rom sinners.
Remember how He went without the camp, bearing our reproach; how they
cast Him forth to the death of the cross; and how He awaits us on the
Easter side of death--and surely we can find no pleasure in the world
where He found no place. His death has made a lasting break between his
followers and the rest of men. They are crucified to the world, and the
world to them. Let us not taste of the intoxicating joys in which the
children of the present age indulge; let us allow no Delilah passion to
pass her scissors over our locks; and let us be very careful not to
receive contamination; to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but to come out and be separate, not touching the unclean thing.

But while we put away all that injures our own life or the lives of
others, let us be very careful to discriminate, to draw the line where
God would have it drawn, exaggerating and extenuating nothing. It is
important to remember that while the motto of the old covenant was
Exclusion, even of innocent and natural things, that of the new is
Inclusion. Moses, under the old, forbade the Jews having horses; but
Zechariah said that in the new they might own horses, only "Holiness to
the Lord" must be engraven on the bells of their harness. Christ has
come to sanctify all life. Whether we eat, or drink, or whatever we do,
we are to do all to his glory. Disciples are not to be taken out of the
world, but kept from its evil. "Every creature of God is good, and
nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is
sanctified by the Word of God, and prayer." Natural instincts are not to
be crushed, but transfigured.

This is the great contrast between the Baptist and the Son of Man. The
Nazarite would have felt it a sin against the law of his vocation and
office to touch anything pertaining to the vine. Christ began his signs
by changing water into wine, though of an innocuous kind, for the
peasants' wedding at Cana of Galilee. John would have lost all sanctity
had he touched the bodies of the dead, or the flesh of a leper. Christ
would touch a bier, pass his hands over the seared flesh of the leper,
and stand sympathetically beside the grave of his friend. Thus we catch
a glimpse of our Lord's meaning when He affirms that, though John was the
greatest of women born, yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater
than he.

III. THERE WAS THE SCHOOL OF THE DESERT.--"The child was