piration that comes to you from the hope that steals in upon you in
your weary hours, when sorrows, and cares, and changes, and loss, and
disappointments, and hard work weigh you down, and you say, 'It would be
blessed to pass hence'? Does it set you harder at work than anything
else can do? Is it all utilised? Or if I might use such an illustration,
is it like the electricity of the Aurora Borealis, that paints your
winter sky with vanishing, useless splendours of crimson and blue? or
have you got it harnessed to your tramcars, lighting your houses,
driving sewing-machines, doing practical work in your daily life? Is the
hope of Heaven, and of being like Christ, a thing that stimulates and
stirs us every moment to heroisms of self-surrender and to strenuous
martyrdom of self-cleansing?

All is gathered up into the one lesson. First, let us go to that dear
Lord whose blood cleanseth from all sin, and let us say to Him, 'Purge
me and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.' And
then, receiving into our hearts the powers that purify, in His love and
His sacrifice and His life, 'having these promises' and these
possessions, 'Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all
filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the
Lord.'

PRACTICAL RIGHTEOUSNESS

'Little children, let no man deceive you; he that doeth
righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.'--1 John
iii. 7.

The popular idea of the Apostle John is strangely unlike the real man.
He is supposed to be the gentle Apostle of Love, the mystic amongst the
Twelve. He _is_ that, but he was the 'son of thunder' before he was the
Apostle of Love, and he did not drop the first character when he
attained the second. No doubt his central thought was, 'God is Love'; no
doubt that thought had refined and assimilated his character, but the
love which he believed and the love which he exercised were neither of
them facile feebleness, but strong and radiant with an awful purity.
None of the New Testament writers proclaims a more austere morality than
does John. And just because he loved the Love and the Light, he hated
and loathed the darkness. He can thunder and lighten when needful, and
he shows us that the true divine love in a man recoils from its
opposite as passionately as it cleaves to God and good.

Again, John is, _par excellence_, the mystic of the New Testament,
always insisting on the di