order shall be doubtless this: As it is the strength and energy of love to Christ that makes one man to differ from another here in this life, so without doubt the same shall there fix the rule and order of His kingdom. As some men are now holier, so shall some be there more glorious; as some are now more like their Lord, so shall some then be nearer to Him all shall walk in white, but some shall be of a more dazzling splendour; all shall be crowned with gold, but some shall cast brighter rays.

Such, then, is the meaning of this promise. See, then, brethren, whether you have a share in it. What shall they have who forego nothing, or but little for His sake? Must we then, in any sense, measure our share by our self-denials? This would be a fearful issue to which to bring our confident hopes. And yet most true it is, for He Himself has spoken it: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."1

Let us see then:

1. First, what we are now giving up for His sake; what we are laying up in the kingdom of the resurrection. Where does your daily life ex

I St. Luke xiv. 26.

hibit any token of His cross? How should we be different, if He had never risen from the dead? Take away all that fear of reproof, or interest, or love of reputation or self-respect, or the customs of life, and the established order of your home, and all the rules and maxims by which society is refined, exact of us, and then what one thing would be found remaining? How different is the self-same act in two different men, when one man acts for some of these lower motives, and the other for the hope of the resurrection! Be not content, therefore, until you have searched out and found that the aim of your heart is single: this is what we have to ascertain. What are we casting on the water, that we may find it on the river of life? What power or effect has the kingdom of the resurrection on the works of every day; on that thronging multitude of thoughts and feelings and moral acts, which shape themselves, as the will inclines, into toil, and business, and study, and pleasure, and ease, and prayer? How are these affected by the promise of our Master? What token do they bear which bespeaks a yearning hope of His exceeding great reward? Do not our hearts witness against themselves, that all these daily actings of life are chiefly done for our own gain or pleasure? It is very hard to unravel motives-to separate the interweaving of higher

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and lower purposes, and to ascertain in what mea-
sure they each severally determine our will and
practice. It is an ominous thing when a man's
interest is found always to fall in with his religion;
when the bias of his common life is exactly coinci-
dent with his better aims; when the many things
he seems to do, or to leave undone, for Christ's
sake, would be done or left undone also for other
reasons; when the doing them or leaving them
undone always turns to his advantage. I do not
say,
that he must therefore be necessarily acting on
the inferior motive; far from it. Such is the mani-
fold perfection of Christ's service, that it will be
found to take up into itself all good reasons of
moral action, and often to be, even in a worldly
sense, the best, safest, and most expedient way of
life. But we have need well to examine ourselves,
whether the lower aims of our mind be not the more

fixed and stedier, and therefore the real and domi-
nant, though most secret, reason of our habitual
line of acting.

And next, consider in what you may forsake something for His service. I do not speak of sins which if a man do not forsake, he shall surely perish; for if he break them off, they are not forgone for his Lord's sake, but for his own. An horrible dread of eternal death, and the gnawing of a selfish fear,

make men first break off their sins. But that is not self-denial; nor are sins the matter in which to shew the entireness of our devotion.

Nor, again, is it in foregoing the needless superfluities of a luxurious life. They that give up only what they care not to retain, make but poor oblations. Rich and easy people seldom reach the point of real self-denial. It is in things lawful, and, as the world deems, necessary, but, in the severe judgment of a devoted mind, tending to relax the tone of our obedience, that we may prove the singleness of our purpose. For instance, in things harmless in themselves, but inexpedient for our own sake or for others; in narrowing the freedom we might ourselves enjoy, lest any other for whom Christ died should be misled by our example; in leaving unsaid and undone many things which may tend to irritation or questioning in uninstructed or prejudiced minds. Moreover, it is not only for the safety of others, but of ourselves, that we must needs limit our use even of lawful things. He is in great peril of judgment who never foregoes any thing that he might lawfully enjoy. He that lives on a dubious boundary-line, trusting his own stedfastness, is ever ready to slip over into a transgression. More men perish by exceeding in the measure of lawful things than in deliberate commission of things forbidden. It is a perilous footing on the giddy edge of a pre

cipice. Again; a man may deny himself in things held by the world to be eligible and good, such as by custom are almost forced upon us, and in themselves are full of promise, and, it may be, of enjoyment, and yet are cumbrous, and hinder the devoting of ourselves to Christ. There was nothing of evil in Martha's life; but Mary's was the higher and more hallowed. Martha was careful about many things, yet all these things were innocent; Mary about only one, and that alone was needful. There is nothing evil in the possession of lands and riches, yet they bring much toil of heart, and over-burdening of care. They defraud a man of much of himself, and make him pay tribute of more than half of all his hopes, and fears, and thoughts, and hours of day and night-half, that is, of his whole earthly being; and, it may be, poverty in the world to come, as the cost or tax at which he buys the trouble of being rich. The very thought of being contented at any point short of the utmost gain, is lost from among men.

They have no horizon to

their aims for this world; and therefore "they have their reward." It is a poor, palpable, proximate reward here on earth. The aim of most men falls short and terminates in something on this side of the resurrection; some phantasy of earthly happiness. It may be then that each one of us may find something which he may forego for the sake of