ership message adds a simple bold touch of
colouring that makes the picture a masterpiece, _the_ masterpiece. This
King who serves, and is nearest of kin to us, is also _nearest of kin to
God_. He is not only of the blood royal, and the blood human, but of the
blood divine. He was with God before calendars came into use. He was the
God of that creative Genesis week. He came on an errand down to the
earth, and when the errand was done, and well done, He went back home,
bearing on His person the marks of His fidelity to the Father's errand.
This is John's bit of rich high colouring.

And so _we are nearest of kin to God_ through Jesus. Kinship is always a
matter of blood. There is a double kinship, through the blood of
inheritance, and the blood of sacrifice. Our _inherited_ kinship of
blood has been lost. But His blood of sacrifice has made a new kinship.
We had broken the entail of our inheritance clean beyond mending. We
were _outcasts_ by our own act. But He _cast in_. His lot with us, and
so drew us back and up and in. He made a new entail through His blood.
And that new entail is as unbreakable as the old broken one is
unmendable. And so we come into the family of a King. And we are
kingliest in character when we are Christliest in spirit and action. We
are most like the King when we are helping others.

Our true motto, in our relation to our fellows, is: "I am among you as
he that serveth." Towel and basin, bended knee and comforted
pilgrim-feet and refreshed spirit,--this is our family crest. We're kin
to all the race through Jesus. Black skin and white, yellow and brown;
round heads and long, slanting eyes and oval, in slum alley and palatial
home, below the equator and above it,--all are our kinsmen.

We are reaching highest when we are stooping lowest to help some one up.
We're nearest like God in character when we're getting nearest in touch
to those needing help. We are kingliest and Godliest and Christliest
when we're controlled by men's needs, but always under the higher
control of the Holy Spirit.

This is the composite message of the four Gospels; and this is its
practical human outworking.

God on a Wooing Errand.

But it's the other John message we are especially after just now.
There's another message of John's book quite distinct from this, though
naturally allied with it. And this other is the crowding message of his
book. Its thought crowds in upon you till every other is crowded into
s