r, but if we were to address him in the
same way out of church he would sue us for libel--if he thought we
meant it. For heaven's sake let us have done with the sham of it all
and face the truth. What mankind is suffering from is selfishness.
Get rid of that and there would be little left to trouble about.

+Atonement and sin.+--It should now be plain why the doctrine of
Atonement has been so closely associated with the doing away of sin; it
is because, as we have seen, the root idea of Atonement is the
assertion of the fundamental oneness of man with man and all with God.
Sin is the divisive separating thing in our relations with one another,
and with God the source of all, so the assertion of our oneness
involves getting rid of sin. If we ask how this is to be done, the
answer is simple enough: the only way to get rid of selfishness is by
the ministry of love. What is it that is slowly winning the world from
its selfishness to-day and lifting it gradually into the higher, purer
atmosphere of universal love? There is but one thing that is doing it,
and that is the spirit of self-sacrifice. Wherever you see that, you
see the true Atonement at work. There can be no doubt about the final
issue, for behind the spirit of love is infinity, whereas the spirit of
selfishness is essentially finite. On the field of human history the
death of Jesus is the focus and concentrated essence of this age-long
atoning process, whereby selfishness is being overcome and the whole
race lifted up to its home in God. Until Jesus came no self-offering
had been so consistent and so complete. No selfish desire could find
lodgment in His pure soul. He showed men the ideal life by living it
Himself, the life which was perfectly at one with God and man. In a
selfish world that life was sure to end on a Calvary of some kind, but
the very fact that it did so demonstrated the completeness of its
victory over all considerations of self-interest. Selfishness lost the
battle by seeming to gain it. God was behind the life of Jesus just
because it was the life of perfect love, the life which was a perfect
gift to the whole, therefore that life immediately arose in power in
other lives and has gone increasing its benevolent sway over human
hearts ever since. This is the Atonement and it is rightly associated
with the cross of Jesus in the minds of men, for the cross is the sum
and centre of it all.

+The increasing Atonement.+--But the Atone