published many works of a religious character, among which may be
enumerated: "Discipleship"; "The Hidden Years of Nazareth"; "Life's
Problems"; "The Ten Commandments." His last work, "The Christ of
To-day," has passed through several editions.

MORGAN

Born in 1863

THE PERFECT IDEAL OF LIFE

_Jesus therefore said, When ye have lifted up the son of man, then
shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as
the Father taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is
with me; he hath not left me alone; for I do always the things that
are pleasing to him. As he spake these things, many believed on
him_.--John viii., 28-30.

The Master, you will see, in this verse lays before us three things.
First of all, He gives us the perfect ideal of human life in a short
phrase, and that comes at the end, "the things that please him." Those
are the things that create perfect human life, living in the realm of
which man realizes perfectly all the possibilities of his wondrous
being--"the things that please him." So I say, in this phrase, the
Master reveals to us the perfect ideal of our lives. Then, in the
second place, the Master lays claim--one of the most stupendous claims
that He ever made--that He utterly, absolutely, realizes that ideal.
He says, "I do always the things that please him." And then, thirdly,
we have the revelation of the secret by which He has been able to
realize the ideal, to make the abstract concrete, to bring down the
fair vision of divine purpose to the level of actual human life and
experience, and the secret is declared in the opening words: "He that
sent me is with me; my Father hath not left me alone."

The perfect ideal for my life, then, is that I live always in the
realm of the things that please God; and the secret by which I may do
so is here unfolded--by living in perpetual, unbroken communion with
God: communion with which I do not permit anything to interfere. Then
it shall be possible for me to pass into this high realm of actual
realization.

It is important that we should remind ourselves in a few sentences
that the Lord has indeed stated the highest possible ideal for human
life in these words: "The things that please him." Oh, the godlessness
of men! The godlessness that is to be found on every hand! The
godlessness of the men and women that are called by the name of God!
How tragic, how sad, how awful it is! because godlessness is always
not mer