hirk if we like. It is not, _Though_ the road be narrow it leads to
life, therefore enter it; but _Because_ it is narrow, and leads to life,
therefore blessed are the feet that are set upon it.

Let us, then, look at these four characteristics, and note how they all
enforce the merciful summons which our Lord is addressing to each of us,
as truly as He did to the hearers gathered around Him on the mountain:
'Enter ye in at the strait gate.'

I. The gates.

The gate is in view here merely as a means of access to the road, and
the metaphor simply comes to this, that it is more difficult to be a
Christian man than not to be one, and therefore you ought to be one.

Now, what makes a Christian? We do not need to go further than this
Sermon on the Mount for answer. The two first of our Lord's Beatitudes,
as they are called, are 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' and 'Blessed
are they that mourn.' These two carry the conditions of entrance on the
Christian life. There must be consciousness of our own emptiness,
weakness, and need; there must be penitent recognition of our own
ill-desert and lamentation over that. These two things, the
consciousness of emptiness, and the sorrow for sin, make--I was going to
say--the two door-posts of the narrow gate through which a man has to
press. It is too narrow for any of his dignities or honours. A camel
cannot go through the eye of a needle, not only because of its own bulk,
but because of the burdens which flap on either side of it, and catch
against the jambs. All my self-confidence, and reputation, and
righteousness, will be rubbed off when I try to press through that
narrow aperture. You may find on a lonely moor low, contracted openings
that lead into tortuous passages--the approaches to some of the ancient
'Picts' houses,' where a feeble folk dwelt, and secured themselves from
their enemies. The only way to get into them is to go down upon your
knees; and the only way to get into this road--the way of
righteousness--is by taking the same attitude. No man can enter
unless--like that German Emperor whom a Pope kept standing in the snow
for three days outside the gate of Canossa--he is stripped of
everything, down to the hair-shirt of penitence. And that is not easy.
Naaman wanted to be healed as a great man in the court of Damascus. He
had to strip himself of his offices, and dignities, and pride, and to
come down to the level of any other leper. You and I, dear brother, have
to g