distilled and christened with a scientific name, and put into a
dainty jewelled flask. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because
their deeds are evil.' I lay that upon the hearts and consciences of
some of my present hearers as the key to their rejection or disregard
of Christ and His salvation.

II. Now, secondly, notice the ascension of Jesus Christ as the pledge
and the channel of the world's righteousness--'Because I go to the
Father, and ye see Me no more.'

He speaks as if the process of departure were already commenced. It
had three stages--death, resurrection, ascension; but these three are
all parts of the one departure. And so He says: 'Because, in the
future, when ye go forth to preach in My name, I shall be there with
the Father, having finished the work for which He sent Me; therefore
you will convince the world of righteousness.'

Now let me put that briefly in two forms. First of all, the fact of
an ascended Christ is the guarantee and proof of His own complete
fulfilment of the ideal of a righteous man. Or to put it into simpler
words, suppose Jesus Christ is dead; suppose that He never rose from
the grave; suppose that His bones mouldered in some sepulchre;
suppose that there had been no ascension--would it be possible to
believe that He was other than an ordinary man? And would it be
possible to believe that, however beautiful these familiar records of
His life, and however lovely the character which they reveal, there
was really in Him no sin at all? A dead Christ means a Christ who,
like the rest of us, had His limitations and His faults. But, on the
other hand, if it be true that He sprang from the grave because 'it