i

the momentous choice

every scrap of writing that sheds any light on the life of jesus, and every incident that gives the least detail about his movements or his teaching are precious to us. one can hardly conceive the joy and enthusiasm that would burst forth in all lands, if new fragments of papyrus or of parchment could be unearthed that would add in any measure to our knowledge of the way this galilean life was lived “beneath the syrian blue.” but it may now probably be taken for granted that the material will never be forthcoming—and it surely is not now in hand—for an adequate biography of[2] him. the lives of jesus that have been written in modern times have a certain value, as suggestive revelations of what the writers thought he ought to have been or ought to have done, but biographies, in the true sense of the word, they are not. the evangelists performed for us an inestimable service, but they did not furnish us the sort of data necessary for a detailed biography, expressed in clock-time language.

our “sources” are much more adequate when we turn our attention from external events to the inner way which his life reveals, though they still allow for free play of imagination and for much fluidity of subjective interpretation. it is possible, however, i believe, to look through the genuine words that are preserved and to see, with clairvoyant insight, the inner kingdom of the soul in that person whose interior life was the richest of all those who have walked our earth. there are curious little playthings to be bought in rome. if one looks through a pin-hole[3] peep somewhere in one of these tiny toys, one sees to his surprise the whole mighty structure of st. peter’s cathedral, standing out as large as it looks in reality. perhaps we can find some pin-hole peeps in the gospels that in a similar way will let us see the marvelous inner world, the extraordinary spiritual life, of this person whose outer biography so baffles us.

our first single glimpse of his interior life must be got without the help of any actual word of his. it is given to us in the gospel accounts of his discovery of his mission. how long the consciousness of mission had been gestating we cannot tell. what books he read, if any, are never named. what ripening influence the days of toil in the carpenter shop may have had, is unnoted. what dawned upon him as he meditated in silence is not reported. what formative ideas may have come from the little groups of “the quiet ones in the land” can only be guessed at. we are merely told that he[4] increased in wisdom as he advanced in stature, which is the only conceivable way that personality can be attained. suddenly the moment of clear insight came and he saw what he was in the world for.

it was usual for the great prophets of his people to discover their mission in some such moment of clarified inward sight. isaiah saw the lord with his train filling the temple, felt his lips cleansed, and heard the call “who will go?” ezekiel saw the indescribable living creature with the hands of a man under the wings of the spirit and heard himself called to his feet for his commission. so here, there was a sudden invading consciousness from beyond. the world with its solid hills appears only the fragment, which it is, and the world of wider reality floods in and reveals itself. the sky seems rent apart, the spirit, as though once more brooding over a world in the making, covers him from above, and gives inward birth to a conviction of uniqueness of life[5] and uniqueness of mission. he feels himself in union with his father.[1]

this experience of the invading life, awakening a consciousness of unique personal mission, brought with it, as an unavoidable sequence, the stress and strain of a very real temptation. the inner world of self-consciousness has strange watershed “divides” that shape the currents of the life as the mountain ridges of the outer world do the rivers. no new nativity, no fresh awakening, can come to a soul without forcing the momentous issue of its further meaning, or without raising the urgent question, how shall the new insight, the fresh light, the increased power be wrought into life? the deepest issues turn, not upon the choice of “things,” but upon the choice of the kind of self that is to be, and the most decisive dramas are those that are enacted in the inner world before the footlights of our private theater. the temptation is described by the evangelists in such conventional language and[6] in such popular and pictorial imagery that its immense inner reality is often missed by the reader. this oriental, pictorial way of presenting the drama of the soul catches the western mind in the toils of literalism. the picture is taken for the reality. what we have here in the temptation, when we go into the heart of the matter, is the momentous choice of the kind of person that is to emerge. it is the immemorial battle between the higher and the lower self within. it was the line of least resistance to accept popular expectation, to go forth to realize the dream of the age. a person conscious of divine anointing, fired with passionate loyalty to the nation’s hopes, gifted with extraordinary power of moving men to new issues would feel at once that he had only to put himself forth as the expected messiah in order to carry the enthusiastic people with him. let him but come with the spectacular powers of the messiah that was eagerly looked for, the power to turn stones to bread, to leap from the pinnacle of the temple without[7] injury, to break the roman yoke and make jerusalem once again the city of god’s chosen people—and success was sure to follow. god’s ancient covenant was an absolute pledge to the faithful that he would in his own time make bare his arm and deliver his people. as soon as the anointed one appeared all the forces of the unseen world would be at his command and his triumph would be assured.

