That our work may be divine Seek we not our own but Thine ; Lost to self and found "in Thee," Find we sweet Humility, Zeal by reverent Love refined, True Devotion's single mind.
So "in Thee" we shall be strong, Seem the labour light or long; And, though clouds of self and sin Darken round us and within, So not dimly shall we see Light to lighten all "in Thee."2
2. What is required of us that we may receive the gift in Christ ?
(1) Belief. And what is belief ? It is not the suppression of reason. Belief is the exaltation of the noblest hypotheses to the throne of the life. To believe in Christ is to take the sublimest assumptions and make them the principles of our soul. To believe in Christ is to take the highest we know and to allow it to govern all that we do. To believe in Christ is to venture our life on the assumptions of Christ. Do you know anything higher, nobler, more glorious, than the assumptions of Christ ? To believe is to accept them, to venture on them, and to venture in the assurance that the highest is always the truest and best. He claims to be able to convert destructive remorse into a con- structive penitence. He claims to be able to take the virus out
1 B. F. Westcott. ' S. J. Stone, Poems and Hymns, 2G2.
ROMANS vi. 23 363
of a poisoning guilt. He claims to be able to put dynamic into feeble and struggling virtue. He claims to be able to weld the complexities of life into unity, and to convert its discords into harmony. He claims to be able to take the alienated and em- battled individuals of the race, and out of the scattered and hostile fragments to create a brotherhood. This is what our Saviour claims to do. To believe is to let Him do it, and to offer one's life for the sacred experiment !
(2) Obedience. Belief involves obedience. In these high regions no one can become free without first becoming a slave. But the servitude is not irksome; it is sweetened and glorified by its issue. We must die to self if we would live to God ! That is where so many of us fail. We are seeking kinship with the Divine, and we will not surrender ourselves to its blessed ministry.
I lived for myself, I thought for myself,
For myself, and none beside ; Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if He had never died.
3. And what do belief and obedience bring us ?
(1) They bring us 'power. We share the Divine power — power over sin, and strength to lead a holy life. He — Jesus — was absolutely pure in a world of darkness. In Christ we may conquer sin.
\ If we study the lives and writings of the highest types of Christian men we shall find that they are characterized by two things. One is the depth of their sense of sin. St. Paul, St. Augustine, the author of " The Imitation," John Bunyan, Samuel Eutherford. This note characterizes them all. But there is another. It is their sense of the all-sufficiency of Christ as a Saviour from sin. When, again, we study the life of Christ we find that it is characterized by two things — His consciousness of His own sinlessness ; and His sense of His power to take away the sin of others.1
(2) They bring us the calm assurance of life everlasting. " I am the Eesurrection and the Life," said Jesus; "he that be- lieveth on me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die" (John xi. 25). In Jesus, death is robbed of its horror, and the grave of its victory. We fall asleep just as a weary man, who, harassed by
1 W. Martin.
364 THE WAGES AND THE GIFT
business and daily cares, flings himself on the bed at night and sleeps ; and as he awakens with new energy to the new life of the morrow, so we, worn-out and tired, or called to a higher service, fall asleep in death, to awaken to the morning of a never-ending day. Ah ! how glorious is this truth when, with sad hearts, we stand by the open grave in which we have laid a loved one to rest. Then we are able to say : —
And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
If I were told that I must die to-morrow,
That the next sun Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow
For any one, All the fight fought, and all the short journey through,
What should I do ?
I do not think that I would shrink or falter,
But just go on Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter
Aught that is gone; But rise and move, and smile, and pray
For one more day.
And lying down at night for a last sleeping,
Say in that ear Which hearkens ever, "Lord, within Thy keeping
How should I fear ? And when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still,
Do Thou Thy will."
I might not sleep for awe, but peaceful, tender,