Master. Be like Him here, and you shall be like Him hereafter.'

I. Likeness to the teacher in wisdom is the disciple's perfection.

'If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch.' 'The
disciple is not greater than his master.' 'It is enough for the
disciple that he be as his master.' If that be a true principle,
that the best that can happen to the scholar is to tread in his
teacher's footsteps, to see with his eyes, to absorb his wisdom, to
learn his truth, we may apply it in two opposite directions. First,
it teaches us the limitations, and the misery, and the folly of
taking men for our masters; and then, on the other hand, it teaches
us the large hope, the blessing, freedom, and joy of having Christ
for our Master.

Now, first, look at the principle as bearing upon the relation of
disciple and human teacher. All such teachers have their
limitations. Each man has his little circle of favourite ideas that
he is perpetually reiterating. In fact, it seems as if one truth was
about as much as one teacher could manage, and as if, whensoever God
had any great truth to give to the world, He had to take one man and
make him its sole apostle. So that teachers become mere fragments,
and to listen to them is to dwarf and narrow oneself.

The chances are that no scholar shall be on his master's level. The
eyes that see truth directly and for themselves in this world are
very few. Most men have to take truth at second-hand, and few indeed
are they who, like a perfect medium, receive even the fragmentary
truth that human lips can impart to them, and transmit it as pure as
they receive it. Disciples present exaggerations, caricatures,