The positive doctrine regarding compensation for all sacrifices and wages for all work needs only to be read in the memorable words of Jesus, as the evangelist has recorded them here. Notwithstanding the incrustations of ignorant self-righteousness that now and then covered and disfigured their faith, these Galileans have in very deed left all for Christ, and shall all in very deed receive from Christ a hundred-fold. Even Peter's own decisive life-act,--his consecration to Jesus, was a higher and purer thing than his own foolish words at this time would represent it to have been. It was not with a mercenary eye to a subsequent equivalent that he left his nets and followed Jesus. That self-devotion in the simplicity of faith will be gloriously recompensed, notwithstanding the subsequent slips that dishonour the disciple and grieve the Master; but Peter, and through him all men, must be clearly taught that work done for the sake of the reward is not owned in the kingdom of heaven.[35] [35] These two are thus united and distinguished by Dräseke,--"Although the kingdom of God is God's gift in the souls of men, yet without a worthiness in men it can neither begin nor continue, neither reveal nor develop itself. And again, although our worthiness is necessary, we nevertheless obtain the kingdom, not through the merit of works, but from the fulness of grace, yea, from that alone. In short, the kingdom demands workers; hirelings it disdains (das Reich verlangt Arbeiter; Söldlinge verschmäht es).... Thus it stands shut against the hireling, open to the worker. Not as though the kingdom needed thy labour. He who makes the winds his messengers and the flames his servants, can do without thy hand-work, O little man. Thy labour avails not; but that thou shouldest be a labourer, that thou shouldest have a mind for God, and through that mind shouldest elevate thy life into a free and joyful service of him--that avails."--_Vom Reich Gottes_, ii. 40, 42. Remarkable is the construction of the chain by which this writer connects the poor unemployed men who were standing idle in the market-place with the ever-during, ever-increasing satisfaction of their souls in eternity. So verlangt das Reich Arbeiter, nicht Söldlinge. Es beruft die Arbeitlosen. Es stellt die Bernfenen an. Es beschäftigt die Angestelleten. Es übt die Beschäftigten. Es belohnt die Geübten. Es genügt den Belohnten. Und Gnüge währt ewig; wächst ewig.--ii. 51. Every one that hath forsaken earthly possessions for Christ's sake shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life,--"_But_ many that are first shall be last, and the last first."