n8 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS
give it me to-morrow. 1 trust myself to His love. All is mine; if I am His." 1
U A distinguished American politician in a heated campaign is said to have telegraphed to his friends : " Claim everything." That, in a much profounder sense, is precisely the summons which Christianity makes on life. . . . All things are yours. The whole of life is holy. Eeligion is not a province but an empire. It comprehends both the church and the world, both life and death, both the present and the future. The world is one, and all of it is sacred, and it is all yours, if ye are Christ's, as Christ is God's.2
TJ Amidst all my hurry, however, I had five minutes alone by my little Lena's grave. The beautiful white coral was blackened, but the grass and shrubs had grown, and the lemon branches with their bright fruit were bending over and shading it beautifully. How naturally one looks up to the blue sky above, and wonders where the spirit is, or if she can see the mourning hearts below. She would have been running on her own little feet now, had she been on Earth ; but though my heart aches for her still, I would not have it otherwise, for she was not sent in vain, and oh, what a little teacher she has been ! When John took Dr. Steele to see the grave, he said : " You have thus taken possession " ; and I felt we had taken possession of more through her than that little spot of ground on Aniwa.3
0 wealth of life beyond all bound!
Eternity each moment given ! What plummet may the Present sound ? Who promises a future heaven ?
Or glad, or grieved,
Oppressed, relieved, In blackest night, or brightest day
Still pours the flood
Of golden good, And more than heartfull fills me aye.
My wealth is common; I possess
No petty province, but the whole What's mine alone is mine far less Than treasure shared by every soul. Talk not of store, Millions or more —
1 H. C. G. Moule, The Secret of the Presence, 56
2 Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 231. 8 John G. PaUmy ii. 296.
i CORINTHIANS m. 21-23 119
Of values which the purse may hold —
But this divine!
I own the mine Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.
I have a stake in every star,
In every beam that fills the day; All hearts of men my coffers are, My ores arterial tides convey;
The fields, the skies,
The sweet replies Of thought to thought are my gold-dust;
The oaks; the brooks,
And spealdng looks Of lovers, faith and friendship's trust.
Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years, Who all-immortal makes the Now, And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
His life's a hymn
The seraphim Might hark to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul
The boundless whole Its bounty all doth daily bring.
"All Mine is thine," the Sky-Soul saith; "The wealth I Am must thou become; Eicher and richer, breath by breath — Immortal gain, immortal room ! "
And since all His
Mine also is, Life's gift outruns my fancies far,
And drowns the dream
In larger stream, As morning drinks the morning-star.1
i. Paul, Apollos, Cephas.
1. Each of these names stands for a distinct species of teaching
— the argumentative, the eloquent, the hortatory. Let us not
pass any of them by ; from those with whom we have least
sympathy, we may glean something. Each disciple brings some
1 David Atwood Wasson.
120 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS
bits of bread and fish. Each stone flashes some colour needed by the prism to effect the beam of perfect light. Each flower may furnish some ingredient for the common store of honey.
2. Not in vain have martyrs suffered, and fathers taught, and saints prayed, and philanthropists laboured, and reformers preached. All these too are ours. It is ours to note the martyr Ignatius weighed down with years but undaunted in heart, with a spirit soaring higher than the courage of a hero and bowing lower than the humility of a child, not daring yet to count himself a disciple, but setting his face stedfastly towards the Koman amphitheatre, thirsting to become food for the wild beasts, that haply while finding them he might also find Christ. It is ours to observe the kingly spirit of Athanasius, who through nearly half a century, resolute and unswerving, defied obloquy and persecution, maintain- ing with no less clearness of vision than stedfastness of purpose the faith of Christ alone against the world. It is ours also to take to heart the example of Francis of Assisi, the most gentle and loving of saints, who delighted to claim kindred with all the works of creation and all the dispensations of providence, as the sons and daughters of the one beneficent Father, greeting even fire as a brother and death as a sister ; who preached to a literal age in the only language which that age could understand, by a literal obedience to the precept of Christ, and went out into the world taking with him absolutely nothing, casting in his lot with the poor whom men despised, and the leper whom they abhorred ! So we may go on through all the ages, feeding the fires that are within us with the fuel of these bright examples of Christian faith and heroism and love. And we shall do this without fear. We shall use these examples without abusing them. We shall not say, I am of Martin Luther, or I am of Francis Xavier, or I am of John Wesley ; for Luther and Xavier and Wesley are all ours. Brilliant though their lives may have been, they are after all only broken lights of Him who is the full and perfect light.