Letters

² Many begin but few persevere to the end. “They which run in a race run all, but one receives the crown.” But of us on the other hand it is said: “So run that you may obtain.” Our master of the games is not grudging; he does not give the palm to one and disgrace another. His wish is that all his athletes may alike win garlands. My soul rejoices, yet the very greatness of my joy makes me feel sad. Like Ruth when I try to speak I burst into tears. Zacchæus, the convert of an hour, is accounted worthy to receive the Saviour as his guest. Martha and Mary make ready a feast and then welcome the Lord to it. A harlot washes His feet with her tears and against His burial anoints His body with the ointment of good works. Simon the leper invites the Master with His disciples and is not refused. To Abraham it is said: “Get you out of your country and from your kindred and from your father's house, unto a land that I will show you.” He leaves Chaldæa, he leaves Mesopotamia; he seeks what he knows not, not to lose Him whom he has found.

He does not deem it possible to keep both his country and his Lord; even at that early day he is already fulfilling the prophet David's words: “I am a stranger with you and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.” He is called “a Hebrew,” in Greek περάτής, a passer-over, for not content with present excellence but forgetting those things which are behind he reaches forth to that which is before. He makes his own the words of the psalmist: “they shall go from strength to strength.” Thus his name has a mystic meaning and he has opened for you a way to seek not your own things but those of another.

You too must leave your home as he did, and must take for your parents, brothers, and relations only those who are linked to you in Christ. “Whosoever,” He says, “shall do the will of my father...the same is my brother and sister and mother.”