res forever."
We offer Christ the submission of our hearts, and the obedience of our
lives; and He offers us His abiding presence. We take Him as our
Master; and He takes us as His friends. "I call you no longer
servants," He said to His disciples, "but I have called you friends."
The servant knoweth not what his Master doeth, his only duty is to
obey; a friend is admitted to confidence, and though he may do the same
thing as a servant, he does not do it any longer unreasoningly, but,
having been taken into counsel, he knows why he is doing it. This was
Christ's method with His disciples, not to apportion to each his task,
but to show them His great purpose for the world, and to ask for their
service and devotion to carry it out.

The distinction is not that a servant pleases his master, and a friend
pleases himself. It is that our Lord takes us up into a relationship
of love with Himself, and we go out into life inspired with His spirit
to work His work. It begins with the self-surrender of love; and love,
not fear nor favor, becomes the motive. To feel thus the touch of God
on our lives changes the world. Its fruits are joy, and peace, and
confidence that all the events of life are suffused, not only with
meaning, but with a meaning of love. The higher friendship brings a
satisfaction of the heart, and a joy commensurate to the love. Its
reward is itself, the sweet, enthralling relationship, not any
adventitious gain it promises, either in the present, or for the
future. Even if there were no physical, or moral, rewards and
punishments in the world, we would still love and serve Christ _for His
own sake_. The soul that is bound by this personal attachment to Jesus
has a life in the eternal, which transfigures the life in time with a
great joy.

We can see at once that to be the friend of God will mean peace also.
It has brought peace over the troubled lives of all His friends
throughout the ages. Every man who enters into the covenant, knows the
world to be a spiritual arena, in which the love of God manifests
itself. He walks no longer on a sodden earth and under a gray sky; for
he knows that, though all men misunderstand him, he is understood, and
followed with loving sympathy, in heaven. It was this confidence in
God as a real and near friend, which gave to Abraham's life such
distinction, and the calm repose which made his character so
impressive. Strong in the sense of God's friendship, he lived