with just one piece of money left, with no chance to get another if that is lost, clutches that piece of money tight, and, casting suspicious looks on every side, hurries along the street. The rich man, with his balance in the banks, holds his one coin lightly, and without anxiety parts with it with an easy grace for luxury or charity. That is the difference between the religious and the irreligious use of the world. The Christian works by your side in business or society, but do not think that business is to him the absorbing anxiety, or society the feverish race, that it is to you. He has not staked his everything upon their game. He can afford to lose, and yet go away calm and with the infiniteness of his life untouched. He is like Jesus, whom His disciples could not understand. They said unto Him, Master, eat. But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought Him aught to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work. So the Christian, with larger, looser grasp, holds the things of earth and gathers out of them all the more richness and strength because he is not their slave, but their master, and can do without them if his higher duties or interests shall need it.

There is nothing that impresses us all so much as to see another man easily do without what is the very life of our life. “This man has not my money,” you say; "but he would have it if he could. He goes without it only because he cannot get it." But by and by you see another man put money which he might have under his feet, and for the sake of learning or religion quietly take up the life of poverty. That startles you. You cannot

understand it. But is it not true that all of us have had our best revelations of the value of things out of just such sights as that; have had our false despotic standards thrown off their pedestals when we saw a nobler man easily neglect them, as the idol fell down on his face when the ark of Jehovah was brought into the house of Dagon, the Philistine's god?

And that brings us to the last question. How shall I come to count nothing indispensable but what I really ought to, what I really cannot do without? The answer to that question is in Christ, who holds the answers of all our questions for us. As I read the Gospels I can see how, little by little, Jesus lifted those disciples past one conception of necessity after another, until at last they knew nothing that was absolutely necessary except God. They began as fishermen who could not do without their nets and boats and houses and fishing friends and sports and gains and gossipings. He carried them up till they were crying, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." That wonderful change-how wonderful it was we forget, because the story is so familiar — He brought about by showing them His salvation. When, living with Him, they saw the glory of forgiveness and regeneration, saw the new life that opened before those who really knew His grace, everything changed to them. It was not so important how they fared, what food they ate, what they wore, how many fish they caught. "All these things do the nations of the earth seek after." To them the questions shifted. The tests of life swept higher up. Were they indeed His? Had they caught His spirit? Were they living His life? Had they part in His eternity? And so when you and I really desire the salvation of

Not, Is my body well? my friend sure to live

Christ, He will do for us all that He did for them. Our tests of life, too, hall sweep up. but, Is the soul strong? Not, Is here by my side? but, Is he living with God? Not, Am I myself sure of the life here? but, Am I already living the life that is forever? Health, companionship, life itself, these are no longer indispensable when Christ has shown us God. A resignation that is not despair, but aspiration; a looser grasp on time, that means how strongly we are holding to eternity; this must come to us when, after all our doing of little temporary things, we have at last begun in Christ the life and work that is to go on forever and forever. Then even the most essential things of this world we can do without, if need be. We have passed from the lower to the higher necessities. We walk by faith, and not by sight. Already, even while we are yet in the flesh, before we cross the river, the promise finds its fulfilment. We live in the world, but we do not live by the world. Already the sun is no more our light by day; neither for brightness does the moon give light unto us; but the Lord is unto us an overlasting light, and our God our glory.

XVII.

CHRIST'S WISH FOR MAN.

"Father, {will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory."— JOHN xvii. 24.

THE truth that men are judged by their desires finds its highest illustration in Jesus. The perfection of His nature is shown in the perfectness of His wishes. When His desires shall be all fulfilled, when He "shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied," then the consummation of all things will have been reached, and there will be nothing more in the universe to be desired.

Let us take this morning one of Christ's wishes and study it, see what it means, and what would be the effect of its fulfilment. It is a prayer; but a prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. It was the instinct of Christ's nature that He looked for the fulfilment of His wishes, not to Himself and not to the things about Him, but to His Father; and so in His prayer we have simply the utterance Godward of what He was desiring in His heart: "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory."

This wish was spoken at Christ's last supper with His disciples. They were sitting late around their simple table, and soon their separation was to come, the betrayal and the crucifixion. The first interest of the

words, then, that which introduces us to and makes us ready for all the deeper things which they express, is their obvious meaning as an expression of the Saviour's affection for His disciples, His dread of being separated from them. When friend is going away from friend, how naturally the wish springs up into words: "Oh, if I could only take you with me! The country where I am going may be very bright; the work that waits me there may be all-absorbing. I know that new friendships will be ready for me there; I know that it is better for you to tarry here. But just at this moment all that is overflowed by one desire that springs out of our affectionate companionship. I dread to be separated from you. Oh, that you might be with me where I am." Now the sublimity and the charm of the earthly life of Jesus consist in large part in the broad and healthy action of the simplest human powers which it exhibits. It is not in anything subtle or complicated. The simplest natures are the grandest natures always. The broad perception of principles, the hearty appreciation of character, the strong feeling and frank utterance of emotion, these are what always mark the truly greatest men. And so it is a part of the greatness of Jesus that He so simply feels and utters this cordial human affection, and, as He looks round into the familiar faces of the twelve, says, "I dread to leave you behind nie. I shall miss you. I wish you could go with me. I will that you should be with me where I am." We want not merely to admire this in Jesus; not merely to feel its charm. We want to catch it from Him; we want to let it reveal to us what the true dignity of human life is. Elaborate civilization is always making elaborate,