The Secular Power of Christ's Gospel

’He that descended is the same also that ascended.” — Ephesians IV. 10.

The only power that ever stooped to the masses was the power accustomed to the heights; the man that was the man who had ascended. The best secular work was done by the most spiritual nature. We should not have expected this. We should have thought that the secular Roman — the man who never raised his eyes to another world, would have been the kindest to this world. We should have thought that the greatest sympathy with the invalid would have come from his fellow-invalid. But it did not; it came from the green fields. The man on a level with the masses did not help them; they had to lift up their eyes to the hills. The help to those wounded in the world came not from the world; it came from above. Men said, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings!” The help of the Roman was not Rome but Christ, not earth but heaven, not night but day, not sin but holiness, not poverty but wealth; none ever but He who

My soul, why complainest thou against God in the interest of man! AVhy sayest thou, ‘* I am a humanitarian; do not speak to me of things above when my brother is starving! “Where is the refuge of the humanitarian if not above! It is the man of the mount that stoops to the plain. Seest thou that famished crowd in the desert. Their brother man fears to aid them; he is afraid the interests of political economy will suffer, “whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude!” But the Divine Man has no space for fear; perfect love has cast out fear. It did not content Him that He Himself was there to minister to the wants of the spirit. Compassion for the body outran anxiety for the spirit. He surpassed the world in its own sphere — its care for to-morrow. He put the secularists to shame, the humanitarians to shame. He did not tell them they were neglecting heaven; He told them they were neglecting earth. He said they were above their own business — too high for the things they aspired to. He saw them afraid to soil their hands with their native mire. He was not afraid. He had gazed on the heights supernal, and therefore He could bend to the dust. He had seen the King in His beauty, and so He could touch the slave in his deformity. He had bathed in the dayspring from on high, and therefore He could cleanse the leper in the vale. The Man that went deepest down was the Man from heaven.

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