ing before him the whip
that punishes doing wrong. You cannot sway the will by anything but
the heart; and when you can touch the deepest spring it moves the
whole mass.

You have seen some ponderous piece of machinery, which resists all
attempts of a puny hand laid upon it to make it revolve. But down in
one corner is a little hidden spring. Touch that and with majestic
slowness and certainty the mighty mass turns. You know those
rocking-stones down in the south of England; tons of weight poised
upon a pin point, and so exquisitely balanced that a child's finger
rightly applied may move the mass. So the whole man is made mobile
only by the touch of love; and the grace that comes to us, and says,
'If ye love Me, keep My commandments'--is, as I believe, the sole
motive which will continuously and adequately sway the rebellious,
self-centred wills of men, to obedience resulting in nobility of
life.

The other aspect of this same great word is, in like manner, that
which we need. What men want is, first of all, the will to be noble
and good; and, second, the power to carry out the will. It is God
that worketh in us both the willing and the doing. I venture to
affirm that there is no power known, either to thinkers, or
philanthropists, or doctrinaires, or strivers after excellence in the
world--no power known and available which will lift a life to such
heights of beauty and self-sacrificing nobility, as will the power
that comes to us by communication of the grace that is in Jesus
Christ.

I am perpetually trying to insist, dear brethren, upon this one
thought, that the communication of actual new life is the central
gift of the Gospel; and this new life it is, this nature endowed with
new desires, hopes, aims, capacities, which alone will lift the whole
man into unwonted heights of beauty and serenity. It is the grace of
God, the gift of His Divine Spirit who will dwell with all of us, if
we will, which alone can be trusted to make men good.

And now, if that be true, what follows? Surely this, that for all you
who have, in any measure, caught a glimpse of what you ought to be,
and have been more or less vainly trying to realise your ideal, and
reach your goal, there is a better way than the way of self-centred
and self-derived and self-dependent effort. There is the way of
opening your hearts and spirits to the entrance and access of that
great power, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which will do in us
and for