pirit may have His way--a big if? Yes: yet not too big
to be gotten rid of at once: God puts in the if's, that we may get the
strength of choosing. We put them out, _if_ we do. _If_ He may have His
way He'll pack--listen quietly, with your heart--He'll pack _the whole
of a Jesus_ inside you and me. Much in little! Most in least! And the
more we let Him in, the bigger that "most" prints itself to our eyes,
and the more that "least" dwindles down to the disappearing point.

God gives us His own self in Jesus. Jesus comes to live inside of us. He
doesn't give us things, but Himself. We talk about salvation. There's
something better--_a Saviour_. We talk about help in trouble. There's
something immensely more--_a Friend_, alongside, close up. We talk about
healing--sometimes, not so much these days; the subject is so much
confused. There's something much better--a _Healer_, living within,
whose presence means healing and health for body and spirit.

Then John says, "the light shineth _in the darkness_." This is God's way
of treating darkness. There are two ways of treating darkness, man's and
God's. Man's way is to attack the darkness. Suppose this hall where we
are were quite dark, all shuttered up, and suppose we were new on the
earth, and not familiar with darkness. We want to hold a meeting. But
how shall we get rid of this strange darkness that has come down over
everything? Let's each of us get a bucket or pail or basin, and take
some of the darkness out. So we'll get rid of it, and its inconvenience.

And if the suggestion were made seriously there might be talk of putting
the suggestor in a certain sort of institution for the safety of the
community. Yet this is the way we go at the other darkness, the worse
moral darkness.

_God's way_ is quite different; indeed just the exact reverse _let the
light shine._ The darkness can't stand the light. If the hall _were_
quite dark, and I scratched only a parlour-match, instantly as the
little flame broke out of the end of the stick some of the darkness
would go. It's surprising how much would go, and how quickly. The
darkness can't stand the light. It flees like a hunted hare before a
pack of hounds.

There may be times when action must betaken by a community against
certain forms of evil, so damnable, and so strongly entrenched, and so
threatening to the purity of home and young and of all. But note keenly
that this is _incidental_. It is immensely important at times,