upon and assert His right to command and absolutely dispose of the
activities, resources, and persons of all His disciples, we have
learned something that we only need to practise in order to make our
lives noble with a strange nobility, and blessed and sweet with an
unearthly sanctity and blessedness.

Further, the words of my text not only declare for us thus the
absolute authority of Jesus Christ over all His disciples, but also
reveal His sweet promise and gracious assurance that He cares to
guide, to direct, to prescribe spheres, to determine methods, to
lead those who docilely look to Him and wait upon Him, in paths in
which their activity may most profitably be employed for Him and for
His Church. If there is anything that is declared to us plainly in
the Scriptures, with regard to the relationships between men and
Jesus Christ, it is this, that a docile heart will always be a
guided heart, partly by inward whispers, which only they disbelieve
who limit God in His relation to men, beyond what they have a right
to do; and partly by outward providences which only they disbelieve
who limit God in His power over the external world, beyond what they
have a right to do. He will guide, sometimes with His eye, to which
the loving eye flashes back response; sometimes with His whispered
word, when the noises of earth and the pulsations of self-will are
stilled; sometimes with His rod, which the less sensitive of His
sons do often need; sometimes by successes in paths that we venture
upon tentatively and timidly; and sometimes by failures in paths
into which we rush confidently and presumptuously; but always, the
waiting heart is a guided heart, and if we listen we shall hear
'This is the way, walk ye in it.' And sometimes it is God's will
that we should make mistakes, for these too help us to learn His
will.