heir labour with indifference or
repugnance. Out of this state our Lord calls us, by making known to us
what the Father made known to Him, by giving us the whole means of a
free, rational, and fruitful life. He gives us the fullest satisfaction
moral beings can have, because He fills our life with intelligent
purpose. He lifts us into a position in which we see that we are not the
slaves of fate or of this world, but that _all things are ours_, that
we, through and with Him, are masters of the position, and that so far
from thinking it almost a hardship to have been born into so melancholy
and hopeless a world, we have really the best reason and the highest
possible object for living. He comes among us and says, "Let us all work
together. Something can be made of this world. Let us with heart and
hope strive to make of it something worthy. Let unity of aim and of work
bind us together." This is indeed to redeem life from its vanity.

He says this, and lest any should think, "This is fantastic; how can
such an one as I am forward the work of Christ? It is enough if I get
from Him salvation for myself," He goes on to say, "Ye have not chosen
Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should go and bring
forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain. It was," He says,
"precisely in view of the eternal results of your work that I selected
you and called you to follow Me." It was true then, and it is true now,
that the initiative in our fellowship with Christ is with Him. So far as
the first disciples were concerned Jesus might have spent His life
making ploughs and cottage furniture. No one discovered Him. Neither
does any one now discover Him. It is He who comes and summons us to
follow and to serve Him. He does so because He sees that there is that
which we can do which no one else can: relationships we hold,
opportunities we possess, capacities for just this or that, which are
our special property into which no other can possibly step, and which,
if we do not use them, cannot otherwise be used.

Does He, then, point out to us with unmistakable exactness what we are
to do, and how we are to do it? Does He lay down for us a code of rules
so multifarious and significant that we cannot mistake the precise piece
of work He requires from us? He does not. He has but one sole
commandment, and this is no commandment, because we cannot keep it on
compulsion, but only at the prompting of our own inward spirit: He bids
us