and that there is
nothing that will make a man more like Christ, which is the end of all
our building, than casting himself into the service of his fellows with
self-oblivion.

Peter said, 'Master! let us make here three tabernacles.' Ay! But there
was a demoniac boy down below, and the disciples could not cast out the
demon. The Apostle did not know what he said when he preferred building
up himself, by communion with God and His glorified servants, to
hurrying down into the valley, where there were devils to fight and
broken hearts to heal. Build up yourselves, by all means; if you do you
will have to build up your brethren. 'The edifying of the body of
Christ' is a plain duty which no Christian man can neglect without
leaving a tremendous gap in the structure which he ought to rear.

The building resulting from united edification is represented in
Scripture, not as the agglomeration of a number of little shrines, the
individuals, but as one great temple. That temple grows in two respects,
both of which carry with them imperative duties to us Christian people.
It grows by the addition of new stones. And so every Christian is bound
to seek to gather into the fold those that are wandering far away, and
to lay some stone upon that sure foundation. It grows, also, by the
closer approximation of all the members one to another, and the
individual increase of each in Christlike characteristics. And we are
bound to help one another therein, and to labour earnestly for the
advancement of our brethren, and for the unity of God's Church. Apart
from such efforts our individual edifying of ourselves will become
isolated, the results one-sided, and we ourselves shall lose much of
what is essential to the rearing in ourselves of a holy character. 'What
God hath joined together let not man put asunder.' Neither seek to build
up yourselves apart from the community, nor seek to build up the
community apart from yourselves.

III. Lastly, the Apostle, in his writings, sets forth another aspect of
this general thought, viz., divine edification.

When he spoke to the elders of the church of Ephesus he said that Christ
was able 'to build them up.' When he wrote to the Corinthians he said,
'Ye are _God's_ building.' To the Ephesians he wrote, 'Ye are built for
an habitation of God _through the Spirit_.' And so high above all our
individual and all our united effort he carries up our thoughts to the
divine Master-builder, by whose work al