also, till even He was forced to cry out, not only Why have ye, My
friends, forsaken Me? but "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" But as in
His case, so in ours--this is only the natural and necessary path to the
perfect justification of ourselves and of the principles our conduct has
represented. If in obedience to conscience we are exposed to isolation
and the various loss consequent upon it, we are not alone--God is with
us. It is in the line of our conduct He is working and will carry out
His purposes. And well might such an one be envied by those who have
feared such isolation and shrunk from the manifold wretchedness that
comes of resisting the world's ways and independently following an
unworldly and Christian path.

For really in our own life, as in the life of Christ, all is summed up
in the conflict between Christ and the world; and therefore the last
words of this His last conversation are: "In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good courage. I have overcome the world." When
Christ speaks of "the world" as comprising all that was opposed to Him,
it is not difficult to understand His meaning. By "the world" we
sometimes mean this earth; sometimes all external things, sun, moon, and
stars as well as this earth; sometimes we mean the world of men, as when
we say "All the world knows" such and such a thing, or as when Christ
said "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." But
much more commonly Christ uses it to denote all in the present state of
things which opposes God and leads man away from God. We speak of
worldliness as fatal to the spirit, because worldliness means preference
for what is external and present to what is inward and both present and
future. Worldliness means attachment to things as they are--to the ways
of society, to the excitements, the pleasures, the profits, of the
present. It means surrender to what appeals to the sense--to comfort to
vanity, to ambition, to love of display. Worldliness is the spirit which
uses the present world without reference to the lasting and spiritual
purposes for the sake of which men are in this world. It ignores what is
eternal and what is spiritual; it is satisfied with present comfort,
with what brings present pleasure, with what ministers to the beauty of
this present life, to the material prosperity of men. And no soul
whatsoever or wheresoever situated can escape the responsibility of
making his choice between the world and G