Clearly, He meant, and He means, that you and I shall live such simple unselfish lovable Jesus-touched lives, in just the daily commonplace round of life, that those we live with shall know the whole story of Jesus’ love and life; His love burned out for us till there were no ashes, and His life poured out for us till not a red drop was left unspilled.

Are you writing your gospel?  Is your life spelling out this simple wondrous God-story?  I can find out, though, of course, I shall not.  What I mean is this,—­the crowd knows. The folks that touch you every day, they know.  This old Bible was never printed so much as to-day, nor issued more numerously.  And—­thoughtfully—­it was never read less by the common crowd on the common street of life than to-day.

That doesn’t mean that the crowd doesn’t read what it supposes to be religious literature.  It does.  I wish we church folk read our religious literature as faithfully as this crowd I speak of reads its.  It is reading the gospel according to you, and reading it daily, and closely, and faithfully, and remembering what it reads, and being shaped by it.

This Bible I have here is bound in—­I think it is called sealskin.  I tried to get the best wearing binding I could.  But I’ve discovered that there’s a better binding than this.  The best binding for the Gospel is shoe-leather.  The old Gospel of the Son of God is at its best as it is being tramped out on the common street of life.  Its truths stand out clearest as they’re walked out.  Its love comes warmest, its power is most resistless as it comes to you in the common give-and-take of daily touch in home and shop and street.  Are you writing your copy of the Gospel?

You know that sometimes scholars have found some precious manuscripts in old monasteries.  They have gone into some old, grey, stone monkery in the Near East, and they have run across old manuscripts hidden away in some dark cell, covered with dust and with rubbish, perhaps.  With much tact and diplomacy they have at length managed to get possession of the coveted manuscript.  And they have been fairly delighted to find that they have gotten hold of a remnant, a very precious remnant, of one of these Gospels.  In just this way much invaluable light has been gotten that made possible these precious revised versions.

I wonder if your gospel—­the one you’re writing with your life—­is just a remnant, a ragged remnant.  And perhaps there’s a good bit of dusting necessary, and removing of rubbish, to get even at what there is there.  And some of the shy hungry hearts that touch you and me need to use quite a bit of unconscious diplomacy perhaps to get even as much as they do.  I wonder.  The crowd knows.  It could throw a good bit of light here.  How much of this old Jesus-story are you really living!

Of course, there’s a special touch of inspiration in these four Gospels.  The Holy Spirit brooded over these men in a special way as they wrote.  That is true.  These are the standard Gospels.  We would never know the blessed story but for these four Spirit-breathed little books.  But it is also true that that same Holy Spirit will guide you in the writing of your version of the Gospel.