Conversion is the outlook over a world which is arranged, not for our own glory, but for the good of God’s creatures; in which what we do is necessary, fundamental, permanent—­not because we ourselves have done it well, nor, in truth, because we have done it at all—­but because what we have done is a part of the universe which God is building.  We change from a self-centre to a God-centre; from the thought of whether the world applauds to whether God approves; from the thought of keeping our own life to the thought of preserving our own integrity; from isolation from all other souls to a sympathy with them, an understanding of their needs, and a desire to help their lives.  It is a turning from a delight in sin, or an indifference to sin, or merely a moral aversion to it, to a deep-rooted hatred of every thought and act of sin, to penitence, and to an earnest desire to pattern after God.

4.  Jesus calls us by our sorrows, Jesus calls us by our dreams.  He thrills us by each high aim that life inspires.  His voice is one of understanding, of tenderness, of human appeal.  How could we love Jesus if He did not sympathize with our ideals?  But here is a Divine One in whose sight we are not visionary; who lovingly guards our least hope; who welcomes our faintest spiritual insight; who takes an interest in our social plans, and points out to us the great kingdom that is to be.  Christ lays hold of the divine that is in us, and will not let us go.

5.  Jesus calls us by our latent gifts and powers.  Which of us has ever exhausted his possibilities?  Which of us is all that he might be?

It is an impressive thought, that nothing in the universe ever gets used up.  It changes form, motion, semblance,—­but the force, the energy, neither wastes nor dies away.  Air—­it is as fresh as the air that blew over the Pharaohs.  Sun—­it is as undimmed as the sun that looked down on the completion of Cheops.  Earth—­it is as unworn as the earth that was trodden by the cavemen.

No generation can ever bequeath to us a single new material atom.  The race is ever in old clothes.  Nor can we hand down to others one atom which was not long ere we were born.  Yet the vitality of the universe is being constantly increased, and this increase is also permanent.  God has a great deal more to work with now than a thousand years ago.

For not all energy is material.  With each birth there comes a new force into the world, and its influence never dies.  The body is born of ages past, of the material stores of centuries; but the soul, in its living, thinking, working power, is a new phase of energy added to the energy of the race.

This fact confers on each individual man a strange impressiveness and power.  It gives a new significance to the fact that I am.  I am something different from what has been, or ever shall be.  In the great whirling myriads, I am distinguished and apart.  I am an appreciable factor in universal development and a being of elemental power.  By every true thought of mine the race becomes wiser.  By every right deed, its inheritance of tradition is uplifted; by every high affection, its horizon of love is enlarged.  We can bequeath to others this new spiritual energy of our lives.