practical clause, "If ye abide in Me, _and My words abide in you_."

Begin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be long impersonal.
Christ himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words flesh; do
them, live them, and you must live Christ. "_He that keepeth My
Commandments_, he it is that loveth Me." Obey Him and you must love
Him. Abide in Him, and you must obey Him. _Cultivate_ His Friendship.
Live after Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, and it is
difficult to think what more you can do. Take this at least as a first
lesson, as introduction.

If you cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon yours,
watch for it also indirectly. "The whole earth is full of the
character of the Lord." Christ is the Light of the world, and much of
his Light is reflected from things in the world--even from clouds.
Sunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal, and it
comforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the sun.
Christ shines through men, through books, through history, through
nature, music, art. Look for Him there. "Every day one should either
look at a beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music, or read a
beautiful poem." The real danger of mysticism is not making it broad
enough.

Do not think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself
grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grow
noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said
for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew
"from character to character." "The inward man," he says elsewhere,
"is renewed from day to day." All thorough work is slow; all true
development by minute, slight and insensible metamorphoses. The higher