them all as then blessed and powerful, when they are consequences and
secondary results of the Gospel, the first task of which is to deal by
forgiveness and by cleansing with individual transgression.

And if I might venture to go a step further, I would like to say that
this aspect of our Lord's work on which John the Baptist concentrated
all our attention is the only one which gives Him power to sway men,
and which makes the Gospel--the record of His work--the kingly power
in the world that it is meant to be. Depend upon it, that in the
measure in which Christian teachers fail to give supreme importance to
that aspect of Christ's work they fail altogether. There are many
other aspects which, as I have just said, follow in my conception from
this first one; but if, as is obviously the tendency in many quarters
to-day, Christianity be thought of as being mainly a means of social
improvement, or if its principles of action be applied to life without
that basis of them all, in the Cross which takes away the world's
iniquity, then it needs no prophet to foretell that such a
Christianity will only have superficial effects, and that, in losing
sight of this central thought, it will have cast away all its power.

I beseech you, dear brethren, remember that Jesus Christ is something
more than a social reformer, though He is the first of them, and the
only one whose work will last. Jesus Christ is something more than a
lovely pattern of human conduct, though He is that. Jesus Christ is
something more than a great religious genius who set forth the
Fatherhood of God as it had never been set forth before. The Gospel of
Jesus Christ is the record not only of what He said but of what He
did, not only that He lived but that He died; and all His other
powers, and all His other benefits and blessings to society, come as
results of His dealing with the individual soul when He takes away its