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This subject is suggested by the fact that they cast out the very wheat into the sea, bring willing to lose everything if they could only save dear life. "Skin after skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." There is no intenser passion in the creature than the desire to preserve life. Not the tiniest insect, not the gentlest animal, but holds life most dear, and will do battle for it to the very last. The foe that man most dreads, all earthly creatures dread. God does not permit us to see anywhere around us life that is not valued, and for the sake of which all else will not be sacrificed. Man can do everything but die. Man can calmly lose everything but his life. Circumstances the most wretched, pains the most violent, desolation the most complete, can all be borne rather than life should be lost. Poor men cling to life as much as do rich men. Ignorant men hold life as tightly as do wise men. Young men value life no more highly than do old men. Well does the poet say, "All men think all men mortal but themselves, themselves immortal." Now, why has God made life thus sacred, and implanted such an instinct for the preservation of life in one nature?

I. TO ACCOMPLISH GOD'S PURPOSE THE TIME OF EACH MAN'S LIFE MUST RE IN HIS OWN HANDS. Life is a probation for us all, and one man requires a longer probation than another. One lad may be fitted for the business of life with four years' apprenticeship, while another may require six years. So it is in our schooling for eternity. God must hold in his hand both the incomings and the outgoings of our life. Some end life almost as soon as it is begun, while others drag wearily through their seventy or eighty years. And yet man has the power of taking away his life at any moment. God has, indeed, hidden away all the vital parts of our frame in secret places: covered the brain with bone and hair; set the arteries deep down beneath the flesh, and preserved the lungs and heart within a bony cage. Nevertheless, man can easily reach and spill his life. The poor suicide finds easy entrance into the secret chambers where his life dwells. It would almost seem that, if the entrance of life is in God's hands, the exit of it is in man's. And yet it must not be so. For man's own sake it must not. But how shall man's hand be guarded from touching his own life? God has done it by simply making the love of life the one master instinct in every man. He has also done it by revelation and by law, declaring, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But, more important than any merely outward revelation is the inward revelation found in the clinging of the creature to its existence, so that, until the brain reels and self-control is lost, man will bear anything and lose anything rather than die. So God alone knows the appointed time for man on the earth, and he can accomplish in each his purposes of grace.

II. THE ORDER AND ARRANGEMENT OF SOCIETY COULD NOT BE MAINTAINED IF MEN HAD UNLIMITED CONTROL OVER THEIR OWN LIVES, Consider how the reasons which now induce men to take their lives would then be multiplied. For the smallest things, a little over-anxiety, a little unusual trouble, a commonplace vexation, slighted love, or unsuccessful effort, men would be destroying themselves. We think life is sadly full of change now that, at God's bidding, homes are here and there broken up, and hearts are rifled. But what would be the uncertainties and the crowded miseries of this world's story, if men were unchecked by this universal feeling of the sanctity of life? Widows moan, and orphans weep, and homes are desolated now; but then - if life were felt to be without value, and might be flung away for trifles - then, everywhere men would walk amidst ruins, fallen pillars, broken carvings, shattered roofs, scarce one stone upon another, and the wretched remnant would soon cry out of its desolation that God would seal again the sanctity of life.

III. BUT FOR THIS INSTINCT OF LIFE, MAN WOULD HAVE NO IMPULSE TO TOIL. We know that toil is necessary for the well-being of every creature; that Adam had to till the garden of Eden in the days of his purity and innocence. We know that the judgment on sinning man, that "he should eat bread at the sweat of his face," was no mere punishment, but the indication of the process by which he should be recovered to goodness. We know that through work moral character is cultivated, that alike the common necessities and the higher training of human nature demand toil. We must work if we would eat. We must work if we would know. We must work if we would be "meetened for the inheritance of the saints in the light." Yet who would work if there were not this instinct of life? What motive would be left sufficient to urge us to earnest endeavors, and to the mastering of difficulties? Though men do not say it to themselves in so many words, their real reason for working is that they must live, they want to live, they cling to life, they will do and bear anything if only they may, as we say, "keep body and soul together."

IV. THIS INSTINCT OF LIFE IS THE MEANS OF PRESERVING US FROM THE LAWLESS AND THE VIOLENT. That clinging to my own makes me jealous of my brother's life. As I would not imperil my own, so I would not endanger his. Let him be in the waters or in the fires, we would do our utmost to save his life. But suppose there was no such instinct; suppose life were of no higher value than property, - then we should be at the mercy of every lawless, vicious man, who would not hesitate to kill us for our purse. Every robbery would be liable to become a murder, a robbery with violence. But now, even in the soul of the thief and the vicious man is this impress of the sacredness of life, and only at the utmost extremity will they dare to take it. We may therefore bless God for this universal instinct, recognizing its importance in the economy of this world. We may be comforted, as Christians, when we find it so strong within us as to make us even dread death. It is better for the race, it is better for all, that this should be a mastering instinct; and we may be willing to bear a seeming disability which is so evidently for the good of the many. - B.T.

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KJV: And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea.

WEB: When they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea.