CHAPTER IX. A NEW FIELD OF LABOUR. "Our voluntary service He requires, Milton. HE honour put upon the intelligent creature, when he is called to the service of his All-wise Creator, is the highest which it is possible for him to receive. Elevation in the scale of being is measured by the earnestness and devotion which characterize the services rendered, and not by the position in which the servant stands in relation to his fellowservants. Place is of little importance, compared with filial and faithful obedience. The utterance, "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God," suggests a glory and honour that strike the imagination with wonder and awe. effort to realize the dignity and majesty of such a being is necessarily a failure. We think of the most powerful potentate with which the history of nations has made us acquainted, and instantly reject the similitude, as feebleness itself; for, keeping out of view the moral contrast between a polluted mortal and a holy im The 250 WILLING SERVICE. mortal, the greatest monarch that ever swayed a sceptre over his fellow-men cannot be brought into comparison, for a moment, with the radiant intelligence that stands in the presence of God-no more than the mole, that casts up a hill an inch or two higher than surrounding mole-hills, can be compared with the eagle that passes beyond human vision, with its eye fixed on the sun. Yet the readiness for service indicated by this remarkable utterance is equalled and, if all the circumstances be taken into account, surpassed by the declaration once made by a poor man :- "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?" asked the persecuted "teacher of the Gentiles," when his friends endeavoured to dissuade him from prosecuting a perilous journey; " for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." In the first case, we see one of the immortal princes of heaven, invested with the highest honour within the reach of creaturehood, standing in the presence of the Great King, and watching the slightest intimation of his Sovereign's will to pass, with the velocity of thought, to any world, on any mission with which he may be honoured. Service is his happiness, obedience his glory, the approval of God his reward. But we cannot forget that, go where he may, he is safe. Neither stripes nor imprisonment, neither bondage nor death, neither insult nor weariness, are possible. In the second case, however, we see a man―a man, feeble as others, encompassed with infirmity, hated, hunted, persecuted, ever in peril, bearing the marks of the persecutor's scourge in his body, with nothing before him but a life of tempest, and a death of violence; yet this man, rising above the weakness of humanity, so far as he was personally concerned-while sorrow, on account of the grief of others, almost broke his heart-was so completely absorbed by the one great thought of serving his Master, that neither bonds, nor torture, nor death could change his purpose, nor cool his holy ardour. Heaven's angels are seen, in the apocalyptic vision, surrounding the throne, and they are heard saying, with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." Sublimity and grandeur characterize the scene; earnestness and devotion belong to the service. The position of the worshippers is on the heights of glory; the worshippers themselves bloom with the beauty of undecaying life and moral perfection; and the sincerity of their adoration is evinced by the unanimous shout with which their doxology rolls over heaven. But there are other servants elsewhere; there are two men, feeble from loss of blood, covered with the marks of the lash, hurried to a prison, forced into an inner cell, where their feet are bound to a beam of wood: "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises to God." Here, the position of the wor shippers is a loathsome pit, in an oriental prison; the worshippers themselves are covered with gore, and smarting with fresh wounds; but they, too, worship -notwithstanding the pain, the gloom, the bondage, and the disgrace; and the sincerity of their adoration needs no plea in its favour. In the cells of the prison at Philippi, the strange melody of Christian song falls upon the ears of the prisoners, winds its way through the labyrinths of the dungeon, ascends to heaven, and is answered by an earthquake which shakes the building to its foundations, opens all its massive doors, and unfetters all its inhabitants! This scene, though as different, in one sense, from that seen in the Apocalypse as it is possible to conceive, is, in another sense, almost equal in sublimity. The living soul of both scenes is voluntary, intelligent, and intense adoration of the exalted Redeemer of men. In both cases, the idea of service without compulsion is prominent. We see mind adoring Him who is all mind-intelligence, whether on earth or in heaven, converging upon its source-gratitude recognising the spring of all happiness-the love of purity instinctively attaching itself to the Holy One -and life owning its glorious Giver in the language of living song. A wonderful thing is life; and its astonishing capabilities teach at once that there is a living God, and that to serve Him is the highest honour and the chief felicity of existence. Illustrations of the surprising power of that mysterious thing which we call life, would require volumes instead of a paragraph. The record of what man has purposed, done, and suffered-the acts of statesmen, heroes, and chiefs-the immortal monuments of genius, learning, and piety-the testimony of witnesses, and the patient endurance of martyrs-the annals of nations, and the history of all time—are proofs and exemplifications of this marvellous power. These things compel every rational being to conclude that man is more than he seems, that the service of God is the liberty of intellect, that threescore years and ten cannot be the limit of existence, and that the doctrine of immortality is no poetic fable. In support of this conclusion, there are facts which every Christian, whatever his sect, admits, and which no unbeliever will have the boldness to dispute, simply because of his utter inability to give a verdict on a matter which lies so far above the region of his cold speculations. It is a fact, then, that every "Christian"-I use the term in its legitimate, not its conventional sense-has seasons of conscious communion with spiritual realities, and with his invisible Lord and Saviour-seasons of hallowed joy, when the world and all its cares are left behind, as troublers whose unhallowed feet cannot ascend the mount of vision, or defile the holy scenate, seasons when anxiety is rebuked, fear is scdr-eet sorrow is lightened, darkness is banished, and faith, hope, and love are invigorated with celestial energy CONSCIOUS COMMUNION. 253 and seasons when the truth, value, and divinity of Christianity are felt to be absolutely impregnable, notwithstanding the acknowledged weakness of the individual Christian, and the admitted strength of malicious foes. It is a fact, that though the individual Christian may be poor in pocket and obscure in place, destitute at once of the world's gold and the world's greatness, he feels himself a child of God, a disciple of Christ, and an heir of a blessed immortality. With him, it is not the vocal repetition of part of a creed, far less is it a cant phrase yet he says, amidst his seriously-felt infirmities, with all the self-possession of a man who can give a reason of the hope that is in him, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." There is no fanaticism about the man-he is too humble for that; no self-confidencehe knows the conditions of salvation, as well as his own weakness and folly, too well for that; and no affected superiority over others-he knows how much he is indebted to grace for that. In this case, the capabilities of that life which is connected with, but both intellectually and morally distinct from, the body, are remarkably manifested. It is surely note-worthy, and, as I think, a conclusive proof of immortality, that this spiritual intelligence in man can be raised so far above surrounding influences and external circumstances, as to realize the unseen and the eternal, and to feel that they exclusively form the realities of the universe, and the only objects worthy of rational desire. It contemplates that which the bodily eye hath not seen, and that which the bodily ear hath not heard-feels earnest and ever-growing sympathy with the pure and lofty instructions of revelation-and gathers around itself a spiritual atmosphere, in which it lives, moves, and has its being. It loves and serves a Master on whom the eye of sense hath not looked for many a century of time, and |