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world's school. They have got all its lessons by heart, they can
repeat its selfish maxims, and practise its hard teachings. My
brothers, God grant that you may find out how greatly your education
has been neglected! God grant that you may learn, before it is too
late, how little you know about the things which concern your peace.
You, who have grown grey in the great world school, learning its
sordid, selfish lessons, grinding away at its daily tasks, adding up
your sums of addition, and interest, scanning the money table with
eager eyes, practising your skill in profit and loss, and daily writing
as your one copy--_make money, and be rich_--to you, I say, come into
Christ's school to-day, and see whose teaching is the better: that of
the world, or that of the Son of God. There comes to every school a
day of breaking up, when the scholars go home. One day a man is missed
in the great world school. His place is vacant. The shutters are up
at the shop, or office, the servants at the place of business speak in
smothered whispers. They miss the sound of the master's voice, the
echo of his step upon the stair. He has learnt his last lesson in
worldliness, and his schooling is over. The world has broken up, as
far as he is concerned, and he has gone home. But where? He knew
nothing beyond the world's lessons, he never provided for another home.
"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?"

Briefly, then, let us look at some of the chief lessons which we must
learn in the school of Jesus Christ.

First, we must learn to hate our old sins. Like David, like S. Peter,
like every penitent, when we think of the past we abhor ourselves, and
sit down among the ashes of humiliation. Like the Prodigal, we cry, "I
am no more worthy to be called Thy son." If you find yourself taking
pleasure in the thought of former sin, boasting of your evil deeds, be
sure you are yet in your ignorance, you have never learnt the alphabet
of Christ's lesson.

Next, we must learn to know our own weakness, and our need of a
Saviour. The world will not give us that lesson. The world will tell
us to make our own way, to trust to ourselves, to our cleverness, and
sharpness. In Christ's school we shall be taught our weakness, and
shall learn to say, "Lord, save me, I perish."

Another of the lessons we must learn is to _conquer ourselves_. The
world gives a great many instructions about conquering d