into God’s kingdom poor wretches whom men despised and cast off. It was He who taught St. Paul to behave in the same way. May He teach us to behave in the same way also! St. Paul learnt to discern men’s spirits, and feel for them, and understand them, and help them, and comfort them, and at last to turn and change them whichever way he chose, simply because he was full of the Spirit of Christ, who is the Spirit of God, proceeding both from the Father and the Son.
For St. Paul says positively, that his reason for not pleasing himself, but taking so much trouble to please other people, was because Christ also pleased not Himself. “We that are strong,” he says, “ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every man please his neighbour for his good unto edification, for even Christ pleased not Himself,” (Rom. xv. 1-3.) And again, “We have a High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” (Heb. iv. 15). So it was by stooping to men, that Christ learned to understand men, and by understanding men He was able to save men. And again, St. Paul says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, and equal with God,” yet—“made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” (Phil. ii. 5, 9, 10).
There, my friends—there was the perfect fulfilment of the great law—Stoop to conquer. There was the reward of Christ’s not pleasing Himself. Christ stooped lower than any man, and therefore He rose again higher than all men. He did more to please men than any
man; and therefore God was better pleased with Him than with all men, and a voice came from Heaven, saying—This Person who stoops to the lowest depths that He may understand and help those who were in the lowest deep—this outcast who has not where to lay His head, slandered, blasphemed, spit on, scourged, crucified, because He will help all, and feel for all, and preach to all; “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” (Matt. iii. 17). “The brightness of my glory,—the express image of my person,” (Heb. i. 3).
My friends, this may seem to you a strange sermon, which began by talking of railroads and steamships, and ends by talking of the death and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; and you may ask what has the end of it to do with the beginning?
If you want to know, recollect that I began by saying that there was but One wisdom for earth or heaven, for man and for God; and that is the wisdom which lies in stooping to conquer, as the Lord Jesus Christ did. Think over that, and behave accordingly; and be sure, meanwhile, that whenever you feel proud, and self-willed, and dictatorial, and inclined to drive men instead of leading them, and to quarrel with them, instead of trying to understand them and love them, and bring them round gently, by appealing to their reason and good feeling, not to their fear of you—then you are going not God’s way, no, nor man’s way either, but the devil’s way. You are going, not the way by which the Lord Jesus Christ rose to Heaven, but the way by which the devil fell from Heaven, as all self-willed proud men will fall. Proud and self-willed men will not get done the things they want to be done; while the meek, those
who are gentle, and tender, and try to draw men as God does with the cords of a man and the bands of love, will prosper in this world and in the next; they will see their heart’s desire; they will inherit the land, and be refreshed in the multitude of peace.
XIX. IT IS GOOD FOR THE YOUNG TO REJOICE.
“Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”—Ecclesiastes xi. 9.
Some people fancy that in this text God forbids young people to enjoy themselves. They think that the words are spoken ironically, and with a sneer, as if to say,