Only the anointed eye
Sees in common things, — Gleam of wave, and tint of sky, —
Heavenly blossomings. To the hearts where light has birth
Nothing can be drear; Budding through the bloom of earth,
Heaven is always near.^
4. It was precisely this that was in St. Paul's view when he affirmed that " none of us liveth to himself," and that " none dieth to himself." He was not speaking of any persons who had attained to this perfection, but of the law of spiritual life under which we all have passed. God is our Law ; Christ is our Eule ; and while we are no longer free to follow inclinations that would draw us out of accord with Christ's rule, we are liberated from all lower authority. God's service is then perfect freedom ; we are no longer free to live to ourselves, because our will has passed into a higher life. How can he, says St. Paul, who is dead to sin, live any longer therein ? We are determined, even as God is determined, by the highest life that is in us. And in the Apostle's words, — for we might fear to use such words from ourselves — we become joint rulers with God as we become His servants from our hearts. We rule through willing submission: accord with the Highest is command over all that is lower than He. We obey natural law, and it obeys us ; we obey the laws of labour, and it yields us its returns ; we obey God, and He is the strength of our souls and our portion for evermore. This is the great law of life which delivers us from ourselves and our own blindness, so that, living or dying, life and death are freed from the colours of earthly
* Lncy Larcom.
414 ETERNALLY THE LORD'S
accident, and centred in God. This is the only true liberty, to know that we are not our own masters.
^ " We are the Lord's," and they amongst whom we work are the Lord's. Miserable some of them are and disappointing, and unsatisfactory ; but they are the Lord's. There are some who repel us, and make us feel inclined to turn away in despair, squalid and half -human as they seem to be; but they are the Lord's. Living or dead, wretched and mean though they be, they belong to Him. He has not finished with them yet. " It doth not yet appear what they shall be " ; but it will help us to value the souls of our fellow-men, and to discover something better than the sordid and the unlovely, if we remember that Christ Jesus is their Lord. There are forces at work to frustrate His designs, and He sends us forth to grapple with " the wrongs that need resistance " and to help " the cause that lacks assistance." In all social service, Jesus works with His disciples, for all men are His.^
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.
Oh, let my weakness have an endl
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice ;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!*
^ J. S. Corlett. » Wordsworth, " Ode to Duty."
Our Accountability.
489
Literature.
Black (H.), University Sermons, 311.
Dale (R. W.), Epistle of James, 245.
Harris (H.), Short Sermons, 217.
Hodgson (A. P.), Thoughts for the King's Children, 11.
Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year (Advent to Christmas Eve), 164.
Lee (R.), Sermons, 122.
Liddon (H. P.), Advent in St. PauVs, 282.
Palmer (J. R.), Burden-Bearing, 50.
Rawnsley (R. D. B.), Village Sermons, i. 96.
Roberts (W. P.), Conformity and Conscience, 66.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), No. 1601.
Tyng (S. H.), in Plain Sermons by Contributors to " Tracts for the Times,"
viii. 245. Wordsworth (C), Christian Boyhood at a Public School, 11. American Pulpit of the Day, ii. 641.
Christian World Pulpit, xxvi. 4 (Beecher) ; xxxv. 198 (Dale). Church Pulpit Year Book, v. (1908), 148. Eomiletic Review, xxxi. 239 (Ireland).
4i«
Our Accountability.
So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.— Rom, xiv. 12.
1. When St. Paul says that " each one of us shall give account of himself to God," he makes one of the most solemn statements that are to be found even in his Epistles. He is led into making it quite incidentally. He wants to lay down a principle, which would check the rash judgments that were common among Christians at Kome in his day regarding the private religious observances of their Christian neighbours. Some of the Eoman Christians, it seems, were vegetarians ; others ate anything that came in their way. Some of them observed private anniversaries ; to others all days were pretty much alike. As yet the Church had not laid down any rule about these matters for Christians ; and no individual Christian might challenge another's liberty or judge another's conduct, " Why," asks the Apostle, " dost thou judge thy brother ? for we shall all stand before the judgment- seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God."