s to be transfigured, yet it remains the same, not only in
the consciousness of personal identity, but in the main trend and
drift of the character. There is nothing in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ which is meant to obliterate the lines of the strongly marked
individuality which each of us receives by nature. Rather the Gospel
is meant to heighten and deepen these, and to make each man more
intensely himself, more thoroughly individual and unlike anybody
else. The perfection of our nature is found in the pursuit, to the
furthest point, of the characteristics of our nature, and so, by
reason of diversity, there is the greater harmony, and, all taken
together, will reflect less inadequately the infinite glories of
which they are all partakers. But whilst the individuality remains,
and ought to be heightened by Christian consecration, yet a change
should pass over our lives, like the change that passes over the
winter landscape when the summer sun draws out the green leaves from
the hard black boughs, and flashes a fresh colour over all the brown
pastures. There should be such a change as when a drop or two of ruby
wine falls into a cup, and so diffuses a gradual warmth of tint over
all the whiteness of the water. Christ in us, if we are true to Him,
will make us more ourselves, and yet new creatures in Christ Jesus.

And the transformation is to be into His likeness who is the pattern
of all perfection. We must be moulded after the same type. There are
two types possible for us: this world; Jesus Christ. We have to make
our choice which is to be the headline after which we are to try to
write. 'They that make them are like unto them.' Men resemble their
gods; men become more or less like their idols. What you conceive to
be desirable you will more and more assimilate yourselves to. Christ
is the Christian man's pattern; is He not better than the blind,
corrupt world?

That transformation is no sudden thing, though the revolution which
underlies it may be instantaneous. The working _out_ of the new
motives, the working _in_ of the new power, is no mere work of a
moment. It is a lifelong task till the lump be leavened. Michael
Angelo, in his mystical way, used to say that sculpture effected its
aim by the removal of parts; as if the statue lay somehow hid in the
marble block. We have, day by day, to work at the task of removing
the superfluities that mask its outlines. Sometimes with a heavy
mallet, and a hard blow, and a b