"Look at Acts xxi. 13,—'I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus.' And again, in 2 Timothy iv. 6,—'I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.'
"He was ready. No vain boast this, but a calm certainty. St. Paul was bound, and did die,—not at Jerusalem, but at Rome,—for that Master whom he loved and served. During long years of toil and trouble, he had held himself always 'ready, aye ready' to go here or there, to do this or that, which his Lord might command. And now he was ready to be bound, ready to die,—without a thought of reluctance or of holding back.
"Most of us are ready enough to follow our own inclinations. How many a one among us all now gathered in this Church holds himself habitually, day by day and hour by hour, in a position of calm willing readiness to do the will of God?
"Look at a verse in 2 Samuel xv. 15,—'And the king's servants said unto the king, Behold, thy servants are ready to do whatsoever any lord the king shall appoint.'
"Which of you will stand and say that from your very heart to the Lord your King?—'Master, I am ready to do whatsoever Thou shalt appoint.'
"Whatsoever! That allows no choice to self, no indulgence of self's fancies, no habits of laziness, no mere life of pleasure with the smallest possible amount of real work. O no: it means a very different kind of existence—toil cheerfully undertaken, hardship and suffering patiently borne, sin met and conquered, self subdued.
"Will some of you say that such a life of absolute readiness to carry out another's will must be a life of slavery?
"Nay! For unto love there is no slavery; and we who serve the Lord Christ love Him. St. Peter's readiness was the readiness of love; and so also was St. Paul's.
"Is it slavery which makes a mother willing to toil, to endure, to forget herself, to die, if needful, for her child? Is it not love alone?
"Look at the other side of the question. If not servants to the King of kings, standing always ready to do whatsoever He shall appoint, whose servants will you be? Satan's? Is there anything grand in the subjection of a man to the Evil One? Your own? But the most contemptible of all contemptible sights is the man who is a slave to his own will and passions!