and served were bound up in one inseparable life with God himself, so that what was done to them was done to Him, and they find that their spontaneous and uncalculating love was one in essence and substance with the love of God and that they are eternally at home with Him.

The tender, immortal stories of the woman who broke her alabaster vase of precious nard and "filled all the house with the odor," and of the woman (perhaps the same one) who had been a sinner and who from her passion of love for her great forgiveness wet Christ's feet with her tears, even before she could open her cruse of ointment, are the finest possible illustrations of the spirit of "the second mile." They picture, in subtly suggestive imagery, the immense contrast between the spontaneous, uncalculating act of one who "loves much" and does with grace what love prompts; and acts, on the other hand, like that of Simon the pharisaic host, who offers Jesus a purely conventional and grudging hos

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pitality, or like that of the disciples who sit indeed at the table with Jesus but come to it absorbed with the burning question, "who among us is to be first and greatest," not only at the table but "in the Kingdom!"

What grace and unexpected love come into action in the simple deed of the "Samaritan" who, from nobility of nature, does what official Priest and Levite leave undone! The hated foreigner, spit at and stoned as he walked the roads of Judea, under no obligation to be kind or serviceable, is the real "neighbor," the bearer of balm and healing, the dispenser of love and sympathy. He may have no ordination to the priesthood, but he finely exhibits the attitude of grace which belongs in the religion of "the second mile.”

But we do not reach the full significance of "the second mile" until we see that it is something more than the highest level. of human grace. What shines through the gospels everywhere, like a new-risen

sun, is the revelation that this - this grace of the second mile is the supreme trait and character-nature of God as well. How surprising and unexpected is that extraordinary unveiling of the divine nature in the story of the prodigal boy! It is wonderful enough that one who has wasted his substance and squandered his own very life should still be able in his squalor and misery to come to himself and want to go home; but the fact which radiates this sublime story like a glory is the uncalculating, ungrudging, unlimited love of the Father, which remains unchanged by the boy's blunder, which has never failed in the period of his absence, and which bursts out in the cry of joy: "This my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found."

It is, and always has been, the very center of our Christian faith that the real nature and character of God come full into view in Christ, that God is in mind and heart and will revealed in the Person whom we call Christ. "The

grace," then, "of the Lord Jesus Christ," of which we are reminded in that great word of apostolic benediction, is a true manifestation of the deepest nature and character of God Himself. The Cross is not an artificial scheme. The Cross is the eternal grace, the spontaneous, uncalculating love of God made visible and vocal in our temporal world. It is the apotheosis of the spirit of the second mile.

CHAPTER II

THE KINGDOM WITHIN THE SOUL

I

BAGS THAT WAX NOT OLD

THE ancient world found it very difficult to keep money even after it was got. There were almost constant wars involving the dire stripping of the unprotected country districts, and the siege and devastation of cities. In those times almost everything was fragile. It was never easy to discover any form of wealth that was surely abiding. Even if the besom of an invading army did not sweep away the labor of years, still there were other enemies to be feared. Tyrants were always on the watch for ways of relieving wealthy men of their treasures. There were robber bands lying in wait for the traveler, and neighborhood thieves found

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