Matthew 25:34-44 Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father… The judgment will go according to our serviceableness or otherwise. "Every man according to his works, whether they be good or evil." We are apt to imagine that true religion consists in extraordinary frames of mind, ecstatic moods. It consists in nothing of the kind, but in the faithful discharge, in the spirit of Christ, of the human duties of our every-day existence. Many are the legends concerning the Quest of the Holy Grail, the traditional Cup of Healing from which the Saviour drank the sacramental wine the night He was betrayed. But the prettiest of them all, prettiest because truest, is that which represents a bold knight of the Round Table travelling far over mountains and through deserts in search of the mysterious Grail. His protracted and exhaustive journeys, however, turned out fruitless. At length, wan in countenance, depressed in spirit, and fatigued in body, he resolved to return to Arthur's Hall, a sadder but not a wiser man. However, as he was nearing the gate of Camelot, he saw a poor man writhing in the ditch, evidently in the last agonies of death. Moved with compassion, the sworn defender of the rights of the poor and the weak dismounted from his steed, sought a cup of water, and handed it to the suffering man; when lo! the cup glowed as if it were a thing alive, flamed as if it were the sapphire of the New Jerusalem. The knight at last saw the Holy Grail, not, however, in traversing barren wildernesses or performing deeds of prowess, but in succouring the poor and forlorn. "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these little ones, ye have done it unto Me." "Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward." A little gift to a little one — it will be honourably mentioned in the judgment day. (J. C. Jones.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: |