s in man and exhibit that to men which should cause the
sinner to abhor his sin and seek the face of God. This He would do by a
simple moral process, without violent demonstration or disturbance or
assertion of authority. He would "draw" men. It is by inward conviction,
not by outward compulsion, men are to become His subjects. It is by the
free and rational working of the human mind that Jesus builds up His
kingdom. His hope lies in a fuller and fuller light, in a clearer and
clearer recognition of facts. Attachment to Christ must be the act of
the soul's self; everything, therefore, which strengthens the will or
enlightens the mind or enlarges the man brings him nearer to the kingdom
of Christ, and makes it more likely he will yield to His drawing.

And because Christ's rule is inward it is therefore of universal
application. The inmost choice of the man being governed by Christ, and
his character being thus touched at its inmost spring, all his conduct
will be governed by Christ and be a carrying out of the will of Christ.
It is not the frame of society Christ seeks to alter, but the spirit of
it. It is not the occupations and institutions of human life which the
subject of Christ finds to be incompatible with Christ's rule, so much
as the aim and principles on which they are conducted. The kingdom of
Christ claims all human life as its own, and the spirit of Christ finds
nothing that is essentially human alien from it. If the statesman is a
Christian, it will be seen in his policy; if the poet is a Christian,
his song will betray it; if a thinker be a Christian, his readers soon
find it out. Christianity does not mean religious services, churches,
creeds, Bibles, books, equipment of any kind; it means the Spirit of
Christ. It is the most portable and flexible of all religions, and
therefore the most pervasive and dominant in the life of its adherent.
It needs but the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, and Christ
mediating between them.

II. Such being Christ's object, what is the condition of His attaining
it? "I, _if I be lifted up_, will draw all men unto Me." The elevation
requisite for becoming a visible object to men of all generations was
the elevation of the Cross. His death would accomplish what His life
could not accomplish. The words betray a distinct consciousness that
there was in His death a more potent spell, a more certain and real
influence for good among men than in His teaching or in His miracles