ormed to the image of His dear Son, and
created anew in righteousness and holiness. The object of faith is
Christ, the Christ whose blood and righteousness cleanses and clothes
sinful souls.

II. Let me ask you to look, in the next place, to what this text
suggests to us about the worth of Christian faith.

Peter calls it precious. Consider its worth as a channel. There is a
very remarkable expression used in the Acts of the Apostles, 'The door
of faith.' A door is of little value in itself, worth a few shillings at
the most, but if it opens the way into a palace then it is worth
something. And all the preciousness that there is in faith comes, not
from its intrinsic value, but from the really precious things which it
gives into our hands. Just as the dyer's hand may be tinged with royal
purple, if he has been working in it, or a woman's hand may be scented
and made fragrant if she has been handling perfumes, so the hand of
faith takes tint and fragrance from that with which it is conversant. It
is precious because it is the channel by which all precious things flow
into our hearts and lives. If Ladysmith is, as I suppose it is,
dependent for its water supply on one lead pipe, the preciousness of
that pipe is not measured by what it would fetch if it were put up to
auction for its lead, but by that which flows through it, and without
which Death would come. And my faith is the pipe by which all the water
of life comes sparkling and rejoicing into my thirsty soul. It is the
opening of the door 'that the King of Glory may come in'; it is the
taking down of the shutters that the sunshine may blaze into the
darkened chamber; it is the grasping of the electric wire that the
circuit may be completed. God puts out His hand, and we lay hold of it.
It is not the outstretched hand from earth, but the down-stretched hand
from heaven that makes the tottering man stand. So, dear friends, let us
understand that salvation does not come as the reward of faith, but that
the salvation is _in_ the faith, because faith is the channel by which
all God's salvation pours into us. So there is nothing arbitrary in the
way of salvation, as some shallow thinkers seem to propose, and there is
no reason in the question, 'Why does God make salvation depend upon
faith?' God could not but make salvation depend upon faith, because
there is no other possible way by which the blessings which are gathered
together into that one great pregnant word 'salva