Such, then, as were baptized by John, were initiated into the company of those whose work was to send sin out of the world, and first, by sending it out of themselves, by having done with it.  Their earliest endeavour in this direction would, as I have said, open the door for that help to enter without which a man could never succeed in the divinely arduous task—­could not, because the region in which the work has to be wrought lies in the very roots of his own being, where, knowing nothing of the secrets of his essential existence, he can immediately do nothing, where the maker of him alone is potent, alone is consciously present.  The change that must pass in him more than equals a new creation, inasmuch as it is a higher creation.  But its necessity is involved in the former creation; and thence we have a right to ask help of our creator, for he requires of us what he has created us unable to effect without him.  Nay, nay!—­could we do anything without him, it were a thing to leave undone.  Blessed fact that he hath made us so near him! that the scale of our being is so large, that we are completed only by his presence in it! that we are not men without him! that we can be one with our self-existent creator! that we are not cut off from the original Infinite! that in him we must share infinitude, or be enslaved by the finite!  The very patent of our royalty is, that not for a moment can we live our true life without the eternal life present in and with our spirits.  Without him at our unknown root, we cease to be.  True, a dog cannot live without the presence of God; but I presume a dog may live a good dog-life without knowing the presence of his origin:  man is dead if he know not the Power which is his cause, his deepest selfing self; the Presence which is not himself, and is nearer to him than himself; which is infinitely more himself, more his very being, than he is himself.  The being of which we are conscious, is not our full self; the extent of our consciousness of our self is no measure of our self; our consciousness is infinitely less than we; while God is more necessary even to that poor consciousness of self than our self-consciousness is necessary to our humanity.  Until a man become the power of his own existence, become his own God, the sole thing necessary to his existing is the will of God; for the well-being and perfecting of that existence, the sole thing necessary is, that the man should know his maker present in him.  All that the children want is their Father.

The one true end of all speech concerning holy things is—­the persuading of the individual man to cease to do evil, to set himself to do well, to look to the lord of his life to be on his side in the new struggle.  Supposing the suggestions I have made correct, I do not care that my reader should understand them, except it be to turn against the evil in him, and begin to cast it out.  If this be not the result, it is of no smallest consequence whether he agree with my interpretation or not.  If he do thus repent, it is of equally little consequence; for, setting himself to do the truth, he is on the way to know all things.  Real knowledge has begun to grow possible for him.