the appeal of a career like that is no fictitious “temptation.” it is of a piece with what besets us all. it is out of the very stuff of nature. at some such crossroad we have all stood—with the issue of our inner destiny in unstable equilibrium.

over against it, another “way” is set, another kind of life is dimly outlined, another type of anointed one is seen to be possible, another kingdom, totally different from the one of popular expectation, is descried. this kingdom of his spiritual vision cannot come by miracle[8] or by power; it can come only through complete adjustment of will to the will of the father-god. this anointed one of his higher aspiration will be no temporal ruler, no political king, no spectacular wonder-worker. he will rule only by the conquering power of love and goodness. he will venture everything on sheer faith in the father’s love and on the appeal of uncalculating goodness of heart and will. this new kind of life that draws him from the line of least resistance is a life of utter simplicity, which discounts what the world calls “goods,” which draws upon an unseen environment for its resources and which expands inwardly, rather than outwardly, after the manner of the green bay tree. the new “way” that opens to his sight, and that beckons him from all other ways of glory, is a way of suffering and sacrifice, a way of the cross. it offers itself not because self-giving is a better way than an easy, happy path, but because it is the only way by which love in a world like ours[9] can reach its goal; it is the only way by which the kingdom of god can be formed in the lives of men like us.

he came forth from those momentous days of inner struggle with the issue settled, and with the first step taken in the way of the kingdom.

ii

making a life

our present-day age has a kind of passion for the study of developing processes. we do not feel quite at home with any subject until we can work our way back to its origin or origins and then follow it in its unfoldings, explaining the higher and more complex stages in terms of the lower and more simple ones.

that method, however, cannot be successfully used to unlock the secret of the gospels. we do not find beginnings here; we cannot follow genetic processes; we are unable to discriminate higher and lower stages of insight. we must launch out at the very start in mid-sea. whatever[10] words of christ one begins with indicate that he has already arrived at an absolute insight—i mean, that he has found a way of living that is no longer relatively good, but intrinsically and absolutely good.

it is an inveterate habit with men like us to estimate everything in terms of relative results. we are pragmatists by the very push of our immemorial instincts. our first question, consciously or unconsciously, is apt to be, what effects will come, if i act so, or so? will this course work well? will it further some issue or some interest? and this deep-lying pragmatic tendency—this aim at results—appears woven into the very fiber even of much of the religion of the world.

sometimes the results sought are near, sometimes they are remote; sometimes they are sought for this world, sometimes they are sought for the next world; sometimes the pragmatic aim at results is crudely and coarsely selfish, sometimes it is refined, or altogether veiled, but religion[11] has no doubt often enough been an impressive kind of double-entry bookkeeping, the piling up of credits or of merits which some day will bring the sure result that is sought.

just that entire pragmatic attitude christ has left forever behind. his inner way, his interior insight, passes on to a new level of life, to a totally different type of religious aspiration and to another method of valuation. for him the beyond is always within. the only good thing is a life that is intrinsically good; the only blessedness worth talking about is a kind of blessedness which attaches by a law of inner necessity to the character of the life itself. it makes no difference what world one may eventually be in—if only it is still a world of spiritual issues—goodness, holiness, likeness to god, will still constitute blessedness as they do in this world.

