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 "your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and stedfastness which are in Jesus."

Now, we ask ourselves the question why our Lord poured out all this scorn on what the world counts the desirable condition and atmosphere of life, why the New Testament has no patience with self-seeking, indulgence, contentment, or ease as the standard of a human life, why it speaks contemptuously of smooth ease of every kind, and exalts, instead, the austere life, the life of strength, and of self-discipline, why our Lord said to men when He came to call them into the best thing there was in the world, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow after me."

Well, one reason why the whole New Testament pours out such contempt upon the smooth life and exalts hardness, is because only hardness can make a great soul, and the end of the Gospel, the end of life, was the growing of souls. The words of Socrates, understood in the social sense which he intended and not selfishly, contain the central end. "For I do nothing," said he, "but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul." It is true, in a sense, that we are here for the work we can do, but it is also true, in a yet