CHAPTER X.

NEGATIVES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

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1 Cor. xiii. (continued).

OVE seeketh not her own." How much these few words convey!

How often do "offences come" in the Christian Church, how often Christian work is marred, and ties of affection and friendship are loosened, and families divided, merely because in some form or other this subtle demon of self-seeking has crept in!

And it is very hard to detect. Many think, if they are free from the grosser forms of selfishness, such as trampling on the claims of others for the sake of their own gain or pleasure, etc., they are quite safe from the charge of selfseeking. But it was a weighty word that was said by a late eminent thinker and writer *— "Every one has a self of his own."

*Archbishop Whately.

It is very possible to make great sacrifices of time, or money, or strength, or comfort, and even to lead what spectators would call a very self-denying life, and yet to be seeking in one form or another that secret "self" which is truly our own," and which, when it is driven. from the outposts, will take refuge in one of the inner fortresses from which it is indeed hard to dislodge it.

"Our own rights." How continually those words are made the battle-cry of those who are for ever contending for what is "due to them." And how often this stickling for some "right," perhaps a very trifling matter in the beginning, has been the first "letting out of water" for a course of contention, and strife, and clamour, and bitterness, which may well make the Christian sad and the ungodly triumph, for such things may be found sometimes among those who are of the "household of faith," though they have allowed the enemy, in this case, to get the mastery over them!

But are we never, then, to make a stand for anything which is rightly our own? Far from it. This would be running into as hurtful an extreme on the other side.

Many a husband will allow in his wife, many a mother in her children, many a head of a

household or school in those placed under his or her care, things which they know are wrong and ought to forbid, but which they are led to tolerate from want of firmness or from indoience, which they mistake for gentleness and patience. In refusing to exercise their right of control they are often, in fact, "seeking their own;" for the "own" which they care for is peace and quiet at any expense.

Such weak compliance is not the true Christian love we are speaking of.

But even apart from this, there are often cases in which justice and truth, and even the good of others, may make it a duty to claim our fair and just right, as the Apostle did when he appealed to his privileges of a Roman citizen.

But in all these cases duty is involved. It has been well remarked by a living writer, that the common cry is, "Our rights and other people's duties," whereas the Christian motto should be "Our duties, and other people's rights." And at the call of such Christian duty we must be prepared, if needful, to forego a just claim.

1. But "" our own includes more than this. Our own work is often made " a self" of, and this most frequently by active and zealous Christians. To those who really know and feel the privilege of active service in His cause

who has redeemed them, their own special work may often become the nearest and dearest thing they have in life. Some who have hardly anything else left which they can call their own on earth, feel that such an occupation supplies the natural craving for something that is theirs in particular; their Christian work often takes the place almost of home, family, or profession.

Is this to be blamed? Surely not; rather should we thank the Lord who has thus ordered it that many a lonely path should be cheered and lightened, and service for Him made not only a duty but a happiness. To love the work He gives us is no more than right; but let us remember that there is a danger, the danger of loving that work more than we love Him; the danger of making it that "self" of our own which we are commanded not "to seek."

If we once begin to think more of the work itself than of Him we are doing it for-if the author allows himself to be more eager for the success of his book, or the pastor for his parish work, or the missionary for his own particular mission or school, than the real spread of the Kingdom of Christ, if our own department, be it what it may, becomes to us the end and not the means, then, indeed, and so far as it is such to us, we are "seeking our own."

How much of what we think to be zeal for the good of souls, and the glory of God, is really zeal for ourselves! Is not this "seeking Our own" at the root of much of that missionary jealousy which we sometimes see deforming what would otherwise be a noble labour of love? The words our field," our object," "our success," how often they come in to mar the simplicity which should mark the Christian labourer! How often the efforts of a worker in the vineyard who "followeth not with US," are ignored or slighted, how often his labours are only noticed to mark their defects, his failures eagerly commented on, and his successes passed over! Would this be the case if we were altogether free from "seeking our own"?

Or, again, our sense of secret self-complacency in our own successful efforts, a feeling to which we may cling without being eager for the applause of others. If we doubt this, let us test ourselves by remembering what we have felt when called from some duty or some work which we thought we did well, to do something in which there was a conscious sense of failure throughout, or to plod on steadily through some of those apparently thankless, discouraging tasks in which, from their very nature, the pleasure of successful