lition,
given himself for a time to do specific work and get wages for it;
but it means 'a bond-slave,' a chattel owned by another. All the ugly
associations which gather round the word are transported bodily into
the Christian region, and there, instead of being hideous, take on a
shape of beauty, and become expressions of the deepest and most
blessed truths, in reference to Christian men's dependence upon, and
submission to, and place in the household and the heart of, Jesus
Christ, their Owner.

And what is the centre idea that lies in this metaphor, if you like
to call it so? It is this: absolute authority, which has for its
correlative--for the thing in us that answers to it--unconditional
submission. Jesus Christ has the perfect right to command each of us,
and we are bound to bow ourselves, unreluctant, unmurmuring,
unhesitating, with complete submission at His feet. His authority,
and our submission, go far, far deeper than the most despotic sway of
the most tyrannous master, or than the most abject submission of the
most downtrodden slave. For no man can coerce another man's will, and
no man can require more, or can ever get more, than that outward
obedience which may be rendered with the most sullen and fixed
rebellion of a hating heart and an obstinate will. But Jesus Christ
demands that if we call ourselves Christians we shall bring, not our
members only as instruments to Him, in outward surrender and service,
but that we shall yield ourselves, with our capacities of willing and
desiring, utterly, absolutely, constantly to Him.

The founder of the Jesuits laid it down as a rule for his Order that
each member of it was to be at the master's disposal like a corpse,
or a staff in the hand of a blind man. That was horrible. But the
absolute putting of myself at the disposal of another's will, which
is expressed so tyrannously in Loyola's demand, is the simple duty of
every Christian, and as long as we have recalcitrating wills, which
recoil at anything which Christ commands or appoints, and perk up
their own inclinations in the face of His solemn commandment, or that
shrink from doing and suffering whatsoever He imposes and enjoins, we
have still to learn what it means to be Christ's disciples.

Dear brethren, absolute submission is not all that makes a disciple,
but, depend upon it, there is no discipleship worth calling by the
name without it. So I come to each of you with His message to
you:--Down on your