ne specific thought
before us--on the beautiful life, the gracious words, the gentle deeds,
the wisdom, the rectitude, the tenderness, the submission to the Father
and the oblivion to Himself, which characterises the whole life of Jesus
Christ, from the very first up to the agony on the cross. We have looked
to Him as our gain, and as the head and beginning of our salvation, and
now we have to turn from that mysterious and solemn thought and look to
Him as an ideal pattern by which our life should be moulded and shaped.
'Leaving us an example.' Just as Elijah's mantle dropped from him as he
rose, so Christ in going up to the Father fluttered down on the world a
pattern which He had in His sufferings. He goes away, but the pattern
abides with us. 'Leaving us an example.' The word used here is
translated quite correctly. The word example is a very remarkable and
unusual one; it means literally a thing to be retained. You put a
copyhead before a child, and tell him to copy it, and trace it over till
he retains it; or, to come to modern English, you put the copyhead on
the top of a page. What blots, pothooks, and angles you and I make as we
are trying to write on the top of the page of life. See, there is the
pattern. Lo, another man hath written above, and you are asked to make
your life exactly the same, the same angles and the same corners--to
make your life in all respects coincide with that. My friends, we shall
all have to take our copybooks to the Master's desk some day. There will
be a headline there which Christ hath written, and one which we have
written, and how do you think we shall like to put the two side by side?
My friends, we had better do it to-day than have to do it then. There is
the pattern life; the copy is plain. I don't think I need say any more
about the other metaphor contained here. The Divine Exemplar has left us
the headline that we should follow His footsteps, and it is a blessed
thought to know that we are to follow in His own steps. 'What, cannot I
follow Thee now?' said Peter once, and you remember when the Apostle had
been restored to his office, the words of the Saviour were--'Feed My
lambs; feed My sheep; feed My lambs, follow thou Me.' This is also our
privilege. As a guide going across a wet moor with a traveller calls
out, 'Step where I step, or else you will be bogged,' so we must tread
in the steps of the Saviour, and then we shall come safe on the other
side. Tread in His steps, aye,