ut keeping the world-spirit _out_ of us. We are to remain in
the world for its sake, but to allow nothing in it to disturb our full
touch with the other world where our citizenship is. The christian's
position in this world is strikingly like that of a nation's ambassador
at a foreign court. Joseph H. Choate mingles freely with the subjects of
King Edward, attends many functions, makes speeches, grants occasional
interviews, but he is ever on the alert with his rarely keen mind, and
long years of legal training not to utter a syllable which might not
properly come from the head of his home government. Never for one moment
is he off his guard. His whole aim is to keep in perfect sympathy with
his home country as represented by its head. He never forgets that he is
there as a stranger, sojourning for a while, belonging to and
representing a foreign country. So, and only so, all the authority and
power of his own government flows through his person and is in every
word and act. Such a man invariably provides himself with a home in
which is breathed the atmosphere of his far away homeland. Now we are
strangers, sojourners, indeed more, ambassadors, representatives of a
government foreign to the present prince of this world. It is only as we
keep in perfect sympathy with the homeland and its Head that there can
flow into and through us all the immeasurable power of our King.
Whatever interrupts that intercourse with headquarters interrupts the
flow of power in our lives and service. We must guard most jealously
against such things.

Electricity helps a man here, in the similes it suggests. For instance
the electric current passing into a building is sometimes mysteriously
turned aside and work seriously interrupted. A cross-wire dropping down
out of place, and leaning upon the feed-wire has drawn the power into
itself and off somewhere else. The cross is apt to be in some unknown
place, and much searching is frequently necessary before it can be found
and fixed. And all the work affected by that feed-wire waits till the
fixing is done.

The spirit atmosphere in which we live is full, chock-full, of
cross-currents. And a man has to be keenly alert to keep his feed-wire
clear. If it be crossed, or grounded, away goes the power, while he may
be wondering why.

What are some of the cross-currents that threaten to draw the power of
the feed-wire? Well, just like the electric currents some of them seem
very trivial. Here are a