to realize that
it is in itself a word of freedom. And yet we constantly are lowering
the whole thought of our being, we are bringing down the greatness and
richness of that with which we have to deal, until we recognize that God
does not call us to our fullest life simply for ourselves. The spirit of
selfishness is continually creeping in. I think it may almost be said
that there has been no selfishness in the history of man like that which
has exhibited itself in man's religious life, showing itself in the way
in which man has seized upon spiritual privileges and rejoiced in the
good things that are to come to him in the hereafter, because he had
made himself the servant of God. The whole subject of selfishness, and
the way in which it loses itself and finds itself again, is a very
interesting one, and I wish that we had time to dwell upon it. It comes
into a sort of general law which we are recognizing everywhere--the way
in which a man very often, in his pursuit of the higher form of a
condition in which he has been living, seems to lose that condition for
a little while and only to reach it a little farther on. He seems to be
abandoned by that power only that he may meet it by and by and enter
more deeply into its heart and come more completely into its service. So
it is, I think, with the self-devotion, consecration, and
self-forgetfulness in which men realize their life. Very often in the
lower stages of man's life he forgets himself, with a slightly
emphasized individual existence, not thinking very much of the purpose
of his life, till he easily forgets himself among the things that are
around him and forgets himself simply because there is so little of
himself for him to forget; but do not you know perfectly well how very
often when a man's life becomes intensified and earnest, when he becomes
completely possessed with some great passion and desire, it seems for
the time to intensify his selfishness? It does intensify his
selfishness. He is thinking so much in regard to himself that the
thought of other persons and their interests is shut out of his life.
And so very often when a man has set before him the great passion of the
divine life, when he is called by God to live the life of God, and to
enter into the rewards of God, very often there seems to close around
his life a certain bondage of selfishness, and he who gave himself
freely to his fellow-men before now seems, by the very intensity,
eagerness, and