desire to stand beside others. It was the fruit of sympathy, seeking to identify Himself with men, sinning sorrowing men, whom He longed to save and lead to God. There was a seemliness about it hid even to John's eyes. It became Him who for love's sake was to be baptised with another baptism. Well did it become Him to fulfil all the law even in form who came to fulfil it in very essence. Love is the fulfilling of the law.

If love akin to the Master's is in your heart, you will be saved from any of the dangers and temptations which accompany conformity with what you acknowledge is imperfect. You will never conform through sluggishness and love of ease, or through indifference and despair of good; but because you will not be separated from your brethren, but will work for them and strive with them and give your life in their service, seeking to lead them to higher things; not haughtily and proudly standing aloof in fancied superiority, but one with them in all things. Your conformity will never be selfish, to avoid trouble or pain to yourself; but inspired by the love which gives unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. You will be all things to all men, if by any means you may gain some.

XXII

NEEDFUL NONCONFORMITY

The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not.— ST. MATTHEW xxiii. 3.

AGAIN and again in the course of His public ministry our Lord was forced into opposition to the religious leaders of His time. He was thwarted and obstructed in His work. His teaching was met with contemptuous indifference in the first instance, and afterwards with active and inveterate enmity. They stood in the way of enlightenment for the people; and did all that envy and malice could do to counteract His influence. This attitude of opposition was none of His choosing. He was not a mere destructive reformer, a critic of existing things, an imagebreaker who looked upon the breaking of images as in itself a great work. He came not to destroy but to fulfil. It is true that the fulfilment implied the passing of the old into new forms, and would mean change, the displacement of some cherished ideas and

practices, the transformation of the letter by the inspiring spirit. But the attitude which our Lord took to the religion of His day was not one of criticism, or of negation. He was scrupulous in conforming to all the law, as we saw in the last sermon in considering His attitude to John the Baptist when he submitted to be baptised by Him.

He knew that much had to be changed in Jewish religion before it could bless the Isles with its law: it was His life-work to change it. But He never cut Himself off from the religion of His time: never disfranchised Himself as a Jew. If He had, where would He have begun, where got foothold to pursue His work? If He had been a mere protester, a mere destructionist, much good of a kind might have been done, abuses might have been remedied, and reforms been introduced as a result of His criticism, but there would not have been the great reach forward to a spiritual religion. The God who spoke to men in Christ was the same God who had spoken at sundry times in diverse manners unto their fathers by the prophets. His revelation was the sum and completion of all previous revelations, the perfect round of which these were the broken arcs. On all occasions, even when denouncing and condemning, He safeguarded the law itself. He would not give ex

cuse for any of His hearers to imagine that the law was abrogated because He criticised the interpreters of the law. The law of God is the law of all life; and "till heaven and earth pass away one jot or tittle of the law shall in no wise pass away."

So here, when the fundamental differences between Christ and the Pharisees reached a climax, when He was compelled to pronounce upon them the most scathing condemnation, He is still consistent with His whole attitude of conformity. He recognises the Scribes and Pharisees in so far as they sit in Moses' seat, in so far as they teach the law; and He calls. upon His audience to reverently bend to the yoke of the law. "All whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." Christ did not wish His hearers to think that because He condemned the Pharisees they were at liberty to release themselves from the moral obligation of the law of God. He enforces upon them the duty of complying with the demands of the law. Never once did He preach rebellion; or let men dream that they could reach any solution of difficulties by simply cutting themselves off from the life of their time. At this very moment, when He Himself is breaking irrevocably with the religious leaders of Israel, He prefaces His indictment with an admonition to obey. The teaching underlying

these awful woes is really conservative in its tone, protecting the essential good of Jewish religion. The true reformer is the true conservative. He destroys abuses that the good of the past may be preserved.

Still the whole passage is a protest, burning with the white heat of dissent, preaching the need and the duty of nonconformity. The keynote of it is struck at the very first in these words, "Do not ye after their works." The problem of how far we should comply with established custom in thinking and acting is a very real one. It confronts us in every region of life. In business, and politics, and ordinary social duty, and religion we are continually face to face with it. It is not only the political or social or religious reformer who feels the pinch of the problem; though to him it is perhaps keener. But every young man especially, before his manner of thinking and way of living have got set and hardened, is presented with the problem in some of its forms. How far should he accept compromise, and make the best of the present conditions, and just take things as they are, and conform himself to the accepted views and habits of his circle? He begins business, and enters at once into a certain atmosphere for which he is not responsible, with recognised customs of trade and