He 'does not know how to go to the city.' What on earth will he be
able to see if he cannot see that broad highway, beaten and white,
stretching straight before him, over hill and dale, and going right to
the gates? A man must be a fool who cannot find the way to London.
The principles of moral conduct are trite and obvious. It is plain
that it is better to be good than bad. It is better to be unselfish
than selfish. It is better not to live for things that perish, seeing
that we are going to last for ever. It is better not to make the flesh
our master here, seeing that the spirit will have to live without the
flesh some day. It is better to get into training for the world to
coma, seeing that we are all drifting thither. All these things are
plain and obvious.
Man's destiny for God is unmistakable. 'Whose image and superscription
hath it?' said Christ about the coin. 'Caesar's!' 'Then give it to
Caesar.' Whose image and superscription hath my heart, this restless
heart of mine, this spirit that wanders on through space and time,
homeless and comfortless, until it can grasp the Eternal? Who are you
meant for? God! And every fibre of your nature has a voice to say so
to you if you listen to it. So, then, a godless life such as some of
you, my hearers, are contentedly living, ignores facts that are most
patent to every man's experience. And while before you, huge 'as a
mountain, open, palpable,' are the commonplaces and undeniable
verities which declare that every man who is not a God-fearing man is
a fool, you admit them all, and, bowing your heads in reverence, let
them all go over you and produce no effect.
The road is clearer than ever since Jesus Christ came. He has shown us
the city, for He has brought life and immortality to light by the
Gospel. He has shown us the road, for His life is the pattern of all
that men ought to aim at and to be. The motto of the eternal Son of
God, if I may venture upon such a metaphor, is like the motto of the
heir-apparent of the English throne, 'I serve.' Lo! 'I come to do Thy
will'--and that is the only word which will make a human life peaceful
and strong and beautiful. In the presence of His radiant and solitary
perfection, men no longer need to wonder, What is the ideal to which
conduct and character should be conformed? And Jesus Christ has come
to make it possible to go to the city, by that cross on which He bore
the burden of all sin, and takes away the sin of the world, and by
that Spirit of life which He will impart to our weakness, and which
makes our sluggish feet run in the way of His commandments, and not be
weary, and walk and not faint.
Take that dear Lord for your revelation of duty, for your Pattern of
conduct, for the forgiveness of your sins, for the Inspirer with power
to do His will, and then you will see stretching before you, high up
above the surrounding desert, so that no lion nor ravenous beast shall
go up there, the highway on which the ransomed of the Lord shall walk,
'and the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.'
'Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may enter in
through the gates into the City.'