st be consecrated even as His was. What shall the
consecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into
humility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great
and noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride
when he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men,
to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above
himself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving
than any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there
for us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows its
full salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that
Redeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself
to the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of
anything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that
Christ, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is
the one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that
consecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the
"pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then,
but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the
world. The soul is saved!

The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins
which the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the
lifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the
profoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us from
sins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What
unworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!

My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved
from yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that
you may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth
live to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior.
If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied
with his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If
any man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be
ye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest
because life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there
is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.

GLADDEN

THE PRINCE OF LIFE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove,
Pa., in 1836. After graduating