Nor is this inevitable incidence of penalty upon the strong for any wrong they do the weak an arbitrary matter. The reason for it is wrought deeply into the texture of human life. We are all bound up together, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, sick and well, good and bad, in one bundle of life. No harm can fall on any which does not in the end affect all. No isolating walls can keep the ills of the weak from reaching the strong. Carlyle tells us of an Irish widow who in Edinburgh with three helpless children sought help in vain, fell ill of typhus, and, infecting seventeen others, died. "The forlorn Irish widow," cries Carlyle grimly, "applies to her fellow creatures, 'Behold I am sinking bare of help. I am your sister; one God made us. You must help me.' They answer, 'No, impossible: thou art no sister of ours!' But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus kills them; they actually were her brothers though denying it."

This inevitable sharing of the strong in the ills of the weakest and most helpless people with whom they deal has now been stretched to take in all mankind, and every day the intermeshing relationships grow more intimate and unescapable. The laying of the first Atlantic cable was heralded everywhere as opening a new era in man's life; it was one of the most stirring bits of news that Stanley told Livingstone in the heart of Africa; it woke Whittier to rhapsody:

"For lo, the fall of Ocean's wall,

Space mocked and time outrun;

And round the world the thought of all
Is as the thought of one."

But the relationship of all races, advanced and backward, Christian and non-Christian, high and low, which the laying of the cable thus foretokened is more than a welcome gain. It is a portentous fact. All ignorance everywhere, all sin, superstition, ill will, disease, and blasting poverty are now a peril everywhere. No one is safe till all are safe. No privilege is secure till all possess it. No blessing is really owned until it universally is shared. That service to "one of the least of these my brethren," so far from being a superfluous ideal, is an ineradicable law of life, is indicated by this basic fact: in the last analysis self-preservation depends upon it. For whenever the strong neglect or oppress the weak, they must face that same principle at the heart of the Eternal which

found impressive utterance on the lips of Caliph Omar: "By God! he that is weakest among you shall be in my sight the strongest until I have vindicated for him his rights; but him that is strongest will I treat as the weakest until he complies with the laws."

VI

Because strong and weak emerge together toward the light and the strong for the sake of all have been trusted with the lead; because the weak are potentially strong and the release of their life from weakness into strength is their right; because no ill can rest upon the weak that does not also smite the strong; for such reasons the strong should bear the burdens of the weak. But not all these reasons together plumb the depth of the Christian motive. The strong should bear the burdens of the weak, because they, too, are weak. At first we said that none is so weak as not to bear the relationship of strength to some one weaker still; it is equally true that none is so strong as not to bear the relationship of weakness to some one stronger yet.

We have called Paul's principle paradoxical; but in one institution it always has been the fundamental law. Who is king of the home? Not the father, however strong, nor the mother, however important. The baby is king of the home. He is feebleness incarnate, yet if he cries all are attent; if he is ill no science is too skilled to serve him, no sacrifice of comfort too prolonged to meet his needs. At home the mother's thoughts, in business the father's ambitions center in the cradle. In this basic institution of human life we that are strong do bear the burdens of the weak and do not please ourselves. Each of us had that done for him. It were a shame if we could not live for others on a principle without which we ourselves never could live at all.

Nor have we escaped dependence upon superior strength because we now are grown to adult years. Strong in some respects, how weak we are in others! A thousand human ministries from family and friends support us in our frailties. Without such constant sustenance of superior strength we could not live for a day in worthiness, happiness, and peace. Moreover, when we think of standing in the presence of the Living God all conceit of independent strength vanishes utterly. The world looks up to a man and cries,

"Strong!" But when he looks at himself he knows that he is dependent upon a mercy for which he cannot pay and on a power that he must receive with thankfulness, not earn with pride. He goes out to serve the immature, the handicapped, the backward, the oppressed, with no condescending superiority. He feels himself in a fellowship of mutual dependence upon a strength greater than his own. He is too heavily indebted to One who lavished the highest gifts upon the lowliest needs to find condescension possible. He signs all his service as our fathers signed their letters, "I am, sir, your most obliged and humble servant."

CHAPTER IV

The Abundant Life

DAILY READINGS

That the love of pleasure is one of the chief enemies of an unselfish life is a commonplace of experience. We all wish to be happy, and we are not wrong in wishing it. "A happy man or woman," says Robert Louis Stevenson, “is a better thing to find than a five pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of good will; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted." But what makes life really happy? Let us consider a few of the elements, distinctly not selfish, which we at once recognize as necessary to abiding happiness.

Fourth Week, First Day

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you.-John 15:12-15.

Friends are necessary to a happy life. When friendship deserts us we are as lonely and helpless as a ship, left by the tide high upon the shore; when friendship returns to us, it is as though the tide came back, gave us buoyancy and freedom, and opened to us the wide places of the world. Proteus in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" says: "I to myself am dearer than a friend." How clearly such a man has blocked from his life one of the great avenues of happiness! But friendship is essentially unselfish; its proper voice is heard in such words as Jesus spoke to his disciples that last night at the Table. To be sure, friendship can be perverted and caricatured, but even in its low forms some self-forgetfulness

creeps in, and in its high ranges, where it brings the richest joy, it is nearest to pure unselfishness. Evidently a happy life cannot be all self-seeking.

O Lord of Love, in whom alone I live, kindle in my soul Thy fire of love; give me to lay myself aside, and to think of others as I kneel to Thee. For those whom Thou hast given me, dear to me as my own soul, Thy best gift on earth, I ask Thy blessing. If they are now far away, so that I cannot say loving words to them today, yet be Thou near them, give them of Thy joy, order their ways, keep them from sickness, from sorrow, and from sin, and let all things bring them closer to Thee. If they are near me, give us wisdom and grace to be true helpers of one another, serving in love's service all day long. Let nothing come between us to cloud our perfect trust, but help each to love more truly, more steadfastly, more unselfishly. Amen.-Samuel McComb.

Fourth Week, Second Day

For yourselves know how ye ought to imitate us: for we behaved not ourselves disorderly among you; neither did we eat bread for nought at any man's hand, but in labor and travail, working night and day, that we might not burden any of you: not because we have not the right, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you, that ye should imitate us. For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat. For we hear of some that walk among you disorderly, that work not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. But ye, brethren, be not weary in well-doing. II Thess. 3:7-13.

One of Paul's most engaging qualities was his sturdy selfrespect, his love of economic independence, his pride in his handicraft. Honest and useful work in self-support, with something left over with which to help others, was necessary to his happiness. "Let him that stole steal no more," he wrote to the Ephesians, "but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Any normal man understands Paul's feeling in this respect. Idleness is the most deadly boredom that life can know, and hard work, honestly done,