d not
Himself."

All this may be summed up in one short phrase, which goes near, I
believe, to express the innermost reality of the Christian religion.
Christ, the Son of man, is the true self of every man. To follow Him, to
be His disciple, in thought, and word, and deed, is to be oneself, to
realise one's own personality. In no other way can I attain to be
myself.

Thus the Cross is the supreme revelation of the Divine Life in man. And
now we shall go on to see how it brings to us, not merely the knowledge
of the Ideal, but also, what is far more, the very means whereby the
Ideal may be realised in and by each one of us.

We have dealt with the Cross as illumination; we now approach its
consideration as redemptive power.

V
THE GREAT RECONCILIATION

"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." 2 COR. V. 19.

Such considerations as we have had before us, are of far more than
theoretical interest. They are of all questions the most practical. Sin
is not a curious object which we examine from an aloof and external
standpoint. However we regard it, to whatever view of its nature we are
led, it is, alas, a fact within and not merely outside our experience.

And so we are at length brought to this most personal and most urgent
inquiry, What has been the result _to me_ of my past acts of sin? I have
sinned; what have been, what are, what will be the consequences?

The most hopelessly unintelligent answer is, that there are no results,
no consequences. It behoves us to remember that we can never sin with
impunity. This is true, even in the apparent absence of all punishment.
Every act of sin is followed by two results, though probably a profounder
analysis would show them to be in reality one.

(i) Whenever I sin I inflict a definite injury on myself, varying with
the sinfulness of the sin; that is, with its nature and the degree of
deliberation it involved. I am become a worse man; I have, in some
degree, rejected and done to death the Divine in me, my true self. Every
sin, in its own proper measure, is both a rejection of the Christ within,
and also an act of spiritual suicide.

Again (ii), each sin, once more according to the degree of its guilt,
involves separation from God. And, as union with God is life, it follows
that sin is, and not merely brings death. That is the death of which the
outward, physical death is the mere symbol. It is death of that which
makes me man--th