egoism submerged in Altruism became perfected Egoism and perfected Altruism at once. So Christ reached an hour in His life when He could not be the most that He ought to be unless He actually laid down His life for others. He would have been a renegade to His own high ideas of nobility of character if He had not been willing to die for mankind. Egoism for its own development needed a prodigal Altruism. The fulness of His own life demanded an outpouring of that life.
^ I heard sometime since of an oculist who was very fond of cricket. But he had given it up, much as he enjoyed it, for he found that it affected the delicacy of his touch ; and for the sake of those whom he sought to relieve he sanctified himself and set himself apart. That is what we want — that there shall come into our lives a force that prompts us always to be at our best and readiest for service, our fullest and richest to help, a tree that is always in leaf and always in bloom and always laden with its fruit, like the orange tree, where the beauty of the blossom meets with its fragrance the mellow glory of the fruit.^
^ There are two great pictures, each of them by a famous artist. One picture represents a woman in a hospital. The woman is a princess, fair and beautiful to look upon, but the hospital is most loathsome, because it is the home of a number of dying lepers, and this fair and beautiful woman is represented as wiping the face of a dying leper. That picture is a symbol of the dignity and the beauty of social service. But there hangs by its side another picture by another great artist. It represents a woman in her oratory. She is in the attitude of prayer. Beside her stands an angel. She is looking over the open pages of the Holy Bible, which are illuminated. And the legend tells us that while she knelt there in that place of prayer, seven times she was interrupted. Seven times there came a call at her door, a demand upon her love, upon her charity — a sevenfold recognition of the needs of her brother man. And seven times, with a patience and
' Mark Guy Pearse.
298 THE MASTER'S CONSECRATION
with a moral beauty beyond all description, she goes to the door, relieves these cases of necessity, and returns to her knees, to her attitude of prayer. This is a picture of the supreme dignity and the great worth of personal sanctifi cation.^
II.
The Aim of Consecratioit.
" I sanctify myself," — that is the starting-point of redemption, " For their sakes," — that is the end, the common good, the social welfare. The beginning is individual, the aim is social. The way to make a good world is, first of all, to be good oneself. First character, then charity ; first life, then love ; — that was the way of Jesus Christ. He does not stand in history as the great organizer or reformer of the social world. He stands primarily as the witness of the capacity for social service offered to each human soul. The Kingdom of God, which is the end of en- deavour, is to come through the personal sanctification of individuals for the sake of others. The Christian paradox is the paradox of the solar system. An isolated soul, like an isolated planet, means instability and chaos. The stability of each part is found in its steady orbit round the larger centre, and the integrity of the whole vast order hangs on the adjustment of each single part. That is what is known in the world of nature as the law of attraction, and what Jesus calls in the spiritual world the Kingdom of God.