ng in all sorts and
degrees of goodness and righteousness and truth. Therefore, the
commandment, 'Walk as children of the light,' sums up all Christian
morality. Is there need, then, for any additional precept? Yes; for
Christian people do not live in an empty world. If there were no evil
round them, and no proclivity to evil within them, it would be amply
sufficient to say to them, 'Be true to the light which you behold.' But
since both these things are, the commandment of my text is further
necessary. We do not work _in vacuo_, and therefore friction and
atmosphere have to be taken account of; and an essential part of
'walking as children of the light' is to know how to behave ourselves
when confronted with 'the works of darkness.'

These Ephesian Christians lived in a state of society honeycombed with
hideous immorality, the centre of which was the temple, which was their
city's glory and shame. It was all but impossible for them to have
nothing to do with the works of evil, unless, indeed, they went out of
the world. But the difficulty of obedience does not affect the duty of
obedience, nor slacken in the smallest degree the stringency of a
command. This obligation lies upon us as fully as it did upon them, and
the discharge of it by professing Christians would bring new life to
moribund churches.

I. Let me ask you to note with me, first, the fruitlessness inherent in
all the works of darkness.

You may remember that I pointed out, in a former discourse on the
context, that the Apostle, here and elsewhere, draws a very significant
distinction between 'works' and 'fruit,' and that distinction is put
very strikingly in the words of my text. There are works which are
barren. It is a grim thought that there may be abundant activity which,
in the eyes of God, comes to just nothing; and that pages and pages of
laborious calculations, when all summed up, have for result a great
round 0. Men are busy, and hosts of them are doing what the old fairy
stories tell us that evil spirits were condemned to do--spinning ropes
out of sea-sand; and their life-work is nought when they come to reckon
it up.

I have no time to dwell upon this thought, but I wish, just for a moment
or two, to illustrate it.

All godless life is fruitless, inasmuch as it has no permanent results.
Permanent results of a sort, indeed, follow everything that men do, for
all our actions tend to make character, and they all have a share in
fixing that w