not far off. And that which defers it is the resolute adoption by her better citizens of a life of service; of work dictated by a sense of obedience or duty; in a word, of a life modelled upon the Supreme Example which has been given us by our Lord and Saviour.

IV.

It is then, rightly, the glory of our Lord and of His Religion and Church to have proclaimed that the true life of man is a life of service. But this glory has been made a subject of reproach by a not inconsiderable school of modern writers. Yes! it is said, Jesus Christ told us that He was among us as one that serveth; and He has imprinted only too successfully the temper of servility on the Christian world. His Apostles are true, in this matter, to the servile spirit of their Master. They preach the subjection of every soul to the higher powers,1 even when a Nero is on the throne. They will not interfere even with slavery; it is part of the established order of things. The world, they held, may come to an end any day; and there was no object in promoting changes which might be the last events in history. Hence Christianity has always been in favour of passive submission to wrong; of contented acquiescence in the indefensible; of resignation which, if it adorns individual character, only does so at the heavy cost of protecting any antiquated social abuse that retards the progress of the race.2

Now, it is obvious to remark that the bearing of our Lord and His Apostles, in circumstances of difficulty and danger, ought of itself to have made this criticism impossible. Servility is the last charge that can be brought against the fearless Preacher Who confronted mobs, ignorant and ferocious, and scribes and Pharisees, less ignorant but more ferocious, with the invincible calmness that befits the possession of Truth. Indeed, another infidel criticism on His work is that He was a reckless incendiary, Who led a revolt against the old laws and institutions of His country, and was justly punished by their appointed guardians. And if St. Paul is classed by some moderns among those who have misused their influence to induce men to submit to established evils without complaint or resistance, he was, as we know, described in his own day, by those who most earnestly opposed him, as one of a band 1 Rom. xiii. 1.

2 J. C. Morison, The Service of Man, p. 187.

who had "turned the world upside down." The incompatible criticisms may be left to balance or to eliminate each other; the fact being that the service enjoined by our Lord and practised by His Apostles was in no sense servile. It was voluntary service-the service of God and man-the motive of which was the love of God. Certainly the Apostles did not undertake to reform the government of the Roman Empire, or to do away with slavery, by preaching revolution and a social war. Had this been their object, they might have given trouble, at least at the close of the Apostolic age, to the Roman authorities; there was a deep sense of wrong among Christians, as we may read between the lines of the Epistle to the Hebrews, or even of the Epistle to the Romans. But the Apostolic preaching was, "Let every soul be subject; "2 "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." $ They might have appealed to what they taught concerning justice, and the fundamental equality of all human beings before God; they might have met violence with violence, blood with blood, even if they were eventually crushed. They preferred the power of conscience to the power of the sword, silence and patience to retaliation; they won the day, not as soldiers on battle-fields, but as martyrs on the blood-stained floors of amphitheatres; and they conquered by suffering.

What is it, brethren, that prevents the service of our fellowmen from degenerating into servility? It is the consideration that in this service, in all service, a Christian should aim, before all else, at serving God. As St. Paul says of the Christian slave, when performing menial duties for his heathen master, he is to do it, not with eye-service, as a men-pleaser, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. God is the first Object of a Christian's service; then man, for God's sake. "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God; "5 that is the rule. It follows that man can only be served so far as is compatible with a loyal service of God. If the human master asks for that which is opposed to the known Will of the Divine Master, the Christian conscience refuses service; it utters those words of the first Apostles, "We must obey God rather than men.' 996 What could be more perfect than the service rendered by the three children, or by Daniel in the court of the Eastern kings, until the time came when they were bidden 3 I Cor. vii. 20. • Acts v. 29.

1 Acts xvii, 6.

< Col. iii, 22.

