, is so much like others
who profess nothing. And when here and there they meet one whose acts
are dominated by a pure, high spirit, whose faces reflect a sweet
radiance amid all circumstances, and whose lives send out a rare
fragrance of gladness and kindliness and controlling peace, they are
quick to recognize that, to them, intangible something that makes such
people different. The world--tired, hungry, keen and critical for mere
sham, appreciative of the real thing--the world knows what kind of
christians we are. Do _we_ know?

There is a third one watching us to-day with intense interest. The Lord
Jesus! Sitting up yonder in glory, with the scar-marks of earth on face
and form, looking eagerly down upon us who stand for Him in the world
that crucified Him--_He knows_. I imagine Him saying, "There is that one
down there whom I died for, who bears my name; _if_ I had the _control_
of that life what power I would gladly breathe in and out of it, but--he
is _so absorbed in other things_." The Master is thinking about you,
studying your life, longing to carry out His plan if He could only get
permission, and sorely disappointed in many of us. He knows. Do _you_
know?

The Night Visitor.

After that trip I became much interested in discovering in John's Gospel
some striking pictorial illustrations of these two kinds of christians,
namely, those who have power in their lives for Jesus Christ and those
who have not. Let me speak of only a few of these. The first is sketched
briefly in the third chapter, with added touches in the seventh and
nineteenth chapters. There is a little descriptive phrase used each
time--"the man who came to Jesus by night." That comes to be in John's
mind the most graphic and sure way of identifying this man. A good deal
of criticism, chiefly among the upper classes, had already been aroused
by Jesus' acts and words. This man Nicodemus clearly was deeply
impressed by the young preacher from up in Galilee. He wants to find out
more of him. But he shrank back from exposing himself to criticism by
these influential people for his possible friendship with the young
radical, as Jesus was regarded. So one day he waits until the friendly
shadows will conceal his identity, and slipping quietly along the
streets, close up to the houses so as to insure his purpose of not being
recognized, he goes up yonder side street where Jesus has lodgings. He
knocks timidly. "Does the preacher from up the north wa