only just learning the alphabet of Christ's religion, in the
lowest place; and there are little children, so pure and white-souled,
that they have already mastered some of the hardest lessons. In other
schools the scholar must be naturally clever, or, at least, most
industrious, if he is to gain a high place, and win a prize. In
Christ's school there is a place, and a prize, for the dullest, and he
will succeed very well if only _he wants to learn_. I have known many
people who, as they said, "were no scholars," and yet they were not
very far from the kingdom of Heaven. Brethren, some of us have never
yet been to Christ's school. We have been playing truant, or
altogether taken up with the lessons of that great, selfish,
public-school--the world. I want you all to come to Christ's school
to-day, old and young, clever and dull, and to hear some of the lessons
which that school teaches. I think that if we examine ourselves
honestly in these lessons, we shall find how little we really know, and
we shall begin with shame to take the lowest place. And we must
remember this, that in Christ's school we shall have to _unlearn_ a
great deal which the world's school has taught us. The world will have
instructed us to take care of ourselves, at the expense of others. One
of the favourite mottoes in the great world school-room is--"every man
for himself." The world will have taught us that to make money, and to
be successful, are the highest aims possible. And there are many
similar lessons which are being daily learnt in the world school. Now,
when we become scholars of Christ, we have to unlearn a great deal of
this. Instead of finding the text, "every man for himself," placed
conspicuously before us, we see another, and quite opposite
command--"No man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself."
We were taught in that other school outside that to make money and to
succeed were the greatest good. Here we are instructed differently.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasure on the earth, where rust and moth
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal." One of the
chief things which we learnt in the world's lesson-book was to mistrust
our fellow men, and to be ready to resent an injury when discovered.
In Christ's school the lesson is quite different, we are told to love
our neighbour as ourself, and more than this, to love our enemies.
There are some here to-day, perhaps, who are very old scholars of th