straight across the common current of thought and belief and conduct
to-day. We may indeed be grateful if a single homely drop of black ink
from John's pen put into the beautifully cloudy-grey solution of modern
thought clears the liquid and makes a precipitate of sharply defined
truth that any eye can plainly see.

This is how we _won't_ be saved. This is how we _don't_ get into the
family of God. It is "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man"; not through family connection, nor by what we can do
of ourselves simply, nor by what we can get some of our fellows to do
for us, simply.

"_But of God_," John says. It is by Someone else, outside of us, above
us, reaching down from a higher level, and putting the germ of a new
life within us, and lifting us up to His own level. He puts His hand
_through_ the open door of our will, what we do in opening up to Him,
_through_ "the will of the flesh." He walks along the pathway of the
earnest desire of those who would help us up, "the will of man." But it
is what _He_ does that does the one thing that all depends upon. His is
the decisive action, _through_ our choosing and our friends' helping.

I said it isn't a matter of blood, of lineage. Yet it is. That statement
must be modified. Family relationship is of necessity a matter of blood.
That's the very blood of it. This _is_ a matter of blood; but not _our_
blood; _His._ There has to be a new strain of blood. Our blood is
stained. It is at fault. It is impure. There's been a bad break far back
there in the family record, a complete break. We were powerless either
to purify the stock, or to get over that gap, even if we admitted the
need.