Christ and reflecting Him is not like the mere dimness on a mirror
which the bright and warm presence of Christ Himself would dry off;
it is like an incrustation that has been growing out from our hearts
all our life long, and that now is impervious, so far as we can see,
to the image of Christ. How can hearts steeped in worldliness reflect
this absolutely unworldly, this heavenly Person? When we look into
our hearts, what do we find in point of fact? We find a thousand
,things that we know have no right there; that we know to be wrong.
How can such hearts reflect this perfect purity of Christ? Well, we
must see to it that these hearts be cleansed; we must hold ourselves
before Christ until from very shame these passions of ours are
subdued, until His purity works its way into our hearts through all
obstructions; and we must keep our hearts, we must keep the mirror
free from dust, free from incrustations, once we have cleansed it.

In some circumstances you might be tempted to say that really it is
not so much that there is a veil on the mirror as that there is no
quicksilver at all behind. You meet in life characters so thin, so
shallow, that every good thought seems to go through and out of them
at the other side; they hear with one ear, and it goes out at the
other. You can make no impression upon them. There is nothing to
impress, no character there to work upon. They are utterly
indifferent to spiritual things, and never give a thought to their
own character. What is to be done with such persons? God is the great
Teacher of us all; God, in His providence, has made many a man who
has begun life as shallow and superficial as man can be, deep enough
before He has done with him.

Two particulars in which the perfectness of this method appears may
be pointed out. First of all, it is perfect in this: that anyone who