t is because a man knows himself to be beloved that therefore he is
stimulated and encouraged to be an 'imitator of God' and, on the other
hand, the sense of being God's child underlies all real imitation of
Him. Imitation is natural to the child. It is a miserable home where a
boy does not imitate his father, and it is the father's fault in nine
cases out of ten if he does not. Whoever feels himself to be a beloved
child is thereby necessarily drawn to model himself on the Father that
he loves, because he knows that the Father loves him.

So I come to the blessed truth that Christian morality does not say to
us, 'Now begin, and work, and tinker away at yourselves, and try to get
up some kind of excellence of character, and then come to God, and pray
Him to accept you.' That is putting the cart before the horse. The order
is reversed. We are to begin with taking our personal salvation and
God's love to us for granted, and to work from that. Realise that you
are beloved children, and then set to work to live accordingly. If we
are ever to do what is our bounden duty to do, in all the various
relations of life, we must begin with recognising, with faithful and
grateful hearts, the love wherewith God has loved us. We are to think
much and confidently of ourselves as beloved of God, and that, and only
that, will make us loving to men.

The Nile floods the fields of Egypt and brings greenness and abundance
wherever its waters are carried, because thousands of miles away, close
up to the Equator, the snows have melted and filled the watercourses in
the far-off wilderness. And so, if we are to go out into life, living
illustrations and messengers of a love that has redeemed even us, we
must, in many a solitary moment, and in the depths of our quiet hearts,
realise and keep fast the conviction that God hath loved us, and Christ
hath died for us.

But a solemn consideration has to be pressed on all our consciences, and
that is that there is something wrong with a man's Christian confidence
whose assurance that he himself possesses a share in the love of God in
Christ, is not ever moving him to imitation of the love in which he
trusts. It is a shame that any one without Christian faith and love
should be as charitable, as open to pity and to help, as earnest in any
sort of philanthropic work, as Christian men and women are. But godless
and perfectly secular philanthropy treads hard on the heels of Christian
charity to-day. The