And am I—­I surely shall be if I am living for myself—­straggling, envying, casting an evil eye on those more fortunate than I; perhaps letting loose against them a cruel tongue?  If I am doing thus, God forgive me.  What have I of the mind of Christ?  What likeness between me and him who emptied himself of self, who humbled himself, gave himself up utterly, even to death?  Is this the mind of Christ?  Is this the spirit whose name is Love?

And yet there should be a likeness.  A likeness between Christ and us.  A likeness between God and us.  For Christ is the likeness of his Father; and not only of his Father, but of our Father, The Father in heaven.  And what should a child be, but like his father?  What should man be, but like God?

But how shall we get that likeness?  How shall we get the mind of Christ which is the Spirit of God?

This at least we know.  That the father will surely hear the child, when the child cries to him.  Perhaps will hear him all the more tenderly, the more utterly the child has strayed away.

Our highest reason, the instincts of our own hearts, tell us so.  Christ himself has told us so; and said to the Jews of old:  ’If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?’

Shall give?  Yes; and has given already.  From that Spirit of God have come, and will always come, all our purest, highest, best thoughts and feelings.

From him comes all which raises us above the animals, and makes us really and truly men and women.  All sense of duty, obedience, order, justice, law; all tenderness, pity, generosity, honour, modesty; all this, if you will receive it, is that Christ in us of whom St. Paul tells us, and tells us that he is our hope of glory.

Yes, these feelings in us, which, just as far as we obey them, make us respect ourselves, and make us blessings to our fellow-men; what are they but the Spirit of Christ, the likeness of Christ, the mind of Christ in us; the hope of our glory; because, if we obey them, we shall attain to something of the true glory, the glory with which Christ himself is glorious.

Then let us pray to God, now in this Passion Week, to stir up in us that generous spirit; to deepen in us that fair likeness; to fill us with that noble mind.  Let us ask God to quench in us all which is selfish, idle, mean; to quicken to life in us all which is godlike, and from God; that so we may attain, at last, to the true glory, the glory which comes not from selfish ambition; not from selfish pride; not from selfish ease; but from getting rid of selfishness, in all its shapes.  The glory which Christ alone has in perfection.  The glory before which every knee will one day bow, whether in earth or heaven.  Even the glory of doing our duty, regardless of what it costs us in the station to which each of us has been called by his Father in heaven.  Amen.