when once this insight is reached, it affects all the pursuits and all the valuations of the soul. all “other things” at[12] once become secondary, and “entering into life,” “seeking life,” “finding life,” becomes the primary thing. “making a life” overtops in importance even “making a living”—the life is more than meat, more than raiment, more than gaining the whole world. it is better to enter into life halt and maimed—with right hand cut off and eye plucked out—than bend all one’s energies to preserve the body whole and yet to miss life. the way to life is strait, the entering gate is narrow. one cannot enter without facing the stern necessity of focusing the vision on the central purpose, without getting “a single eye,” without letting go many things for the sake of one thing.

sacrifice, surrender, negation, are inherently involved in any great onward-marching life. they go with any choice that can be made of a rich and intense life. it is impossible to find without losing, to get without giving, to live without dying. but sacrifice, surrender, negation, are never for their own sake; they are[13] never ends in themselves. they are involved in life itself.

one great spiritual law comes to light and becomes operative, as soon as the interior insight is won, as soon as the inner way is found: the law that the soul can have what it wants. this law of the interior life, of the inner way, christ affirms again and again in varying phrase. the inner attitude, the settled trend of desire, the persistent swing of the will, are the very things that make life. the person who cherishes hate in his soul forms a disposition of hatred and must live in the atmosphere which that spirit forms. the person who longs for deeds that are wrong, and allows desire to play with free scope is inwardly as though he did the deed. he is what he wants to be. and so, too, on the other hand, the rightly fashioned will is its own reward and has its own peculiar blessedness. the person who hungers and thirsts for goodness will get what he wants. he who seeks, with undivided aspiration, will always find.[14] he who knocks with persistent desire for the gates of life to open will see them swing apart for him to go through to his goal. he who asks, with the ground swell of his whole inner being, for the things which minister to life and feed its deepest roots, will get what he asks for. the very pity of the pharisee’s way of life is that he has his reward—he gets what he is seeking. the glory of the other way is the glory of the imperfect—the glory of living toward the flying goal of likeness to the father in heaven.

iii

the spirit of the beatitudes

in putting the emphasis for the moment on the inner way of religion, we must be very careful not to encourage the heresy of treating religion as a withdrawal from the world, or as a retreat from the press and strain of the practical issues and problems of the social order. that is the road to spiritual disaster, not to spiritual power. christ gives no encouragement[15] to the view that the spiritual ideal—the kingdom of god—can ever be achieved apart from the conquest of the whole of life or without the victory that overcomes the world. religion can no more be cut apart from the intellectual currents, or from the moral undertakings, or from the social tasks of an age, than any other form of life can be isolated from its native environment. to desert this world, which presses close around us, for the sake of some remote world of our dreams, is to neglect our one chance to get a real religion.

but at the same time the only possible way to realize a kingdom of god in this world, or in any other world, is to begin by getting an inner spirit, the spirit of the kingdom, formed within the lives of the few or many who are to be the “seed” of it. the “beatitudes” furnish one of these extraordinary pin-hole peeps, of which i spoke in a former section, through which this whole inner world can be seen. here, in a few lines, loaded with insight, the[16] seed-spirit of the kingdom comes full into sight. we are given no new code, no new set of rules, no legal system at all. it is the proclamation of a new spirit, a new way of living, a new type of person. to have a world of persons of this type, to have this spirit prevail, would mean the actual presence of the kingdom of god, because this spirit would produce not only a new inner world, but a new outer world as well.

the first thing to note about the blessedness proclaimed in the beatitudes is that it is not a prize held out or promised as a final reward for a certain kind of conduct; it attaches by the inherent nature of things to a type of life, as light attaches to a luminous body, as motion attaches to a spinning top, as gravitation attaches to every particle of matter. to be this type of person is to be living the happy, blessed life, whatever the outward conditions may be. and the next thing to note is that this type of life carries in itself a principle of advance. one reason[17] why it is a blessed type of life is that it cannot be arrested, it cannot be static. the beatitude lies not in attainment, not in the arrival at a goal, but in the way, in the spirit, in the search, in the march.