2 Rom. xiii. 1.

5 I Cor. x. 31; cf. Col. iii. 17.
Dan. i. 3-7, 17-20.

consent to an act of idolatry? Then the dignity of their previous service was apparent in their very refusal to serve. The burning fiery furnace, or the den of lions, were instantly chosen as a preferable alternative to an act of disobedience to God.1 And it was in this sense alone that our Lord was among us as he that serveth. He was indeed the truest Servant of mankind; but while He relieved its sorrows and recognized its weakness, He did not serve its errors, its delusions, its prejudices, its evil inclinations; He loved men too well for this. He often served men when they repelled His service; He never paid compliments to their mistakes or to their passions ; He never courted popularity by ascribing to the people a wisdom or an infallibility which it does not in fact possess. And therefore His service, when most devoted and disinterested, never degenerated into servility; because it was primarily, and before everything else, the service of the Father

There are, thank God, no slaves in England, such as there were in the ancient world. If any man is a servant in this country, it is because he chooses to be one. His service is one part of a contract, and it can be put an end to whenever he or his master pleases. This places it, in fact, on a level with any other kind of occupation; since all who are honestly employed in gaining their livelihood, or in serving their fellow-men, are servants, if not of men, yet certainly, if they are Christians, of God. And yet, sometimes, a sort of stigma is understood to attach to going out to service, as if it were an occupation unworthy of a free Christian man or woman. This notion is really a shred of the old pagan thought hanging in tatters about our minds; but it is now and then encouraged by masters and mistresses who, if they are really Christian, ought to do better. An observant foreigner, not unfriendly to English ways, has remarked unfavourably upon the treatment which servants often meet with in English households; upon the distance at which they are kept by their employers; upon the want of consideration they frequently meet with; upon the neglect of their highest interests. In bygone days this was less the case. Then an old servant often was the friend of the family, the confidant of its older, the kindly adviser of its younger members, while the money equivalent for service was never thought of on either side except at quarter-day. Then a service, devoted and generous on one side, and valued and respected on the other, would often last for a lifetime; it Dan. iii.; vi.

was at once a service and a friendship, in which intimacy was always possible, because it was never presumed upon. Now we have changed all this, at least too generally. All that gives service its dignity and beauty has been stripped away, and it is reduced to an affair of salaries; while engagements are too frequently as brief as they are heartless. There are faults, no doubt, on both sides; and they would be corrected if both could be inspired with the spirit of service. It is no certificate of merit to be waited on; it is no indignity to wait on another. If our Lord were to appear at a great dinnerparty, we may reverently conjecture that He would take His part, rather with the waiters in livery than with the guests at table; although we know that once at least, at Cana of Galilee, He was among the guests. But that for which He would look and which He would approve would be the spirit of service; the spirit of service in the servant, and also in the master and the guests; a spirit which would more than bridge over the social interval between them, by inspiring a reciprocal sense of dignity and obligation. For, after all, brethren, the real question for us all is, not what service we have to do, but how we do it. The difference between a drummer-boy and a field-marshal, between an office clerk and a prime minister, between a curate and an archbishop, is as nothing when compared with the difference between a man who has on his heart and conscience the sense of what it is to serve God, and the man who has not. On the one side is Lucifer, the prince of rebellion on the other, that assembled multitude around the throne of the Glorified Lamb, Whose praises-the highest language of service-have just been repeated to us. May God enable us to enter, during this Advent and Christmas, into the great lesson taught us by His Incarnate Son; and to understand that while the service of any but Himself is inevitably slavery, His service, be its outward form what it may, is perfect freedom.

1 St. John ii. I-II.

SERMON XLVII.

THE LAST ACCOUNT.

(SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.)

ST. LUKE XVI. 2.

Give an account of thy stewardship.

T would be somewhat out of place to-day to discuss at any

occur. For this parable presents itself in the yearly course of the teaching of the Church, as the Gospel for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity. But the words in which the bad steward is summoned to give his account have a meaning and a force of their own; a meaning independent of the particular lesson which the parable, as a whole, is intended to teach us. "Give an account of thy stewardship." The words fall into line with the great truths and the solemn thoughts which Advent brings and should keep before us, and we will endeavour to consider them in this strictly practical sense.

I.

The point on which we have first of all to fix our minds, is the exact idea which the word "steward " is intended to convey. A steward, all the world over, and in all times, is a man who administers a property which is not his own. This, we may be very sure, was the occupation of Eliezer of Damascus,1 the oldest steward known to history; the steward of the house of Abraham. Eliezer brought with him, as it would seem, from the ancient Syrian city, the experience and knowledge which enabled him to preserve and to add to the flocks and herds and movable utensils of the wandering patriarch. But

1 Gen. XV. 2.