very pillars of God's Throne; which? I do not find fault
with you because you hope, but because you hope so meanly, and about
such trivial and transitory things. I remember I once saw a sea-bird
kept in a garden, confined within high walls, and with clipped wings,
set to pick up grubs and insects. It ought to have been away out,
hovering over the free ocean, or soaring with sunlit wing to a height
where earth became a speck, and all its noises were hushed. That is what
some of you are doing with your hope, degrading it to earth instead of
letting it rise to God; enter within the veil, and gaze upon the glory
of the 'inheritance incorruptible and undefiled.'

THE FAMILY LIKENESS

'As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy, in all manner
of conversation.'--1 Peter i. 15.

That is the sum of religion--an all-comprehensive precept which includes
a great deal more than the world's morality, and which changes the
coldness of that into something blessed, by referring all our purity to
the Lord that called us. One may well wonder where a Galilean fisherman
got the impulse that lifted him to such a height; one may well wonder
that he ventured to address such wide, absolute commandments to the
handful of people just dragged from the very slough and filth of
heathenism to whom he spoke. But he had dwelt with Christ, and they had
Christ in their hearts. So for him to command and for them to obey, and
to aim after even so wide and wonderful an attainment as perfecting like
God's was the most natural thing in the world. 'Be ye holy as He that
hath called you is holy, and that in all manner of conversation.' The
maximum of possible attainment, the minimum of imperative duty!

So, then, there are three things here--the pattern, the field, and the
inspiration or motive of holiness.

I. The Pattern of Holiness.

'As He that hath called you is holy.' God's holiness is the very
attribute which seems to separate Him most from the creatures; for its
deepest meaning is His majestic and Divine elevation above all that is
creatural. But here, of course, the idea conveyed by the word is not
that, if I may so say, metaphysical one, but the purely moral one. The
holiness of God which is capable of imitation by us is His separation
from all impurity. There is a side of His holiness which separates Him
from all the creatures, to which we can only look up, or bow with our
faces in the dust; but there is a side of His