i suspect that the nature of “the happy life” of the beatitudes can be adequately grasped only when it is seen in contrast to that of the pharisee who is obviously in the background as a foil to bring out the portrait of the new type. the pity of the pharisee’s aim was that it could be reached—he gets his reward. he has a definite limit in view—the keeping of a fixed law. beyond this there are no worlds to conquer. once the near finite goal is touched there is nothing to pursue. the immediate effect of this achievement is conceit and self-satisfaction. the trail of calculation and barter lies over all his righteousness. there is in his mind an equation between goodness and prosperity, between righteousness and success: “if thou hast made the most high thy habitation[18] there shall no evil befall thee; neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” the person who has loss or trouble or suffering must have been an overt or a secret sinner, as the question about the blind man indicates.

the goodness portrayed in the “beatitudes” is different from this by the width of the sky. christ does not call the righteous person the happy man. he does not pronounce the attainment of righteousness blessed, because a “righteousness” that gets attained is always external and conventional; it is a kind that has definable, quantitative limits—“how many times must i forgive my brother?” “who is my neighbor?” the beatitude attaches rather to hunger and thirst for goodness. the aspiration, and not the attainment, is singled out for blessing. in the popular estimate, happiness consists in getting desires satisfied. for christ the real concern is to get new and greater desires—desires for infinite things. the reach must always exceed[19] the grasp. the heart must forever be throbbing for an attainment that lies beyond any present consummation. it is the “glory of going on,” the joy of discovering unwon territory beyond the margin of each, spiritual conquest.

poverty of spirit—another beatitude-trait—is bound up with hunger for goodness as the convex side of a curve is bound up with the concave side. they are different aspects of the same attitude. the poor in spirit are by no means poor-spirited. they are persons who see so much to be, so much to do, such limitless reaches to life and goodness that they are profoundly conscious of their insufficiency and incompleteness. self-satisfaction and pride of spiritual achievement are washed clean out of their nature. they are open-hearted, open-windowed to all truth, possessed of an abiding disposition to receive, impressed with a sense of inner need and of childlike dependence. just that attitude is its own sure reward. by an unescapable spiritual[20] gravitation the best things in the universe belong to open-hearted, open-windowed souls. again, in the beatitude on the mourner, he reverses the pharisaic and popular judgment. losses and crosses, pains and burdens, heartaches and bereavements, empty chairs and darkened windows, are the antipodes of our desires and last of all things to be expected in the list of beatitudes. they were then, and still often are, counted as visitations of divine disapproval. christ rejects the superficial way of measuring the success of a life by the smoothness of its road or by its freedom from trial, and he will not allow the false view to stand; namely, that success is the reward of piety, and trouble the return for lack of righteousness. there is no way to depth of life, to richness of spirit, by shun-pikes that go around hard experiences. the very discovery of the nearness of god, of the sustaining power of his love, of the sufficiency of his grace, has come to men in all ages through pain, and suffering and loss. we always go for[21] comfort to those who have passed through deeps of life and we may well trust christ when he tells us that it is not the lotus-eater but the sufferer who is in the way of blessing and is forming the spirit of the kingdom.

meekness and mercy and peace-making are high among the qualities that characterize the inner spirit of the kingdom. patience, endurance, steadfastness, confidence in the eternal nature of things, determination to win by the slow method that is right rather than by the quick and strenuous method that is wrong are other ways of naming meekness. mercy is tenderness of heart, ability to put oneself in another’s place, confidence in the power of love and gentleness, the practice of forgiveness and the joyous bestowal of sympathy. peace-making is the divine business of drawing men together into unity of spirit and purpose, teaching them to live the love-way, and forming in the very warp and woof of human society the spirit of altruism and loyalty[22] to the higher interests of the group. these traits belong to the inmost nature of god and of course those who have them are blessed, and it is equally clear that the kingdom is theirs. there is furthermore, in this happy way of life, a condition of heart to which the vision of god inherently attaches. he is no longer argued about and speculated upon. he is seen and felt. he becomes as sure as the sky above us or our own pulse beat within us. we spoil our vision with selfishness, we cloud it with prejudices, we blur it with impure aims. we cast our own shadow across our field of view and make a dark eclipse. it is not better spectacles we need. it is a pure, clean, sincere, loving, forgiving, passionately devoted heart. god who is love can be seen, can be found, only by a heart that intensely loves and that hates everything that hinders love.

