godless men's lives. There is no real
fruit for their thirsty lips to feed upon. The smallest man is too large
to be satisfied with anything short of Infinity, The human heart is like
some narrow opening on a hill-side, so narrow that it looks as if a
glassful of water would fill it. But it goes away down, down, down into
the depths of the mountain, and you may pour in hogsheads and no effect
is visible. God, and God alone, brings to the thirsty heart the fruit
that it needs.

Another solemn thought illustrates the unfruitfulness of a godless life.
There is no correspondence between what such a man does and what he is
intended to do. Think of what the most degraded and sensuous wretch that
shambles about the slums of a city, sodden with beer and rotten with
profligacy, could be. Think of the raptures of devout contemplation and
the energies of holy work which are possible for that soul, and then
say--though it is an extreme case, the principle holds in less extreme
cases--Are these things that men do apart from God, however shining,
noble, illustrious they may be in the eyes of the world, and trumpeted
forth by the mouthpieces of popular opinion, are these things worth
calling fruits fit to be borne by such a tree? No more than the cankers
on a rose-bush or the galls on an oak-tree are worthy of being called
fruit are these works that some of you have as the only products of a
life's activity. 'Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth
grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?'

II. And now, secondly, notice the plain Christian duty of abstinence.

'Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.' Now, the
text, as it stands in our version, seems to suggest that these dark
works are personified as companions whom a good man ought to avoid; and
that, therefore, the bearing of the exhortation is, 'Have nothing to do,
in your own individual lives, with evil things that one man can commit.'
But I take it that, important as that injunction and prohibition is,
the Apostle's meaning is somewhat different, and that my text would
perhaps be more accurately translated if another word were substituted
for 'have no fellowship with.' The original expression seems rather to
mean, 'Do not go partners with other people in works of darkness, which
it takes more than one to commit.' Or, to put it into another language,
the Apostle is regarding Christian people here as members of society,
and exhorting them to a certain