some
worthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing business
is to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what the
student needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of the
God of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer to
Him, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We are
proud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearer
of dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box in
which they had been given to him, and never bore them to their
destination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to a
purpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, it
corrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose and
cherished only for itself.

We can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see true
lives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in common
life. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copies
when in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed in
the wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! and
yet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makes
our poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cut
Himself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up house
and home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of the
people, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of great
work and influence, the very things that have always seduced the best
men most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He was
divine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly human
also, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace not
unworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one
thing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all
given to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save his
people from their sins." "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be
betrayed." "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Everywhere the
consecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem,
the hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullest
life, but lived so high that the "pride of life" lay all below under
His feet and out of sight.

And our life mu