y say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'

And that is the only kind of life that is blessed; our only true
nobleness and beauty and power and sweetness are measured by, and
accurately correspond with, the completeness of our surrender of
ourselves to Jesus Christ. As long as the earth was thought to be the
centre of the planetary system there was nothing but confusion in the
heavens. Shift the centre to the sun and all becomes order and beauty.
The root of sin, and the mother of death, is making myself my own law
and Lord; the germ of righteousness, and the first pulsations of life,
lie in yielding ourselves to God in Christ, because He has yielded
Himself unto us.

I need not remind you, I suppose, that this self-surrender is a great
deal more than a vivid metaphor: that it implies a very hard fact;
implies at least two things, that we have yielded ourselves to Jesus
Christ, by the love of our hearts, and by the unreluctant submission of
our wills, whether He commands or whether He sends sufferings or joys.

And, oh, brethren, be sure of this, that no such giving of myself away,
in the sweet reciprocities of a higher than human affection, is
possible, in the general, and on the large scale, if you evacuate from
the Gospel the great truth, 'He loved me, and gave Himself for me.' I
believe--and therefore I am bound to preach it--that the only power
which can utterly annihilate and cast out the dominion of self from a
human soul is the power that is lodged in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
on the Cross for sinful men.

And whilst I would fully recognise all that is noble, and all that is
effective, in systems either of religion, or of irreligious morality,
which have no place within their bounds for that great motive, I am sure
of this, that the evil self within us is too strong to be exorcised by
anything short of the old message, 'Jesus Christ has given His life for
thee, wilt thou not give thyself unto Him?'

II. Christ seeks personal service.

'I seek . . . you'; not only for My love, but for My tools; for My
instruments in carrying out the purposes for which I died, and
establishing My dominion in the world. Now I want to say two or three
very plain things about this matter, which lies very near my heart, as
to some degree responsible for the amount of Christian activity and
service in this my congregation. Brethren, the surrender of ourselves to
Jesus Christ in acts of direct Christian activity and