THE KING’S BUSINESS
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ured by my soul,” wrote the poet, not by my holdings in stocks. “What did he do?” asked Lord Palmerston concerning an Eng lishman o f the class whose death was reported. “ He left 5,000,000 pounds,” was the answer. “Ah, yes, he left it.” The shroud has no pocket, and the coffin no safety deposit box. Plato tells us how Minos was making mistakes because o f the wealth and honors with which certain ones were clothed. ,Then he decreed that all souls must stand naked before him. There after no mistakes were made. The straight souls (orthos) went to the Isles o f the Blessed and the crooked, into torment. The centuries have not materially changed the nature o f man. Jesus saw the lines o f care, the faces set like a flint, the nervous haste with which men sought the goods and chattels o f their day. He also saw undef it all the hungry and thirsty souls more hungry and thirsty because o f all they possessed. Over against their fret and worry and care He set the beauty and satisfaction and peace o f the life that rested in God. The great question o f the ages is “What is life?” It is the ocean murmur from out the boundless deep o f humanity. Some have dared to answer, but their shafts fell short—some answered in words, others in deeds. Man asked it as he gazed at the silent stars, the rolling ocean, the passing seasons and the face o f death. The mute lips o f the Sphinx are eloquent with the .query. The pyramids are an interro gation point. Only One was left who could answer. It was the Master o f life Himself. “ It is not in meat or raiment,” He said, not in the abundance which a man possesses—or the lack o f abundance. “ This is life eternal that they might know Thee, the' only true God and Him whom Thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Now we know. Jesus is life. In Him we five. “ I came that ye might have life.” Here it is. Center and circumference, and only here. Millions have realized it and have, echoed the words o f the Great Tarsan: “ To" me to live ,'s Christ.”
And it is John who gives us the Omega. “Beloved, now are we the sons o f God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall b e : but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like H im : for we shall see Him as He is.” W e were by the bedside o f a dear old mother in Israel not many moon's since. Her eyes were closed to the world o f sense and the tides were fast flow ing out. Bending to catch the word from the lips as they slightly moved, we heard only this: “Jesus.” Only this! But behind it a path on which the light o f God lay like jthe rose tints o f morning upon the summits, and before lay a roadway through the darkness, “ Like a path o f light across the deep Like a lane o f beams athwart the sea.” 11. Cannot we take a cosmic view and see Him as the beginning and the ending of the world order? It is to John we are indebted for the information that “Without Him was not anything made that was made.” From Him they came: unto Him shall they return. He is the fountain: He is also the goal. Humanity fell. The story o f the wander ings o f these exiles is the earth’s supreme tragedy. “The outcasts from Ilium o’er many a sea and strand, impelled by fate, rest at last in the high walls o f ¿ome.” But a greater exodus was that from the Garden and infinitely greater the pathos o f 'their suffering until they enter, with glad hearts, the city o f God. It is here, at the gates o f the kingdom, that man comes to himself. Man always- finds him self when he finds Christ. One nation traces its ancestry to Nim rod the mighty hunter. So might all. Man is seeker. He tracks the world to gratify his desires. The vast fields o f snow and the wastes o f burning sands are beneath his feet. Then he returns hungrier than he went out. In the parable o f the rich man with his barns and granaries full he said to his soul: “ Take thine ease.” God called him a fool and fool he was to think his soul could rest there. The souls >ol men, because they are from God, can_ find their rest only in the Godhead. “ Our souls
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