our curiosity and
conversation--that indeed must not be--but simply by the contrast which
your own lives present. In the light of your lives the secret shame of
the heathen life will be unmasked. And in being unmasked even the
works of darkness will themselves become part of the light. To make
such ways of living attractive they must be cloaked up in a deceitful
glamour. Once stripped bare and shown in their true character they
teach their true lesson. Thus, the one duty of a man is to awake from
the old sleep of death; to separate himself from the morally dead world
and stand clear in the light of Christ. And that is what the early
Christian hymn, which St. Paul cites, was continually impressing upon
the Christian conscience. We may attempt to reproduce it in something
like its original rhythm thus:--

'Be awakened, thou that sleepest;
Rise alive from out the dead world;
Christ, the Light, shall shine upon thee.'

{196}

Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in
love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an
offering and a sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell. But
fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be
named among you, as becometh saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish
talking, or jesting, which are not befitting: but rather giving of
thanks. For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean
person, nor covetous man, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in
the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no man deceive you with empty
words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the
sons of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them; for ye
were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of
light (for the fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness
and truth), proving what is well-pleasing unto the Lord; and have no
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even
reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a
shame even to speak of. But all things when they are reproved are made
manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.
Wherefore _he_ saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee.

Three points may be noticed in this characteristic exhortation:--

1. The strife of light and darkness. The victory of the rising sun
and its surrende