s that it is the best way for others to follow. That is
what Laurence Oliphant once called, "living the life;" the kind of
conduct which does not drive, but draws.

Peter might have stood before the sepulchre, and tried all in vain to
influence and urge his friend to come in with him, but instead of this
he simply enters, and then, without any conscious persuasion on his
part, that other disciple enters too. So it is that a man to-day just
takes his stand among us in some issue of duty, not dragging in allies
to help him, but quietly standing on his own isolated conviction, and
some day "that other {23} disciple" just comes and stands by him for
the right. Or a man is passing some morning the door of this Chapel,
and just slips in and says his prayer, and falls into the habit of
worship from which he had of late been falling out, and some day as he
sits here, as he supposes, quite out of the circle of his friends, he
turns and finds "that other disciple" sitting by his side. Or a man
enters just a little way into the power of the religious life, just
enough to feel how incomplete is his faith, and how little he can do
for any one else, and one day as he gropes his way toward the light he
feels a hand reaching out to his, and "that other disciple" gives
himself to be guided by the strength which had seemed to its possessor
until that moment weakness. Here is the encouragement and the
interpretation of many an insignificant and apparently ineffective
life. Positive and predetermined influence few of us can boast of
possessing, but this unconscious influence not one of us can escape.
And indeed, that is the profounder leadership even of the greatest
souls. One of the most extraordinary traits in the ministry of Jesus
Christ is his undesigned persuasiveness. He does not seem to expect
{24} a generally accepted influence. He recognizes that there are
whole groups of souls whom he cannot reach. Only they who have ears to
hear, he says, can hear him. He just goes his own great way,
misinterpreted, persecuted; and at last the world perceives that it is
the way to go, and falls into line behind him. When he puts forth his
sheep, he goes before them, and they follow him. It is simply the
contagion of personality, the magnetism of soul, the spiritual law of
attraction, which draws a little soul toward a great soul, as a planet
is drawn in its orbit round the sun.

{25}

IX

MORAL TIMIDITY

_John_ xxi. 22.