there was no selfishness, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came not to do His own will, but His Father’s; not to glorify Himself, but His Father; not to save His own life, but to sacrifice it freely, for us, His selfish, weak, greedy, wandering sheep.  Pray to Him to give you His Spirit, that glorious spirit of love, and duty, and self-sacrifice, by which all the good deeds on earth are done; which teaches a man not to care about himself, but about others; to help others, to feel for others, to rejoice in their happiness, to grieve over their sorrows, to give to them, rather than take from them—­in one word, The Holy Spirit of God, which may He pour out on you, and me, and all mankind, that we may live justly and lovingly, as children of one just and loving Father in heaven.

SERMON XII.  THE LIGHT OF GOD

[Preached for the Chelsea National Schools.]

Ephesians v. 13.  All things which are reproved are made manifest by the light:  for whatsoever is made manifest is light.

This is a noble text, a royal text; one of those texts which forbid us to clip and cramp Scripture to suit any narrow notions of our own; which open before us boundless vistas of God’s love, of human knowledge, of the future of mankind.  There are many such texts, many more than we fancy; but this is one which is especially valuable at the present time; one especially fit for a sermon on education; for it is, as it were, the scriptural charter of the advocate of education.  It enables him boldly to say, ’There is nothing I will refuse to teach; there is nothing which man shall forbid me to teach; there is nothing which God has made in heaven or earth about which I will not tell the truth boldly to the young.’

For light comes from God.  God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.  And therefore He wishes to give light to His children.  He willeth not that the least of them should be kept in darkness about any matter.  Darkness is of the Devil; and he who keeps any human soul in darkness, let his pretences be as reverent and as religious as they may, is doing the Devil’s work.  Nothing, then, which God has made will we conceal from the young.

True, there are errors of which we will not speak to the young; but they are not made by God:  they are the works of darkness.  Our duty is to teach the young what God has made, what He has done, what He has ordained; to make them freely partakers of whatsoever light God has given us.  Then, by means of that light, they will be able to reprove the works of darkness.

For whatsoever is made manifest is light.  Our version says; ‘Whatsoever makes manifest is light.’  That is true, a noble truth; but I should not be honest, if I did not confess that that is not what St. Paul says here.  He says, ’That which is made manifest is light.’  On this the best commentators and scholars agree.  Our old translators have made a mistake, though in grammar only, and have substituted one great truth for another equally great.