66

credulous disciple of the visionary Jesus, which keep him busy in the effort to spend them for the brightening of other human lives. I ask you if it is not at least possible that Love would prove as good a business principle as Competition; if it is not possible that such a command as Bear ye one another's burdens" has import of advantage to banks, business houses, to nations; possible that neglect of such an injunction-laid upon peoples and government treasuries as well as upon individuals-as "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth" is certain to result in industrial and commercial distress? I have no doubt the Apostles gravely doubted the wisdom or practicability of Jesus's plan when He sent them out without provision or resources, but when they returned and He asked them, "When I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked ye anything?" they answered Nothing."

66

But it is not, it can never be, on this ground that the directions of Christ are to be followed. It is, I take it, quite a matter of indifference whether they minister to

No man is worthy

worldly success or not. of the glorious company of the disciples of the Way, of the goodly fellowship of the Kingdom of Heaven, unless the casting up of profit and loss accounts has lost all interest to him. Christian discipleship is nothing, or it is complete and heroic disregard of all earthly prosperity. If the alternative be between disobeying Christ and starving, he only can with right claim the name of disciple who counts it joy to starve. The only question can be as to what really is the Master's intention and desire. We must, then, come to close quarters with that question.

Doing so, we shall find it difficult to discover any basis for allowing ourselves to think that Jesus's Kingdom, with its extraordinary laws, is something which is to come into effect by and by. It was heralded by the cry, The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" And when He came, Jesus did not preach it as a state of things which would one day come to pass, meanwhile Himself living comfortably in this present world; He proclaimed it as an existing fact. The work

of the Apostles was to preach, saying, “ The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Men were to enter and take their places in it. He was a King, and His followers were to wear His yoke, and obey His voice. It was a fellowship of those who despised the show, the fashion of things, who were "of the truth." If He taught them to pray for the coming of the Kingdom, so did He to pray for daily bread, and if one petition was to be daily answered, so was the other. The continual prayer was to receive a continual answer. It was a fellowship of men who were in the world, and yet were not of the world. It was as the hidden leaven, whose unregarded working was to transform that in which it was concealed. It was a Kingdom which was to come without observation; the disciples could not point it out "Lo! here, or there!" and yet it was even then in their midst.

In point of fact, the one gigantic feature which distinguishes the Kingdom from all humanly conceived Utopias is just this: They are in the future; they are to be brought about. It is. Plato and More and

the modern builders of Altrurias dream of things that confessedly are in the future. Jesus taught that His Kingdom was at hand, in the very midst already. He Himself fully accepted its laws. He knew no others. Of the customs, usages, fashions of His time, He took no account. To Him any other social order than that of His Kingdom of Love was inconceivable. It is true that He found His plan impracticable as a method for immediate material success. He was

ground under the heels of the society with which He would make no compromise. He did not, on that account, modify in the least His conduct. He simply would not reckon with prevailing conditions and what we account practical considerations. He lived in an ideal world. He lived in it as easily, as serenely, as if it were the world in which all other men were likewise living, as if He did not know that so living, His end was certain to be the cross.

In the light of His own life, His commands, so oblivious of the existing order, and yet uttered with such divine calmness, appear unmistakably to lay upon us the ob

ligation of assuming the attitude which was His toward the world into which the providence of birth brings us, and toward the Eternal Kingdom. Christ does not contemplate a discipleship which asks whether His directions are possible, as things are. His servants are not to know how things are; they are to know only how they ought to be. They never hear Him in a single syllable recognize the necessity of getting on in the world, of maintaining one's dignity and position, of retaliating when wronged, even of providing for bodily wants. There are no such necessities; we are not to know ofany. In the Kingdom of which we are members, self-humiliation, meekness, love, boundless in flow and infinite in capacity for sacrifice, thoughtlessness of to-morrow, are the necessities. We are to live as if the world were the Kingdom of Heaven. alone is absolute, and its laws, and nothing short of them, are to determine our conduct. We have nothing to do with any other state of society; we cannot modify any particular of our lives out of respect for it. It may crush us; our duty remains unchanged.

It