od, as beloved
children; and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us.' They only are
deeply, through and through, universally and always merciful who have
received mercy. The light is reflected at the same angle as it falls,
and the only way by which there can come from our faces and lives a
glory that shall lighten many dark hearts, and make sunshine in many a
shady place, is that these hearts shall have turned full to the very
fountain itself of heavenly radiance, and so 'have received of the Lord
that which also' they 'deliver' unto men.

And so, brethren, there are two plain, practical exhortations from these
thoughts. One is, let us Christian people learn the fruits of God's
mercy, and be sure of this, that our own mercifulness in regard to men
is an accurate measure of the amount of the divine mercy which we have
received. The other is, let all of us learn the root of man's mercy to
men. There is plenty, of a sort, of philanthropy and beneficent and
benevolent work and feeling to-day, entirely apart from all perception
of, and all faith in, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in so far as the
individuals who exercise that beneficence are concerned. I, for my part,
am narrow enough to believe that the streams of non-Christian
charitableness, which run in our land and in other lands to-day, have
been fed from Christ's fountain, though the supply has come underground,
and bursts into light apparently unconnected with its source. If there
had been no New Testament there would have been very little of the
beneficence which flouts the New Testament to-day. Historically, it is
the great truths, which we conveniently summarise as being evangelical
Christianity, that have been mother to the new charity that, since
Christ, has been breathed over the world. I, for my part, believe that
if you strike out the doctrine of universal sinfulness, if you cover
over the Cross of Christ, if you do not find in it the manifestation of
a God who is endlessly merciful to the most unworthy, you have destroyed
the basis on which true and operative benevolence will rest. So then,
dear brethren, let us all seek to get a humbler and a truer conception
of what we ourselves are, and a loftier and truer faith of what God in
Christ is; and then to remember that if we have these, we are bound to,
and we shall, show that we have them, by making that which is the anchor
of our hope the pattern of our lives.

III. Lastly, notice the requital, 'They shall