o through and out of them
at the other side; they hear with one ear, and it goes out at the
other. You can make no impression upon them. There is nothing to
impress, no character there to work upon. They are utterly
indifferent to spiritual things, and never give a thought to their
own character. What is to be done with such persons? God is the great
Teacher of us all; God, in His providence, has made many a man who
has begun life as shallow and superficial as man can be, deep enough
before He has done with him.

Two particulars in which the perfectness of this method appears may
be pointed out. First of all, it is perfect in this: that anyone who
begins it is bound to go on to the end. The very nature of the case
leads him to go on and on from glory to glory, back and back to
Christ, until the process is, actually completed, and he is like
Christ. The reason is this: that the Christian conscience is never
much taken up with attainment made, but always with attainment that
is yet to be made. It is the difference not the likeness that touches
the conscience. A friend has been away in Australia for ten years,
and he sends you his likeness, and you take it out eagerly, and you
say, "Yes, the eyes are the very eyes; the brow, the hair are exactly
like," but there is something about the mouth that you do not like,
and you thrust it away in a drawer and never look at it again. Why?
Because the one point of unlikeness destroys the whole to you. Just
so when any Christian presents himself before Christ it is not the
points of likeness, supposing there are any, which strike his
conscience--it is the remaining points of difference that inevitably
strike him, and so he is urged on and on from one degree of
proficiency to another until the process is completed, because there
is no point at which a man has made a sufficient attainment in the
likeness of Christ. There is no point at which Christ draws a line
and says, "You will do well if you reach this height, and you need
not strive further." Why, we should be dissatisfied, we should throw
up our allegiance to Christ if He treated us so. He is our ideal, and
it is resemblance to Him that draws us and makes us strive forward;
and so a man is bound, to go on, and on, and on, still drawn on to
his ideal, still rebuked by his shortcomings until he perfectly
resembles Christ.

And this character of Christ that is our ideal is not assumed by Him
for the nonce. He did not change His na