before him. The man who is proud of anything he thinks he has reached,
has not reached it. He is but proud of himself, and imagining a cause
for his pride. If he had reached, he would already have begun to forget.
He who delights in contemplating whereto he has attained, is not merely
sliding back; he is already in the dirt of self-satisfaction. The gate
of the kingdom is closed, and he outside. The child who, clinging to his
Father, dares not think he has in any sense attained while as yet he is
not as his Father--his Father's heart, his Father's heaven is his
natural home. To find himself thinking of himself as above his fellows,
would be to that child a shuddering terror; his universe would contract
around him, his ideal wither on its throne. The least motion of
self-satisfaction, the first thought of placing himself in the forefront
of estimation, would be to him a flash from the nether abyss. God is his
life and his lord. That his father should be content with him must be
all his care. Among his relations with his neighbour, infinitely
precious, comparison with his neighbour has no place. Which is the
greater is of no account. He would not choose to be less than his
neighbour; he would choose his neighbour to be greater than he. He looks
up to every man. Otherwise gifted than he, his neighbour is more than
he. All come from the one mighty father: shall he judge the live
thoughts of God, which is greater and which is less? In thus denying,
thus turning his back on himself, he has no thought of saintliness, no
thought but of his father and his brethren. To such a child heaven's
best secrets are open. He clambers about the throne of the Father
unrebuked; his back is ready for the smallest heavenly playmate; his
arms are an open refuge for any blackest little lost kid of the Father's
flock; he will toil with it up the heavenly stair, up the very steps of
the great white throne, to lay it on the Father's knees. For the glory
of that Father is not in knowing himself God, but in giving himself
away--in creating and redeeming and glorifying his children.