In some of His parables Christ employs the analogy of the work-engagement, in which labour and payment seem to correspond. But the legal element has a very subordinate place in the simile. Jesus lifts the whole relationship into a higher region of thought, and transforms the idea of wages into that of a gift of love far transcending the legal claim which can be made by the worker. He who has the bondsman's mind, and works only for the hireling's pay, will only get what he works for. But he who serves from love finds in the service itself that which must always be its truest recompense--the increased power of service, the capacity of larger devotion[27]--'The wages of going on.'[28] In his latest volume Deissmann has pointed out that we can only do justice to the utterances of the New Testament regarding work and wages by examining them _in situ_, {162} amidst their natural surroundings. Jesus and St. Paul spoke with distinct reference to the life and habits of the common people of their day. 'If you elevate such utterances to the level of the Kantian moral philosophy, and reproach primitive Christianity with teaching for the sake of reward, you not only misunderstand the words, but tear them up by the roots.' . . . 'The sordid ignoble suggestions so liable to arise in the lower classes are altogether absent from the sayings of Jesus and His apostles, as shown by the parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, and the analogous reliance of St. Paul solely upon grace.'[29] The same inner relation subsists between Sin and Penalty. But here, again, the award of punishment is not arbitrary, but the natural consequence of disobedience to the law of the spiritual life. He who seeks to save his life shall lose it. He who makes this world his all shall receive as his reward only what this world can give. He who buries his talent shall, by the natural law of disuse, forfeit it. Not to believe in Christ is to miss eternal life. To refuse Him who is the Light of the world is to remain in darkness. (6) An examination of the Pauline epistles yields a similar conclusion. St. Paul does not disdain to employ the sanctions of hope and fear. 'Knowing the terrors of the Lord' he persuades men, and 'because of the promises' he urges the Corinthians 'to cleanse themselves and perfect holiness.' But in Paul's case, as in that of our Lord, the charge of hedonism is meaningless. For not only does the conception hold a most subordinate place in his teaching, but the idea loses the sense of merit, and is transmuted into that of a free gift. And in general, in all the passages where the hope of the future is introduced, the idea of reward is merged in the yearning for a fuller life, which the Christian, who has once tasted of its joy here, may well expect in richer measure hereafter.[30]