of this, that in the days that are coming to us, the storm
in which we are already caught, all dead branches will be whirled out of
the tree. So much the better for the tree! And a great deal that calls
itself organised Christianity will have to go down because there is not
vitality enough in it to stand. For you know it is low vitality that
catches all the diseases that are going; and it is out of the sick
sheep's eyeholes that the ravens peck the eyes. And it will be the
feeble types of spiritual life, the inconsistent Christianities of our
churches, that will yield the crop of apostates and heretics and
renegades, and that will fall before temptation.

Brethren, remember this: Unless you go back close to your Lord, you will
go further away from Him. The deadness will deepen, the coldness will
become icier and icier; you will lose more and more of the life, and
show less and less of the likeness, and purity, of Jesus Christ until
you come to this--I pray God that none of us come to it--'Thou hast a
name that thou livest, and art dead.' Dead!

My brother, let us return unto the Lord our God, and keep nearer Him
than we ever have done, and bring our hearts more under the influence of
His grace, and cultivate the habit of communion with Him; and pray and
trust, and leave ourselves in His hands, that His power may come into
us, and that we in the beauty of our characters, and the purity of our
lives, and the elevation of our spirits, may witness to all men that we
have been with Christ; and may, in some measure, check the corruption
that is in the world through lust.

THE LAMP AND THE BUSHEL

'Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill
cannot be hid. 15. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under
a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that
are in the house. 16. Let your light so shine before men, that they
may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in
heaven.'--Matt. v. 14-16.

The conception of the office of Christ's disciples contained in these
words is a still bolder one than that expressed by the preceding
metaphor, which we considered in the last sermon. 'Ye are the salt of
the earth' implied superior moral purity and power to arrest corruption.
'Ye are the light of the world' implies superior spiritual illumination,
and power to scatter ignorance.

That is not all the meaning of the words, but that is certainly in them.