e a bit of unconscious diplomacy perhaps to get even as much as
they do. I wonder. The crowd knows. It could throw a good bit of light
here. How much of this old Jesus-story _are_ you really _living!_

Of course, there's a special touch of inspiration in these four Gospels.
The Holy Spirit brooded over these men in a special way as they wrote.
That is true. These are the standard Gospels. We would never know the
blessed story but for these four Spirit-breathed little books. But it is
also true that that same Holy Spirit will guide you in the writing of
your version of the Gospel.

These four Gospels are different from each other. The colouring of
Luke's warm personality, and of his physician habit of thought is in his
Gospel very plainly. And so it is with each one of these Gospels. And,
even so, there will be the colouring of your personality, your habit of
thought, the distinct tinge of the experience you have been through, in
the gospel you write with the pen of your life, and bind up in the
shoe-leather of your daily round.

But through all of this there will be the simple, subtle, but very real,
atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, helping you make the story plain and
full, and helping people to understand that story as it is _lived_, as
they never can simply by hearing it told with tongues or read through
eyes.

Are you writing your gospel? Is your daily life spelling out the life
and love of Jesus, that life that was poured out till none was left,
that love that was burned out till even the ashes were burned up, too?
This is the Master's plan. And practically it is the crowd's only
chance.

God in Human Garb.

Now I want to have you turn with me to the opening lines of John's
Gospel. There are not many of these opening lines. The whole story is a
short one. These lines at the beginning are like an etching, there are
the fewest touches of pen on paper, of black ink on white surface. But
the few lines are put in so simply and skilfully that they make an
exquisite picture. It's the picture of _God coming in human garb as a
wooing Lover._

I think it might be best perhaps if I might simply give you _a sort of
free reading_ of these opening lines, with a word of comment or
illustration to try to make the meaning simpler. It will be a putting of
John's words into the simple every-day colloquial speech that we
English-speaking people use. John used very simple language in his own
telling of the story in his mot