nal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God
hath not the life.

VICTORIOUS FAITH.

1. This epistle selection was primarily arranged for this particular
Sunday because it treats of baptism and of the new birth of the
believing Christian. It was in former time customary in the Church to
baptize immediately after Easter those who had accepted the Christian
faith and had been instructed in its precepts. This day is also called
"Dominicam in albis," and by us Germans "Weiszer Sonntag" (White
Sunday), because the candidates for baptism were clad in white linen
as indicative of their cleansing and new birth; just as today children
to be baptized are arrayed in a white christening-robe.

THE NEW BIRTH.

2. While this lesson does not treat of the resurrection of Christ, it
has reference to its fruits: faith, the very essence of Christianity,
here expressed as being born of God; and the evidence of the Holy
Spirit, received through baptism, which assures us we are children of
God and have, through Christ, eternal life and all blessings.

3. Though John's language is, as usual, plain and simple, yet, in the
ears of men generally, it is unusual and unintelligible. The world
estimates it as similar to the prattle of children or fools. What,
according to the world's construction, is implied by the statement,
"Whatsoever is begotten [born] of God overcometh the world?"
Overcoming the world, the unconverted would understand to mean
bringing into subjection to oneself every earthly thing and assuming
the position of sovereign of the world. Yet more absurd in the ears of
this class is the saying that we must be born of God. "Did one ever
hear of such a thing," they might exclaim, "as children born of God?
It would be less ridiculous to say we must be born of stones, after
the idea of the heathen poets." To the world there is no birth but
physical birth. Hence such doctrine as our lesson sets forth will ever
be strange, unintelligible, incomprehensible, to all but Christians.
But the latter speak with new tongues, as Christ in the last chapter
of Mark (verse 17) says they shall, for they are taught and
enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

4. Clearly, then, when the Scriptures speak of being born of God, it
is not in a human sense; the reference is not to the conditions of our
temporal lives, but to those exalted ones of a future existence. To
say we must be born of