Levels of Living | Page 8

impoverishment of the life. There can be no true
giving of the life in service unless there is a wise enriching of the self, a

thorough fitting for that service. The more of a man you are, the
brighter your intellect, the broader your sympathies, the better your
service to the world may be. The sloth that sinks the soul in
indifference to its own development is the most sinful of all forms of
selfishness.
This way of denial is more, the Master tells His disciples, than an
emptying of the life. If some of the cares of self are cast out the burdens
of others more than take their place. It is a full life, overflowing with
the interests, the fears, loves, hopes, and longings of other lives. It
bears the cross, not of an ornamental, vanity-serving glory, but the
cross of a world's sin and sorrow.
Each man must carry his cross not on his breast but on his heart and
brain. It is what he can do, what he can plan, suggest, undertake
towards saving this world. The cross of discipleship will be to some
statesmanship, to others science, to others the daily service of a home
or the work in the shop; it is the kindly word, the cheering look, the lift
by the way; it is whatever is done in unselfish desire to make life better,
to bring men nearer to one another and to the Father of all.
You have only to look at the great Teacher to know what self-denial
and cross bearing really mean, and you have only to follow Him to
fully carry out their principles. To Him they meant the life of doing
good, of seeking the sorrowing, befriending the forsaken, helping the
helpless. They who follow Him lead the world; they who seek to
minister instead of being ministered to are the world's masters. The
value of every life must be measured at last not by what it has gathered
to itself but by what it has given for the enriching and help of the whole
life of the world.

MY SOUL OR MY SERVICE
There is no more subtle temptation than that which sets the soul as a
hindrance to the service we should render. A surprise awaits him who
carefully will compare the emphasis laid upon the individual soul and

its salvation by the modern church with the place given this in the
teachings of the Bible. Perhaps he will find in modern preaching, with
its insistent appeal to men to save their own souls, an explanation of
prevalent selfishness. The moral effect of urging a man to save his soul
is not much better than that which comes from advising him to save his
skin at any cost.
The most serious objection ever made to religion is that it produces a
narrow, self-centred type of mind. That type of religion cannot be right,
regardless of its doctrinal orthodoxy, which produces a wrong type of
men and women. But may not failure here be accounted for by the
selfish basis on which men build the plea for what they call personal
salvation?
What could be more selfish than this continual appeal to fear, this
urging of men to escape from punishment, to make sure of a house in
the heavenly city, this offering of crowns and perpetual rest, plenty and
peace, this emphasis on the great object of saving your own soul? It is
opposite directly to what the great Teacher told men. Did He not say
that the man who would save his own life should lose it?
The concentration of mind on the self, whether in the name of religion
or in any other name, is but moral suicide. People who have no other
object in life than that of saving their own souls are but little better than
those whose whole object is to fatten, protect, and keep safe their
bodies.
But Christianity must be perverted greatly to make it teach men to set
their own interests first. It is the religion of the other man. Its appeal is
not to the love of self, but to the love of society. It offers a way of
salvation, not as a thing desirable for your exclusive use, but as the
pathway for all lives, for all the people. Its tree of life is not for a single
pair, but for the healing of the nations.
True religion is not in self-centred culture, but in the culture of all
through the service of the single ones and the culture of the one through
his service for all. Only in the atmosphere of service does the soul grow,
expand, and find itself. To live in a circle is to die; it is the centrifugal

life that finds salvation. They