The alchemy of grace converts all events and circumstances into means and resources which belong to the believer. Men have searched in vain throughout the material world for the often-dreamed-of philosopher's stone, the touch of which should transmute the baser metals into gold. But in the spiritual world that stone has been found. It is " a chief corner stone, elect, precious." Those who find that Stone discern on it such inscriptions as these : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you." "All things work together for good to them that love God." " All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's."
^ Blessed Francis, indeed, always welcomed poverty with a smiling countenance, though naturally it be apt to cast a gloom and melancholy upon the faces both of those who endure it and of those who only dread it. Involuntary poverty is surly and discontented, for it is forced and against the will. Voluntary poverty, on the contrary, is joyous, free, and light-hearted. He would never allow himself to be called poor. To my objection that our revenues were so very small that we must be really con- sidered poor, he replied, " If he is poor who lives by work, and who eats the fruit of his labour, we may very well be reckoned as such ; but if we regard the degree of poverty in which our Lord and His Apostles lived, we must perforce consider ourselves rich. After all, possessing honestly all that is necessary for food and clothing, ought we not to be content ? Whatever is more than this is only evil, care, superfluity, wanting which we shall have less of an account to render. Happy is poverty, said a stoic, if it is cheerful poverty ; and if it is that, it is really not poverty at all, or only poverty of a kind that is far preferable to the riches
268 THE LIBERALITY OF CHRIST
of the most wealthy, which are amassed with difficulty, preserved with solicitude, and lost with regret." ^
^ At the ninth Conference, held in October 1752, at Bristol, it was agreed that the Methodist preachers should receive a stipend of £12 per annum, in order to provide themselves with necessaries. Their list of "necessaries" must have been of Spartan brevity. But more than twelve years afterwards, at the Conference of 1765, a deputation from the York circuit was admitted and allowed to plead against the "large sum of £12 a year ! " Before 1752 each circuit made its own financial arrange- ments with the preachers, and sometimes they were of a quaint order. As late as 1764, the practice in the Norwich circuit, for example, was to divide the love-feast moD jj among the preachers, and " this," says Myles, with a certain accent of melancholy, " was very little indeed." When before in history was there such an inexpensive order of preachers as these early helpers of Wesley ? They laid up much treasure in heaven, but had very empty pockets on earth. One of them, John Jane, died at Epworth. His entire wardrobe was insufficient to pay his funeral expenses, which amounted to £1, 17s. 3d. All the money he possessed was Is. 4d., " enough," records Wesley briefly, " for any unmarried preacher of the Gospel to leave to his executors." ^
3. The wealth provided by the Kedeemer corresponds as to nature with the poverty which He saw in men, and which He Himself assumed. We are poor spiritually, and He enriches us with all spiritual good. We are poor by reason of sin, and He makes us rich in righteousness. We are poor in that we are without God in the world, and He gives us God as the portion of our Bouls. He causes His people to become rich with His own ancestral wealth, making them in a true sense " partakers of the Divine nature." He was not content to be rich while we were poor. He was content to be poor that we might be rich.
^ David Hill returned to Wusueh invigorated and cheered, and soon after, in June 1877, he wrote the following letter to his brother : —
"As to help to the poor, I find that here in Wusueh these representatives of our King come right before me, and the thought comes home that I ought to do something for them. The eight of suffering poverty is very touching, very mysterious, very
* J. P. Camixs, TTie Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, 133.
* "W. H, Fitchett, Wesley amd his Century, 216.
2 COR. VIII. 9 269
sad. If we saw and knew as much of it as Jesus did, we should be men of sorrows too ; and the real philosophy of life is to live near to it, mix with those burdened with it, and, as far as we can, relieve it."
It is impossible to pass over silently David Hill's " real philo- sophy of life," — " to live near suffering poverty, mix with those burdened with it, and as far as possible relieve it." Such a philo- sophy goes so deep to the heart of things that the casual and superficial observer will pass it by. In what does our life consist ? Does it consist in having all we can, in getting all we can, in amassing riches, in collecting comforts and luxuries, in indulging our taste, in taking pleasure in many ways ? If so, we know nothing of this philosophy. Does life consist in character, in being, in giving out ? Then to such things this philosophy is intimately related. Once grasp the fact that life is a strenuous endeavour to be and to do, and we find ourselves on an ascending plane. And as it has been well pointed out, the pursuit of the strenuous and philanthropic life involves the denial of luxuries and self-indulgence for ourselves almost as an incident. Directly we begin to care greatly for the needs of others, in this absorbing interest we lose insensibly the desire to cushion our own life in ease and seek our own comforts, and we find that the highest and most unselfish ideals have the greatest return, lead to the widest outlook, to the deepest experiences, to the most perfect joys ; or in other words, the true philosophy of life is given to us by our Lord when He says, " They that lose their life shall find it." ^