[23]

iv

the way of contagion

we have seen that religion cannot be sundered from the intellectual currents, or from the moral undertakings, or from the social tasks of the world. it cannot be merely inward. it can preserve its inward power only as it lives in actual correspondence with its whole environment and becomes also outward. but the primary thing for christ, we saw, was the attainment of an inner spirit, the seed-spirit of the kingdom, the spirit of the beatitudes—the attainment of a type of life to which blessedness inherently attaches.

the question at once arises, how shall this inner spirit be spread and propagated? how is religion of the inner type to grow and expand? there are two characteristic ways of propagating religious ideas, of carrying spiritual discoveries into the life of the world. one way is the way of organization; the other way is the way of[24] contagion. the way of organization, which is as old as human history, is too familiar to need any description. our age has almost unlimited faith in it. if we wish to carry a live idea into action, we organize. we select officials. we make “motions.” we pass resolutions. we appoint committees or boards or commissions. we hold endless conferences. we issue propaganda material. we have street processions. we use placards and billboards. we found institutions, and devise machinery. we have collisions between “pros” and “antis” and stir up enthusiasm and passion for our “cause.” the christian church is probably the most impressive instance of organization in the entire history of man’s undertakings. it has become, in its historical development, almost infinitely complex, with organizations within organizations and suborganizations within suborganizations. it has employed every known expedient, even the sword, for the advancement of its[25] “cause,” it has created a perfect maze of institutions and it has originated a vast variety of educational methods for carrying forward its truth.

but great as has been the historical emphasis on organization, it nevertheless occupies a very slender place in the consciousness of christ. there is no clear indication that he appointed any officials, or organized any society, or founded any institution. there are two “sayings” in matthew which use the word “church,” but they almost certainly bear the mark and coloring of a later time, when the church had already come into existence and had formed its practices and its traditions. and even though the great “saying” at c?sarea philippi were accepted as the actual words of jesus, it is still quite possible to see in it the announcement of a spiritual fellowship, spreading by inspiration and contagion, rather than the founding of an official institution. it is, no doubt, fortunate on the whole that the church was organized,[26] and that the great idea found a visible body through which to express itself, though nobody can fail to see that the church, while meaning to propagate the gospel, has always profoundly modified and transformed it, and that it has brought into play a great many tendencies foreign to the original gospel.

christ’s way of propagating the truth—the way that inherently fits the inner life and spirit of the gospel of the kingdom—was the way of personal contagion. instead of founding an institution, or organizing an official society, or forming a system, or creating external machinery, he counted almost wholly upon the spontaneous and dynamic influence of life upon life, of personality upon personality. he would produce a new world, a new social order, through the contagious and transmissive character of personal goodness. he practically ignored, or positively rejected, the method of restraint, and trusted absolutely to the conquering power of loyalty and consecration.[27] it was his faith that, if you get into the world anywhere a seed of the kingdom, a nucleus of persons who exhibit the blessed life, who are dedicated to expanding goodness, who rely implicitly on love and sympathy, who try in meek patience the slow method that is right, who still feel the clasping hands of love even when they go through pain and trial and loss, this seed-spirit will spread, this nucleus will enlarge and create a society. if the new spirit of passionate love, and of uncalculating goodness gets formed in one person, by a silent alchemy a group of persons will soon become permeated and charged with the same spirit, new conditions will be formed, and in time children will be born into a new social environment and will suck in new ideals with their mother’s milk.

