the water of His cleansing power, and came to wash the feet of all
who will let Him cleanse them from their soil. And then, having
reassumed His garments, He speaks from His throne to those who have
been cleansed by His humiliation and His sacrifice, 'Know ye what I
have done to you? The servant is not greater than his lord.'

That is to say, dear brethren, in this one incident, which is the
condensation, so to speak, of the whole spirit of His life, is the
law for our lives as well. We, too, are bound to that same love as
the main motive of all our actions; we, too, are bound to that same
stripping off of dignity and lowly equalising of ourselves with
those below us whom we would help, and we, too, are bound to make it
our main object, in our intercourse with men, not merely that we
should please nor enlighten them, nor succour their lower temporal
needs, but that we should cleanse them and make them pure with the
purity that Christ gives.

A Christian life all moved and animated by self-denuding love, and
which came amongst men to make them better and purer, and all the
influence of which tended in the direction of helping poor foul
hearts to get rid of their filth, how different it would be from our
lives! What a grim contrast much of our lives is to the Master's
example and command! Did you ever strip yourself of anything, my
brother, in order to make some poor, wretched creature a little
purer and liker the Saviour? Did you ever drop your dignity and go
down to the low levels in order to lift up the people that were
there? Do men see anything of that example, as reproduced in your
lives, of the Master that lays aside the garments of Heaven for the
vesture of earth, and dies upon the Cross in order that He might
make our poor hearts purer and liker His own?