bondage of my fellow-men, and here I am right in the midst of
it again. What has become of my personality, of my independence, if I am
to live thus?" Ay, you have got to learn what every noblest man has
always learned, that no man becomes independent of his fellow-men
excepting in serving his fellow-men. You have got to learn that
Christianity comes to us not simply as a luxury but as a force, and no
man who values Christianity simply as a luxury which he possesses really
gets the Christianity which he tries to value. Only when Christianity is
a force, only when I seek independence of men in serving men, do I cease
to be a slave to their whims. I must dress as they think I ought to
dress; I must walk in the streets as they think I ought to walk; I must
do business just after their fashion; I must accept their standards; but
when Christ has taken possession of me and I am a total man, I am more
or less independent of these men. Shall I care about their little whims
and oddities? Shall I care about how they criticise the outside of my
life? Shall I peer into their faces as I meet them in the street, to see
whether they approve of me or not? And yet am I not their servant? There
is nothing now I will not do to serve them, there is nothing now I will
not do to save them. If the cross comes, I welcome the cross, and look
upon it with joy, if, by my death upon the cross in any way, I may echo
the salvation of my Lord and save them. Independent of them? Surely. And
yet their servant? Perfectly. Was ever man so independent in Jerusalem
as Jesus was? What cared He for the sneer of the Pharisee, for the
learned scorn of the Sadducee, for the taunt of the people and the
little boys that had been taught to jeer at Him as He went down the
street, and yet the very servant of all their life? He says there are
two kinds of men--they who sit upon a throne and eat, and they who
serve. "I am among you as he that serveth." Oh, seek independence.
Insist upon independence. Insist that you will not be the slave of the
poor, petty standards of your fellow-men. But insist upon it only in the
way in which it can be insisted upon, by becoming absolutely the servant
of their needs. So only shall you be independent of their whims. There
is one great figure, and it has taken in all Christian consciousness,
that again and again this work with Christ has been asserted to be the
true service in the army of a great master, of a great captain, who goes
be