3. There is a growth outward. The man who does something for others does something for himself. If he is freezing and obeys an impulse to keep another man from freezing, the warmth which he
^ George MacDonald, Poetical Works, i. 13. * The Treasury, May 1902, p. 82.
2 PETER III. i8 211
generates reacts upon himself. Exercise is not only expenditure but accretion. As the pendulum swings out only to travel back on the same arc, so the force which goes out in exercise comes back in the form of strengthened fibre. So is it also in the realm of intellect and the domain of soul. Expenditure is followed by enrichment. One gives out the treasures of his mind, only to find that clearer perception and more facile diction are the result of his effort, and he can do better the second time because he has been aided by his first attempt. The soul grows by virtue of every effort to do good. And altruism means not only the blessing of mankind but also the evolution of character.
^ For three months Mrs. Sellar, my husband's mother, lay in her room, her bodily powers gradually failing, but nothing clouding her mind nor weakening her immense power of loving.
Except Eobert, the Australian, all her sons were in this country at this time. They all came and went constantly to see her : the best-beloved, Johnnie, came down twice a week from London to be with her. Though she could not eat much, it was a pleasure to him to bring all kinds of little comforts to her. And she who counted that day lost in which she had given nothing, was always touched and surprised by gifts bestowed on herself. Once he brought her down a beautiful soft grey dressing-gown, and the first time she had it on I happened to slip unseen into the room. He was sitting beside her, and she was stroking his hand, saying, " My dear Johnnie, my bonnie boy " ; and then, with a funny little touch of humour she added, " Would it be profane to say, ' Thou hast warmed me, clothed and fed me ' ? " ^
The Tests of Growth.
1. One test of growth is a warmer and more unselfish love. — As our knowledge of Christ becomes more intimate we love Him for what He is in Himself, and not so much for what He has done. The latter is not free from a taint of selfishness. It is one thing for me to be intensely grateful to the man who pulls me out of the fiire, but it is another thing to love him as a man, apart from
^ Mrs. Sellar, Recollections amd Impressions, 234.
212 GROWTH
his act. I must be often with him first, and learn what manner of spirit he is of, before I can be said to love him. Applying this test to Christ, do I love Him most because He is the incarnation of virtue'and goodness ? Then is my love not altogether unworthy of Him. It has, at any rate, lost the alloy of impulse and selfish- ness, so apt to spoil the most precious ore of the heart.
^ I believe that if we were like Christ even the wild beasts of our woods and fields would flee to us for refuge and deliverance ; and man must be in the world as He was in the world, and then the world will blossom around him with all God's meanings, and not merely with men's sayings. We shall grow in the gracious- ness and in the knowledge of the Lord Christ until we ourselves are blessed with the same joy with which Christ was blessed, until we are glad with the eternal gladness of the eternal God. And less than that Christ would not have died for, less than that could be wrought at less expense.^
2. Another test of groioth is what we outgrow. — Bring me the coat I wore as a boy at school, and let me try it on ; I shall soon discover whether I have grown. Bring me the essays I wrote at eighteen, and let me read them ; I shall soon be able to tell you whether my mind has grown. So I like to go back over my older views of God, my ideas and wants as to communion with Him, my previous felt need of Him and joy in Him, and when I know how I think of Him, need Him, talk to Him, walk with Him now, I can soon see if the old spiritual garments of twenty years ago would fit now, or are too small.
^ In some of our houses there are little faded marks on the walls or door-posts, where the children when they were growing stood to have their height registered ; but now that they have done growing the marks are neglected. Is there in your life any experience like this? You used to be anxious about your spiritual condition ; are you now, or are these matters only a faded memory ? Have you of late grown spiritually ? When will you reach the measure of the stature of a perfect man in Christ? 2
^ Away in the hills at Candy in Ceylon there is a great artificial lake, round the edge of which palm-trees of a certain kind are planted. Look at the trunk of one of the trees. You see the bark is covered with rings, one above another, from the