Levels of Living | Page 7

fractions. But He does not hide Himself in His infinity; He is "among you," with men. Not by descent into the grave of the past, nor by ascent into heaven do we find Him; He is here, on every hand. This it is that transforms individual character, to know that He is by my side; this it is that solves our problems, to see Him linking my fellow to me; this it is that gives strength, to hear His voice; this it is that gives hope, to know He is working with us; this it is that makes burdens bearable, to know that He is sympathetic and strong. This one in the midst explains suffering, inspires heroism, is the promise and the potency of all the possibilities of the sons of men.

III
The Sovereignty of Service
Self and Service My Soul or My Service The Satisfaction of Service
The fruits of sacrifice become the roots of love.
A tin halo makes a fine trap for a man to tangle himself in.
It takes the base line of two worlds to get a correct elevation of any life.
Life is always a dull grind to the man who thinks only of the grist.
Knocking the saints will not open the doors of paradise.
Capacity for that heaven comes from creating this one.
Another man's burden is the Christian's best badge.
The only way to lift life is to lay life down.
It doesn't take long to choose between a sinner who swears once in a while and a saint who makes every one swear all the while.
You cannot lift folks while you are looking down on them.
III
SELF AND SERVICE
There is such a thing as supremely selfish self-denial. A man retires into the monk's pietic seclusion; he isolates himself from interest in the world battles; he shuts himself from sympathy with the struggles of business, civil, and even social life. To him these things are carnal. He is engrossed with the complication of interpretations of languages long dead, or with visions of an unknown heaven, and this, he thinks, is living the life of self-denial.
The denial of self is not the death of self; it is the leading of the best self into larger life. It is not the dwarfing of the life; it is its development into usefulness. It is not the emasculation of character; it is the submission and discipline of the life to new and nobler motives.
He best denies himself who best develops himself with the purpose of serving his fellows. What Jesus meant was that if any man would be one of His he must cease to make his own selfish pleasures, ambitions, and passions the end of his living; he must make the most of himself that he might have the more to give to the service of mankind; he must make the one motive and end of his life the benefit and help of every other man.
That kind of a life means a change of centre. Instead of regarding the universe as revolving about itself it sees that self as but part of the great machinery of life, planned and operating for the good of all. A man begins to deny himself as soon as he begins to love another. Even a yellow dog may act to deflect the heart from its old self-centre. The love of kin and family, of friends, and associates all serve to strengthen the habit of self-denial.
The fewer people a man takes into his plan of life the more likely is he to be selfish. But some lives are but the more selfish because they take in all mankind and look on them as designed to contribute to their single enriching. That kind of a life commits suicide; ever grasping and never giving it dies of plethora. It had never learned that strange secret of the best self-development, sacrificing service.
We need to guard ourselves against the delusion that the denial of oneself means the 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