Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John

st ideal of purity, peace, self-sacrifice, unbroken communion with God; the inex

in the fourth Gospel-our Lord's way of doing small things, or

ny hearts which were destined to yield a rich harvest in due time; there is the account of one sensuous nature, quickened and spiritualised; there are promises which have been fo

ch divides with the pro?mium of his Epistle, the glory of being the lof

ine origin, of His session at God's right hand-all the hoarded love in His heart for His own which were in the world-passes by some mysterious transference into that little incident of tenderness and of humiliation. He sets an everlasting mark upon it, not by a basin of gold crusted with gems, nor by mixing precious scen

All along the course of that life-walk there were smaller preludes to the great act which won our redemption-multitudinous daily little perfect epitomes of love and sacrifice, without which the crowning sacrifice would

t, standing by his forge, and wistfully looking towards his little home, lighted up a short quarter of a mile away, and wife and children waiting for their festal supper, when he should return. It came to the last piece of his work, a rivet which it was difficult to finish properly; for it was of peculiar shape, intended by the contractor who employed him to pin the metal work of a bridge which he was constructing over the river. The smith was sorely tempted to fail in giving honest work, to hurry over a job which seemed at once so troublesome and so trifling. But some good angel whispered to the man that he should do his best. He turned to the forge with a s

hich should be finally spoken for th

ember what walking in the Christian sense is-all life's activity inward and outward. Let them think of Christ upon His cross. He was fixed to it, nailed hand and foot. Nailed; yet never-not when He trod upon the waves, not when He moved upward throug