of you have practically the best of your chances before you, but
every day takes some part of them out of your hands, and gives it to an
irrecoverable past. Be jealous about your own self-respect, and do
only the things that command it. Take care of your self-respect, and
your success will take care of itself; as also will your
companionships. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon
Him while He is near." Do not put off and forget, forget and put off
until your clock strikes, and so far as the best of your opportunities
are concerned, you have to say: "The Lord answereth me no more, neither
by prophet nor by dream." Lay hold at once upon the help that comes
through genuine decision for God. Place yourself in position where God
can help you; and you will find that God in Christ denies you nothing
except that which disappoints in the seeking and defeats in the
finding. You will realize that He offers you life; strong, sane, happy
life all the way, and at the end the more life and the fuller.

THE ROYAL LAW

"Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law, according to the Scripture, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well."--St. James ii. 8.

VII

THE ROYAL LAW

What St. James calls the Royal Law, is mentioned as far back as the
time of Moses. It is one of the two commands to which our Lord gave
new incidence, into which He put fresh meaning.

There has been, I hardly need remind you, endless debate about the
source of some of Christ's most characteristic sayings. Was He
original in His teaching, as we use the word, or was He eclectic,
gathering together the most luminous things that had been said? Jewish
scholars, as we might expect, have not been slow to point out that many
of the sayings attributed to Jesus, and certainly many of His ideas,
are to be found in the old Rabbinical writings; that many of His
highest truths had been announced by saints and seers of His race long
before He came.

We need not question that there is truth in this representation. But
we must question the inference from these words, "long before He came."
For time has known no such solitude. He, which is, and was, and is to
come, has ever been in the world teaching men how to pray, inspiring
them what to say. He had taught "them of old time." "Before Abraham
was," He says, "I am." And St. John tells us that "He was in the
world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not."
Originality