March 22

Friday after Septuagesima Sunday

Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. S. Matthew 28:20.

IT is this that makes our Christian warfare so glorious a thing. "He shall establish," He hath begun, a good work in you; He shall perform it until the day of Christ. And see how the Captain of our salvation Himself was gradually established, was gradually made perfect by suffering, from the sufferings of an infant to those of a man; from the sufferings shared by His blessed and loving mother to those which He had to bear alone; from the sufferings of a hard life to those of a fearful death. There is a certain amount of labour, pain, weariness, known only to God, and exactly recorded in His book, which must be gone through, endured, exhausted by the Church before it can be written of her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned. The more each of us takes, the less we leave for others. As it is written, "Bear ye one another's burdens." A glorious share the great Apostle S. Paul took; a glorious share the Saints took; but in whatever we do or bear, we are working in the same cause and to the same end. You know that when the Tzar Kolokol, the king of bells, was being cast at Moscow, every one, poor and rich, cast in what he could; services of plate, poor little brazen rings, priceless bracelets, worthless kopecks—all went to form the great creature that was to ring out God's praises as never before. So we, if we cannot cast in the gold of martyrdom or the silver of confessorship, at least we may offer the iron of resistance to evil, of firmness in contending for good, and love—

Both friend and foe in all our strife.