of the weaknesses that are always associated with it. But all these, a
true creed, a belief in the creed, the joyous and deep and secret
emotions that follow thereupon, and the participation in outward
services which may help to these, all these are but scaffolding: the
building is character and conduct conformed to the will of God.

Evangelical preachers, and those who in the main hold that faith, are
often charged with putting too little stress on practical homely
righteousness. I would that the charge had less substance in it. But
let me lay it upon your consciences, dear brethren, now, that no
amount of right credence, no amount of trust, nor of love and hope and
joy will avail to witness kindred to Christ. It must be the daily
life, in its efforts after conformity to the known will of God, in
great things and in small things, that attests the family resemblance.
If Christ's blood be in our veins, if 'the law of the spirit of life'
in Him is the law of the spirit of our lives, then these lives will
run parallel with His, in some visible measure, and we, too, shall be
able to say, 'Lo! I come. I delight to do Thy will; and Thy law is
within my heart.' Obedience is the test of relationship to Jesus.

Then, still further, note how, though we must emphatically dismiss the
mistake that we make our selves Christ's brethren and friends by
independent efforts after keeping the commandments, it is true that,
in the measure in which we do thus bend our wills to God's will,
whether in the way of action or of endurance, we realise more
blessedly and strongly the tie that binds us to the Lord, and as a
matter of fact do receive, in the measure of our obedience, sweet
tokens of union with Him, and of love in His heart to us. No man will
fully feel living contact with Jesus Christ if between Christ and him
there is a film of conscious and voluntary disobedience to the will of