crossed his path, so that he looked on
life with new eyes. The common crowd had a new interest for him, the
suffering poor, the downtrodden slave, the heathen in his blindness, the
degraded sinner.

And it has been so with all the great servants of God; out of this
feeling the love of souls has grown in men.

But this feeling of the value of each individual life, because of the
Divine element and presence in it, is a peculiar gift of the Christian
revelation.

In the ancient pagan world a man's life was of little account; it is out
of the Bible that this new thought has come that every soul has in it an
indefinite element of Divine possibilities, and is therefore of value in
the sight of God. It is by virtue of this contribution to our thought
that the Bible is truly described as the Great Charter of human rights,
and as the source of the great stream of charity and self-sacrifice, of
that enthusiasm of humanity which more than all else separates and
distinguishes our life from that of heathen antiquity.

It would indeed be difficult to point to any one single thing which makes
so great a difference between the quality of one man's life and another's
as the presence or absence of this feeling about the value, the
possibilities, the sanctity of each individual soul.

"Let man estimate himself," said Pascal, "let him estimate himself at his
true value, honour himself in his capacities, and despise himself in his
neglect of those capacities." Yes, if a man is once brought to this
condition that he feels the greatness of the ends for which God has made
him, and that he estimates his life by the possibilities of growth that
are in it, and by the thought of the Divine influences that work in it;
and if he despises himself for neglect of these capacities or
possibilities and of these influences, he has awoke to a sense of the
first word of Christ and His Apostles.

Your soul is God's seed-field, God's building; we are labourers together
with God. Such a description of each individual life is very significant
everywhere, and not least in such a society as ours.

To us who are here in this society as masters they are just a parable of
our own life; setting forth to each of us what should be his estimate of
his own work and aim and purpose, exhibiting to him his field of work
with the Divine light on it, and interpreting to him his own endeavours
as a fellow-labourer with God, hoping to contribute in some degree
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