They’ve forgotten his Master, if indeed—­ah, yes, if indeed he have a Master!  He has a Saviour, let us earnestly hope, and willingly believe.  But a Master!  One that sweeps and sways his mind and culture and life like the strong wind sweeps the thin young saplings in the storm—­clearly he knows nothing of that.  Men are talking of him.

And here’s another talking a bit It may be just a simple homely talk.  Or he may likewise be scholarly and eloquent.  A man should bring his best.  The old classic is beaten oil for the lamps of the sanctuary.  But there’s the soft burning fire of the real thing in his message.  And the people feel it.  The air seems a-thrill with its quiet tensity.  And the last amen is said.  And again they go out.

And here are two walking down the road together, and as they come to the cross-street, one says to his companion, “Excuse me, please, I have to go down this way.”  And the “have-to” is the have-to of an intense desire to get off alone.  And as he goes down the side street he’s talking, but—­to himself.  Listen to him:  “I’m not the man I ought to be, I wonder if Jesus is really like he said.  I wonder if the thing’s really so.  I believe—­yes, I really think I’ll risk it.  My life isn’t like it should be.  I’ll risk trying this Jesus-way.  I’ll do it.”

The man’s clean forgotten the speaker.  Oh, yes, he remembers the tone of the voice, and the look of the face, but indistinctly, far away.  He’s face-to-face with Jesus!  And the forgotten speaker is the finest evidence of the faithfulness of his speaking.  He is holding up the light.  And men run into the light.  They’ve clean forgot the little tin candlestick, they are so taken up with the light it holds.

The One Thing to Aim At.

And John keeps driving in on the point in his mind:  “that all might believe through Him”; that they might listen, stop to think, agree as to the thing being believable, then trust it; then trust Him, the Light, risk something, risk, themselves to Him, then love, love with a passionate devotion.  This was John’s objective.  It was the bull’s-eye of his target never out of his keen Spirit-opened eye.  Nothing else figured in.

This is the thing in all our living and serving and doing and giving, that men may know Jesus to the trusting, risking, loving point, the glad point.  Everything that we can bring of gold and learning and labour and skill is precious, it is as purest gold, if it lead men into heart-touch with Jesus.  And it clean misses the mark if it does less.

Who would be content to give a Belgian or Polish starveling a bare bit of bread, and a lonely stick of wood, and a rag of cloth.  Bite and stick and cloth are good, but it’s a meal and a fire, and some clothing, the man wants.  And you have both ready at hand. Things are good, provided by money and skill and research and painstaking efforts.  They do good.  But it’s Jesus men need.  It’s the warm touch that lets Him fully in with all of His human sympathy and all of His God-power, that’s what they need.