persons of the blessed life, christ says, are the saving salt of the earth. they carry their wholesome savor into everything they touch. they do not try to save themselves. they are ready like[28] salt to dissolve and disappear, but, the more they give themselves away, the more antiseptic and preservative they become to the society in which they live. they keep the old world from spoiling and corrupting not by attack and restraint, not by excision and amputation, but by pouring the preservative savor of their lives of goodness into all the channels of the world. this preservative and saving influence on society depends, however, entirely on the continuance of the inner quality of life and it will be certain to cease if ever the salt lose its savor, i.e. if the soul of religion wanes or dies away and only the outer form of it remains.

but such lives are more than antiseptic and preservative; they are kindling and illuminative. they become “candles of the lord.” candles emit their light and kindle other candles by burning themselves up and transmitting their flame. when a life is set on fire, and is radiant with self-consuming love, it will invariably set other lives on fire. such a person may[29] teach many valuable ideas, he may organize many movements, he may attack many evil customs, but the best thing he will ever do will be to fuse and kindle other souls with the fire of his passion. his own burning, shining life is always his supreme service.

“the greatest legacy the hero leaves his race

is—to have been a hero.”

such a person will be eager to decrease that his kindling power may increase. he will not care to save himself, or to reap a reward for his service. he may not even know that he is shining, like the early saint who “wist not that his face did shine.” but for all that, men will see the way by his light and will catch the glory of living because he exhibits it. he can no more be hid than can a hill-top city, or the headlight of a locomotive, or the newly risen sun.

that is christ’s way of spreading the life of the kingdom, that is his method of propagating the inner spirit, and of producing a society of blessed people.

[30]

v

the second mile

it may seem to some incongruous to be writing about an inner way of life in these days when action is felt by so many to be the only reality and when in every direction outside there is dire human need to be met.

“leave, then, your wonted prattle,

the oaten reed forbear;

for i hear a sound of battle,

and trumpets rend the air.”

but more than ever is it necessary for us to center down to eternal principles of life and action, to attain and maintain the right inner spirit, and to see what in its faith and essence christianity really means. precisely now when the sermon on the mount seems least to be the program of action and the map of life, is it a suitable time for us to endeavor to discover what christ’s way means, by looking through the literal phrases in clairvoyant[31] fashion to the spirit treasured and embalmed within the wonderful words?

there is one phrase which seems to me to be, in a rare and peculiar degree, the key to the entire gospel—i mean the invitation to go “the second mile”: “if any man compel you to go a mile, go two miles.” it is always dangerous, i know, to fly away from the literal significance of words and to indulge in far-fetched “spiritual” interpretations. but it is even more dangerous, perhaps, to read words of oriental imagery and paradox as though they were the plain prose speech of the occidental mind, and to be taken only at their face value.

there will probably always be tolstoys—great or small—who will make the difficult, and never very successful, experiment of taking this and the other “commands” of the sermon on the mount in a literal and legalistic sense, but to do so is almost certainly to be “slow of heart,” and to miss christ’s meaning. whatever else may be true or false in[32] our interpretations of the teachings of christ, it may always be taken for certain that he did not inaugurate a religion of the legalistic type, consisting of commands and exact directions, to be literally followed and obeyed as a way to secure merit and reward. to go “the second mile,” then, is an attitude and character of spirit rather than a mere rule and formula for the legs.

