Yet this is what Christianity is for—­to teach men

          THE ART OF LIFE.

And its whole curriculum lies in one word—­“Learn of me.”  Unlike most education, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had from books, or lectures or creeds or doctrines.  It is a study from the life.  Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian graces.  He lived them, He was them.  Yet we do not merely copy Him.  We learn His art by living with Him, like the old apprentices with their masters.

Now we understand it all?  Christ’s invitation to the weary and heavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new principle—­upon His own principle.  “Watch my way of doing things,” He says; “Follow me.  Take life as I take it.  Be meek and lowly, and you will find Rest.”

I do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or to any man, can be a bed of roses.  No educational process can be this.  And perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the simple “learn” of Christ, they would not enter His school with so irresponsible a heart.  For there is not only much to learn, but

          MUCH TO UNLEARN.

Many men never go to this school at all till their disposition is already half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set.  To learn arithmetic is difficult at fifty—­much more to learn Christianity.  To learn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in the case of one who has had no lessons in that in childhood, may cost him half of what he values most on earth.  Do we realize, for instance, that the way of teaching humility is generally by humiliation?  There is probably no other school for it.  When a man enters himself as a pupil in such a school it means a very great thing.  There is much Rest there, but there is also much Work.

I should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to ignore the cross and minimize the cost.  Only it gives to the cross a more definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly and casually with the growth of the inner life.  Our platitudes on the “benefits of affliction” are usually about as vague as our theories of Christian Experience.  “Somehow” we believe affliction does us good.  But it is not a question of “Somehow.”  The result is definite, calculable, necessary.  It is under the strictest law of cause and effect.  The first effect of losing one’s fortune, for instance, is humiliation; and the effect of humiliation, as we have just seen, is to make one humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce Rest.  It is a roundabout way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature generally works by circular processes; and it is not certain that there is any other way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest.  If a man could make himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; but we do not find that this happens.  Hence we must all go through the mill.  Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate and the quickest road to life.