In considering this principle as the Christian law of service, we are primarily concerned with its first aspect: Greatness for Service.

I. The Significance of the Law.

1. The principle involved: Greatness carries in it the obligation to service.

Jesus refers to the contrary principle of heathen civilization: "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them." This principle is, that superior power of any kind is to be used in compelling the services of inferiors; the weak must serve the strong. The position of honor is found in living idly and luxuriously on the enforced service of others. Hence despotism, wars of conquest, racehatred and domination, slavery, the degradation of woman, characterize heathen civilization. Jesus says: "It shall not be so among you." The contrary principle must characterize the kingdom of Christ. Thus he calls our attention to the fact that in this declaration he not only propounds the Christian law of service as a law for the individual, but in it propounds the germinant principle of a new civilization. In Christian civilization the strong are to serve the weak; the nobility and blessedness of life are to be found in energetic and self-sacrificing work in rendering that service. Christianity recognizes superiority as imposing obligation to serve, and emblazons for every Christian the motto of nobility: "Noblesse oblige."

This principle is set forth in the humiliation and sacrifice of Christ, the type and measure of all Christian love. It is the great law, which he exemplified, of the higher descending to the lower to lift it up; of the perfect seeking the imperfect, the richly-endowed seeking the poorly-endowed, bearing to them the gifts which they lack. It is always the shepherd going to the mountains to seek the lost sheep.

2. The measure of the service required is the ability to render it.

In transactions between parties having equal ability to render service, the services must be reciprocal, and the service rendered must be an equivalent for the service received. This may be called the law of reciprocity. This is the law of business exchanges. Every honest transaction in business secures an equivalent advantage to each of the parties. This implies, also, that so far as any one has the power of self-help he has no claim on the unrequited service of others.

But the world abounds in wretchedness which can neither help itself nor make compensation for the help of others, and which appeals for relief to those who are able to render it. Here we have the law of unrequited or gratuitous service the strong must serve the weak. Human need creates a lien on the ability to relieve it: "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise; so, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also." Every man is debtor, as much as in him is, to use his superior power, of whatever kind, in uncompensated service to those who need. And the greater the power to serve, the greater the proportion of this kind of service that is due- pre-eminent ability, pre-eminent service; greatness, great service. Here we reach the Christian principle of stewardship that men hold property and all means of influence not for selfish ends, but in trust for the advancement of Christ's kingdom and the promotion of the best interests of man.

3. The applications of the law are both to the choice and prosecution of business and to the use of its gains.

I shall consider first, and chiefly, the application of the law to the choice and prosecution of business. A man's business ought to be such that the whole action of his life in its prosecution be doing good, even when he is so absorbed in its cares and processes that he does not think of doing good.

The law of Christian benevolence is ordinarily treated as if it were applicable only to the use of the gains of business.

But, if so, then we do good only occasionally and with deliberate purpose; the only scope for Christian beneficence is outside of the business, while within it all is necessarily worldly and selfish; and it is only so far as one can give away something that he can be benevolent. If a mechanic spends nine tenths of his earnings in supporting his family, and gives away one tenth, then of every ten strokes of his hammer nine are for self, and only one for God - but a dribbling of his life for doing good. But a man's business is the main work of his life. When his life ends, the great bulk of what he has done for God and man is what he has done in his business, not what he has done outside of it. If that business in its prosecution affords no scope for Christian largeness of heart, if it is essentially a mephitic swamp in which every breath inhales miasma, we may well cry in despair: "Who, then, can be saved?" Then it is not surprising that men should reproach God for requiring them to serve him, while compelling them to spend life in business which consists essentially in serving themselves. Business must itself be such that every stroke in its prosecution shall be a Christian service to man so much business done, so much service to humanity rendered. Business, therefore, should be chosen and prosecuted reverently and in Christian consecration; for it is the life-work. If chosen and prosecuted only for gain, it is chosen and prosecuted in covetousness, and not in Christian love.

And yet the common opinion is, that business is to be chosen and prosecuted only to make money. This opinion has so firm a hold that the majority of men would probably be surprised at the suggestion that a man should engage in business for any other end. Even good men think that Christian benevolence is to be exercised only in the giving of their gains, not in the prosecution of their business. The only exception is the business of a Christian minister, which all admit should be prosecuted not to get gain, but to render service. It is necessary, therefore, to show that every legitimate business is in its very prosecution a service to humanity,

and ought to be chosen and prosecuted in Christian love for the purpose of rendering the service, not in covetousness for the purpose of gain. This principle is as applicable to every business as it is to that of the Christian minister.

(1) Exchanges under the law of reciprocity give scope to Christian service. You say: "If I have any of my time or earnings to spare from my business, I am willing to show Christian charity to the needy. But business is business, and must be conducted on business principles, and with it Christian charity has nothing to do." But what are business principles? The fundamental one is the law of reciprocity: "The service rendered must be equivalent to the service received." The fact that, in a business transaction, for the service rendered an equivalent is received does not take away its character as a service, nor preclude Christian love as a motive in the transaction. Every Christian is bound in love to see that in every transaction of business he renders a service equivalent to that received. When in any exchange it is the aim of one party to secure all the advantage to himself, that intent is of the essence of all oppression; for it is using a superiority of some kind to compel the service of another without rendering an equivalent. It is of the essence of all dishonesty; for it is getting possession of another's property without rendering an equivalent. The highwayman does the same, with only the difference that he is rougher in his method of making the transfer. Thus the law of reciprocity exalts every business transaction into a Christian service, and requires every man in every transaction to be as intent on the service which he renders to another as on the equivalent service which he receives. In every transaction is scope for Christian greatness of soul; and the man of business is entitled to adopt the princely motto: "Ich dien," "I serve."

Political economy, the science of business exchanges, which is founded solely on enlightened self-interest, coincides with Christian ethics in this respect. Its fundamental principle is, that every legitimate exchange is the exchange of

equivalent services; it is coming to accept the word "service" as best expressing whatever is exchanged.

(2) Legitimate business is in its prosecution a service, because it is productive, and supplies human wants. The farmer raises food for man and beast, and material for clothing. The mechanic and manufacturer fit the raw material for use. The merchant transports products, and makes them accessible to those who want them. The peoples of the world serve each other by their productive labor--the Asiatic serves the European, and the European serves the Asiatic. Over all the world men are industriously serving each other, producing what meets human wants. Thus viewed, the creation and circulation of products through the world, beneficent as the circulation of air and water, rises to the sublime. The circulation of the products of all countries, passing in white-sailed ships over the ocean, millions of wealth always in motion from mart to mart, a circulation so noiseless that the products of the other hemisphere flow daily through the streets unnoticed as the wind, and so equable and complete that you have only to step across the street and the product of any country is stored ready for your hand, and the table is daily spread with the products of every quarter of the globe this circulation, all-pervading as the flow of blood in the body, binds all nations in the unity of a common interest and life.

Here, again, political economy concurs with Christianity. Whatever advantages in productive industry any person may have over others, it is for his interest that others should have corresponding advantages over him, and should be prospered in their industry; for thereby both the demand for his own products and the supplies for his own wants are increased. For the same reason, every nation is interested in the industrial and commercial prosperity of other nations. The old doctrine that a nation is benefited by crippling other nations is seen to be fallacious.

Thus political economy coincides with the gospel in teaching that we are members one of another, and if one member