into our else dead spirits the
life which He bestows upon all them that trust Him.

In the New Testament 'life' is far more than 'being'; far more than
physical existence; removed by a whole world from these lower
conceptions, and finding its complete explanation only in the fact that
the soul which is knit to God by conscious surrender, love, aspiration,
and obedience, is the only soul that really lives. All else is
death--death! He 'that liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth.' The
ghastly imagination of one of our poets, of the dead man standing on the
deck pulling at the ropes by the side of the living, is true in a very
deep sense. In spite of all the feverish activities, the manifold
vitalities of practical and intellectual life in the world, the deepest,
truest, life of every man who is parted from God by alienation of will,
by indifference, and neglect of love, lies sheeted and sepulchred in the
depths of his own heart. Brethren, there is no life worth calling life,
none to which that august name can without degradation be applied,
except the complete life of body, soul, and spirit, in lowly obedience
to God in Christ. The deepest meaning of the work of the Saviour is that
He comes into a dead world, and breathes into the bones--very many and
very dry--the breath of His own life. Christ has died for us; Christ
will live in us if we will; and, unless He does, we are twice dead.

Do not put away that thought as if it were a mere pulpit metaphor. It is
a metaphor, but yet in the metaphor there lies this deepest truth, which
concerns us all, that only he is truly himself, and lives the highest,
best, and noblest life that is possible for him, who is united to Jesus
Christ, and drawing from Christ his own life. 'He that hath the Son hath
life; he that hath not the Son hath not life.' Either my name and yours
are written in the Book of Life, or they are written in the register of
a cemetery. We have to make our choice which.

III. Another idea suggested by this emblem is experience of divine
individualising knowledge and care.

In the Old Testament the book is called 'Thy book,' in the New it is
called 'the Lamb's book.' That is of a piece with the whole relation of
the New to the Old, and of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word and
Manifestor of God, to the Jehovah revealed in former ages. For,
unconditionally, and without thought of irreverence or idolatry, the New
Testament lifts over and confers upon Jesus Chr