christ always shows a very slender appreciation of any act of religion or of ethics which does not reach beyond the stage of compulsion. what is done because it must be done; because the law requires it, or because society expects it, or because convention prescribes it, or because the doer of it is afraid of consequences if he omits it, may, of course, be rightly done and meritoriously done, but an act on that level is not yet quite in the region where for christ the highest moral and religious acts have their spring. the typical pharisee was an appalling instance of the inadequacy of “the first-mile”[33] kind of religion and ethics. he plodded his hard mile, and “did all the things required” of him. in the region of commands, or “touching the law” he was “blameless.” but there was no spontaneity in his religion, no free initiative, no enthusiastic passion, no joyous abandon, no gratuitous and uncalculating acts. he did things enough, but he did them because he had to do them, not because some mighty love possessed him and flooded him and inspired him to go not only the expected mile, but to go on without any calculation out beyond milestones altogether. just here appears the new inner way of christ’s religion. the legalist, like the rich young man, “does all the things that are commanded in the law,” but still painfully “lacks” something. to get into christ’s way, to “follow” in any real sense, he must cut his cables and swing out from the moorings where he is tied. he must catch such a passion of love that giving either of his money or of himself, shall[34] no longer be for him an imposed duty but rather a joy of spirit.

the parable of the “great surprise” is another illustration, a glorious illustration, of the spirit of the “second mile.” the “blessed ones” in the picture (which is an unveiling of actual everyday life in its eternal meaning rather than a portraiture of the day of judgment) find themselves at home with god, drawn into his presence, crowned with his approval, and sealed with his fellowship. they are surprised. they had not been adding up their merits or calculating their chances of winning heaven. they are beautifully artless and na?ve: “when saw we thee hungry and fed thee?” they have been doing deeds of love, saying kind words, relieving human need, banishing human loneliness, making life easier and more joyous, because they had caught a spirit of love and tenderness, and, therefore, “could not do otherwise,” and now they suddenly discover that those whom they helped and rescued[35] and served were bound up in one inseparable life with god himself, so that what was done to them was done to him, and they find that their spontaneous and uncalculating love was one in essence and substance with the love of god and that they are eternally at home with him.

the tender, immortal stories of the woman who broke her alabaster vase of precious nard and “filled all the house with the odor,” and of the woman (perhaps the same one) who had been a sinner and who from her passion of love for her great forgiveness wet christ’s feet with her tears, even before she could open her cruse of ointment, are the finest possible illustrations of the spirit of “the second mile.” they picture, in subtly suggestive imagery, the immense contrast between the spontaneous, uncalculating act of one who “loves much” and does with grace what love prompts; and acts, on the other hand, like that of simon the pharisaic host, who offers jesus a purely conventional and grudging hospitality,[36] or like that of the disciples who sit indeed at the table with jesus but come to it absorbed with the burning question, “who among us is to be first and greatest,” not only at the table but “in the kingdom!”

what grace and unexpected love come into action in the simple deed of the “samaritan” who, from nobility of nature, does what official priest and levite leave undone! the hated foreigner, spit at and stoned as he walked the roads of judea, under no obligation to be kind or serviceable, is the real “neighbor,” the bearer of balm and healing, the dispenser of love and sympathy. he may have no ordination to the priesthood, but he finely exhibits the attitude of grace which belongs in the religion of “the second mile.”

but we do not reach the full significance of “the second mile” until we see that it is something more than the highest level of human grace. what shines through the gospels everywhere, like a new-risen[37] sun, is the revelation that this—this grace of the second mile—is the supreme trait and character-nature of god as well. how surprising and unexpected is that extraordinary unveiling of the divine nature in the story of the prodigal boy! it is wonderful enough that one who has wasted his substance and squandered his own very life should still be able in his squalor and misery to come to himself and want to go home; but the fact which radiates this sublime story like a glory is the uncalculating, ungrudging, unlimited love of the father, which remains unchanged by the boy’s blunder, which has never failed in the period of his absence, and which bursts out in the cry of joy: “this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.”

it is, and always has been, the very center of our christian faith that the real nature and character of god come full into view in christ, that god is in mind and heart and will revealed in the person whom we call christ. “the[38] grace,” then, “of the lord jesus christ,” of which we are reminded in that great word of apostolic benediction, is a true manifestation of the deepest nature and character of god himself. the cross is not an artificial scheme. the cross is the eternal grace, the spontaneous, uncalculating love of god made visible and vocal in our temporal world. it is the apotheosis of the spirit of the second mile.