should make the most and best of both. We cannot promise to be rich, or clever, or eloquent, or successful as the world counts success. But, according to our several ability and opportunity, we can be "faithful"; and if faithful we shall taste the joy and share the throne of the Son of God Himself. THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP. "Yea, thro' life, death, thro' sorrow and thro' sinning, F. W. H. MYERS. THE CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP. "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple."-LUKE xiv. 33. PARTY-POLITICIANS too often try to adapt their programmes to the tastes and prejudices of the electors. False prophets in all ages make plausible and bewitching promises to catch the popular ear. But Jesus Christ, at the very height of His popularity, checked and discouraged the enthusiasm of the crowd, by claiming, as a sine quâ non, the complete renunciation of everything. Descartes demanded as the first condition of true philosophy that we should make a clean sweep of all our beliefs and start afresh. Jesus Christ demanded as the necessary preliminary of true discipleship that we should renounce all that we have, and place ourselves unconditionally and absolutely in His hands. As we read in the twenty-fifth verse, "great multitudes went with Him." At the very moment when the great tide of popular enthusiasm was setting in His favour, He turned round and said to them, "If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.' "1 The key to this hard saying is evidently the word "disciple." To be a real "disciple" of Jesus Christ 1 Ver. 26. |