r lands, for My sake and the
Gospel's sake, but shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses
and brethren, sisters and mothers, and children and lands, with
persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.'[25] Now, while
this is a promise of wide sweep and large generosity, it is neither so
arbitrary nor material as it seems. First, the words, 'with
persecutions,' indicate that suffering is not only the very condition of
the promise, but indeed an essential part of the reward--an element which
would of itself be a true test of the sincerity of the sacrifice. {161}
But, second, even the promise, 'An hundredfold now in this time,' is
obviously not intended to be taken in a literal sense, but rather as
suggesting that the gain, while apparently of the same nature as the
sacrifice, will have a larger spiritual import. For, just as Jesus
Himself looked upon all who shared His own devotion as His mother and
brethren; so, in the deepest sense, when a man leaves father and mother,
renouncing home and family ties for the sake of bringing his fellow-men
to God, he seems to be emptying his life of all affectionate
relationships, but in reality he is entering into a wider brotherhood;
and, in virtue of his ministry of love, is being knit in bonds stronger
than those of earthly kinship, with a great and increasing community of
souls which owe to him their lives.[26] The promise is no arbitrary gift
or bribe capriciously bestowed; it is the natural fruition of moral
endeavour. For there is nothing so productive as sacrifice. What the
man who yields himself to the service of Christ actually gives is life;
and what he gets back, increased an hundredfold, is just life again, his
own life, repeated and reflected in the men and women whom he has won to
Christ.

In some of His parables Christ employs the analogy of the
work-engagement, in which labour and payment seem to correspond. But the
legal element has a very subordinate place in the simile. Jesus lifts
the whole relationship into a higher region of thought, and transforms
the idea of wages into that of a gift of love far transcending the legal
claim which can be made by the worker. He who has the bondsman's mind,
and works only for the hireling's pay, will only get what he works for.
But he who serves from love finds in the service itself that which must
always be its truest recompense--the increased power of service, the
capacity of larger devotion[27]--'The