disbelieves and denies, not pushing them to the 'falsehood of
extremes,' but not by one jot diminishing the clearness of our
testimony by reason of the world's unwillingness to receive it. Our
victory is to be won only through absolute faithfulness to Christ's
ideal.

And, lastly, meet hostility with unmoved, patient, Christlike, and
Christ-derived love and sympathy. The patient sunshine pours upon the
glaciers and melts the thick-ribbed ice at last into sweet water. The
patient sunshine beats upon the mist-cloud and breaks up its edges
and scatters it at the last. And our Lord here tells us that our
experience, if we are faithful to Him, will be like His experience,
in that some will hearken to our word though others will persecute,
and to some our testimony will come as a message from God that draws
them to the Lord Himself. These are our only weapons, brethren! The
only conqueror of the world is the love that was in Christ breathed
through us; the only victory over suspicion, contempt, alienation, is
pleading, persistent, long-suffering, self-denying love. The only way
to overcome the world's hostility is by turning the world into a
church, and that can only be done when Christ's servants oppose pity
to wrath, love to hate, and in the strength of His life who has won
us all by the same process, seek to win the world for Him by the
manifestation of His victorious love in our patient love.

Dear brethren, to which army do you belong? Which community is yours?
Are you in Christ's ranks, or are you in the world's? Do you love Him
back again, or do you meet His open heart with a closed one, and His
hand, laden with blessings, with hands clenched in refusal? To which
class do I belong?--it is the question of questions for us all; and I
pray that you and I, won from our hatred by His love, and wooed out