We say _Christian_ life, and rightly. I like to say also, the true, the
natural, life. Any other is abnormal, unnatural, untrue. I might say,
"of the higher Christian life," following the common usage of these
latter days. I still prefer to say _true_ life. Higher means that there
is a lower life. And that this lower is reckoned Christian, too. That is
the bother, the cheapening of things; we _call_ a thing Christian which
is less than the thing it is called.

Some of us need to go to school, and to sit down in the lower classes
where spelling is taught. We can spell _believe_ in the common way with
seven letters. We must learn to spell it with four letters--l-o-v-e. We
need to learn to spell _love_ with a _b_ and a _y_--o-b-e-y. We need to
learn to spell obey with five letters a-b-i-d-e. We need to find that
_abide_ is spelled best with four letters o-b-e-y.

We need to learn this simplified spelling a bit, then _all_ will become
simplified, living, loving, witnessing, praying, winning, singing with
joy over the results of our new spelling in the syllables of daily life.
Blessed Master, we would come to school to Thee to-day. Please let us
start down in the spelling class. And teach us, Thou Thyself teach us.

But the vine--let us make that the central picture on the wall, with the
Master in the picture pointing to the vine. And under the picture the
one word _abide_. Then the whole story is in easy shape to help,
pictured before our eyes. Abide--that is _Jesus walking around in your
shoes_, looking out through your eyes, touching in your hand, speaking
through your lips and your presence. He is _free_ to; that's _your_ side
of it. He's unhindered. He _does_ it; that's _His_ side of it.

Look up at the picture on the wall. The whole vine is in the fruit, is
it not? The whole of the fruit is in the vine, is it not? That's
abiding. The whole of Jesus will be in you as you go about your daily
common task, singing. The whole of you is in Jesus as everything simple
and great, is done _to please Him_, singing as you do it.

And just as between vine and fruit there are branch and blossom, pruning
and careful handling, sun and shade, dew and rain, so there are
_betweens_ here before full ripening of fruit comes. There's purifying,
cleansing by blood, cleansing by a soft fire burning within, and
pruning by the Gardener and by His human assistant, you, sharp,
incisive, hurting pruning.

There's _feeding_,--the juice of t