I need not, I suppose, linger to remind you what important and large lessons these thoughts carry, not only for men who are trying to work at the task of mending and making their own characters, but on the larger scale, for all who seek to benefit and elevate their fellows.  Brethren, it is not for me to depreciate any workers who, in any department, and by any methods, seek, and partially effect, the elevation of humanity.  But I should be untrue to my own deepest convictions, and unfaithful to the message which God’s providence has given it to me as my life’s task to proclaim, if I did not declare that nothing will truly re-form humanity, society, the nation, the city, except that which re-creates the individual:  ’the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ entering into their midst.

II.  And so, secondly, and very briefly, notice the lesson we get here as to how we should think of our own attainments.

I have already pointed out that there are two beautiful touches in my text.  The Apostle traces everything that he is, in his character and in his Christian standing and in his Apostolic work and success, to that grace that has come down upon him, and clothed his nakedness with so glorious a garment.  And then, in addition to that, he modestly, and with a fine sense of dignity, refrains from parading his attainments or his achievements, and says, ’It is not for me to estimate what I am; it is for you to do it.’  True, indeed, in the next verse he does set forth, in very lofty language, his claims to be in nothing behind the very chiefest of the Apostles, and ’to have laboured more abundantly than they all.’  But still the spirit of that humble and yet dignified silence runs through the whole context.  ’By the grace of God I am—­what I am.’

Well, then, it is not necessary for a man to be ignorant, or to pretend that he is ignorant, of what he can do.  We hear a great deal about the unconsciousness of genius.  There is a partial truth in it; and possibly the highest examples of power and success, in any department of mental or intellectual effort, are unaware of their achievements and stature.  But if a man can do a certain kind of service there is no harm whatever in his recognising the fact that he can do it.  The only harm is in his thinking that because he can, he is a very fine fellow, and that the work itself is a great work; and so setting himself up above his brethren.  There is a vast deal of hypocrisy in what is called unconsciousness of power.  Most men who have been chosen and empowered to do a great work for God or for men, in any department, have been aware that they could do it.  But the less we think about ourselves, in any way, the better.  The more entire our recognition of the influx of grace on which we depend for keeping our reservoir full, the less likelihood there will be of touchy self-assertion, the less likelihood of the misuse of the powers that we have.  If we are to do much for God, if we are