level
of the savage islanders round him. There are professing
Christians--perhaps in my audience--who, like that poor castaway, have
'forgotten the imperial palace whence they came,' and have gone down and
down and down, to live the fat, contented, low lives of the men who
find their good upon earth and not in heaven. Do you, dear brethren, try
to keep vivid the sense that you belong to another community. As Paul
puts it, with a metaphor drawn from Gentile instead of from Jewish life,
as in our text, 'Our citizenship is in heaven.' Philippi, to the
Christian Church of which that was said, was a Roman colony; and the
characteristics of a Roman colony were that the inhabitants were
enrolled as members of the Roman tribes, and had their names on the
register of Rome, and were governed by its laws. So we, living here in
an outlying province, have our names written in the 'Golden Book' of the
citizens of the new Jerusalem. Do not forget, if I might use a very
homely illustration, what parish your settlement is in; remember what
kingdom you belong to.

Again, if we are strangers of the Dispersion, let us live by our own
country's laws, and not by the codes that are current in this foreign
land where we are settled for a time. You remember what was the
complaint of the people in Persia to Esther's king? 'There is a people
whose laws are different from all the peoples that be upon the earth.'
That was an offence that could not be tolerated in a despotism that
ground everything down to the one level of a slavish uniformity. It will
be well for us Christian people if men look at us, and say, 'Ah, that
man has another rule of conduct from the one that prevails generally. I
wonder what is the underlying principle of his life; it evidently is not
the same as mine.'

Live by our King's law. People in our colonies, at least the officials,
set wonderful store by the approbation of the Colonial Office at home.
It does not matter what the colonial newspapers say, it is 'what will
they say in Downing Street?' And if a despatch goes out approving of
their conduct, neighbours may censure and sneer as they list. So we
Christians have to report to Home, and have so to live 'that whether
present or absent'--in a colony or in the mother country--'we may be
well pleasing unto Him.'

Keep up the honour and advance the interests of your own country. You
are here, among other reasons, to represent your King, and people take
their notions of Him