STUDY I. ENTRANCE INTO CHRISTIAN LIFE.

"And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." (John xvii. 3.)

"Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life." (John v. 39, 40.)

PART 1. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A CHRISTIAN?

PERHAPS the greatest religious need of our time is that we shall get away from the false conceptions of what it means to be a Christian. Not a few people still hold to the idea that believing certain things makes one a follower of Christ. Every one must recognize that one's belief vitally affects one's life, hence no one can afford to be careless about what he believes; but no amount of intellectual assent to truths of whatever order will make one a Christian. The Pharisees believed that a careful reading and memorizing of Scripture, a punctilious keeping of the law, a slavish following of the traditions would bring eternal life. Christ bluntly sets aside any such hope.

Others think that being a Christian means the experiencing of ecstatic feelings of joy and peace. No one can doubt that religious life brings both peace and joy, and at times these feelings burst forth into ecstasy; but the waiting for such a feeling to come has kept many a person from entering the realm of the Christian life. In all of Christ's teachings he does not prescribe any certain type of feelings the experiencing of which shall be the condition of becoming a disciple of his.

A third class of people hold that Christian experience is simply a high type of moral life. Matthew Arnold's defini

tion of religion as "morality touched with emotion" has found many sympathizers. Christian experience cannot be divorced from moral life, but it is deeper than simple morality. Indeed, it is the mainspring of our truest and surest morality.

What, then, is it to be a Christian? Christ put it tersely when he said it was to know God and his messenger Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is to be a friend of God as he is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. One must not stop with the searching of the Scripture, but through it must pass on to a knowledge and fellowship with Christ. One must expect to have such feelings and only such as one would have in the presence of a great and true friend. And in view of this fellowship with Christ, one must act as is becoming in the presence of this perfect Friend. For such a morality the Christ friendship furnishes the power.

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Does the precept run "Believe in good,
In justice, truth, now understood
For the first time?"-or, "Believe in me,
Who lived and died, yet essentially
Am Lord of life?" Whoever can take

The same to his heart and for mere love's sake
Conceive of the love-that man obtains

A new truth; no conviction gains

Of an old one only, made intense

By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

-Browning's "Christian Eve."

STUDY I. ENTRANCE INTO CHRISTIAN LIFE.

"Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly_pardon.” (Isa. lv. 6, 7.)

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John i. 8, 9.)

PART 2. STEPS IN ENTERING THIS FRIENDSHIP.

(a) Forgiveness.

IF, as our first study set forth, to be a Christian means to be on terms of friendship with the God whom Christ came to make known, then the foremost question for every man is, how he may enter this friendship. What are the conditions of coming into friendly relations with this Father God?

The first condition of any true friendship is that all barriers separating the two persons shall be removed. Let us suppose that you and I are so related to each other that a friendship is not only desirable but possible. Let us suppose that I get sick and you visit me, or that I am in need and you help me, or that I am lonely and you comfort me. Let us suppose that when the crisis is past I show no appreciation of your kindness; that I pass it by and never indicate the least gratitude. Or let us suppose (a perfectly possible thing) that I am not only silent about your kindness, but I deliberately go out and defame your name. In either case there is a barrier raised between you and me. Until that barrier of misunderstanding is removed, there can be no friendship.

If you are a true soul you will still continue to love me,

but you cannot approve my actions. How can I get back into your approving friendship? There is just one way. When I come to realize that I have done you a wrong, that I have been unfair, I will, like a man, come back to you and ask your forgiveness. If you are genuine, and if you know or have reason to believe that I am in earnest, I will get forgiveness— that is, the barrier will be removed and a real friendship will be possible.

Our Christlike God has done everything possible to give us larger life. He has given us Christian homes, Christian Churches, Christian schools-above all, he has given us Jesus Christ; and yet many of us have been absolutely indifferent, or perhaps we have committed overt acts of sin. In either case we have greatly grieved the heart of our Father God. He loves us, but he cannot approve of our life. How can we get back into his approving love? By coming to him in simple, manly fashion, and asking him to forgive us our indifference and sin. All true men and women will ask forgiveness when they know they have wronged a friend. Will we be fair-minded enough to do the same with God?

Can it be true, the grace he is declaring?

O let us trust him, for his words are fair!
Man, what is this, and why art thou despairing?

God shall forgive thee all but thy despair.

-Myers's "St. Paul."

STUDY I. ENTRANCE INTO CHRISTIAN LIFE.

"Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God." (Mic. vi. 6-8.)

PART 3. STEPS IN ENTERING THIS FRIENDSHIP

a

(Continued).

(b) Repentance.

PERHAPS Some student is still unsatisfied about the condition of asking this forgiveness. He is looking for some upheaval of the emotions to warn him that he must ask for forgiveness. We have so long been schooled in the thought of emotionalism that we fear to trust our good judgment and the dictates of our conscience telling us that we are wrong and that we ought to get right. If we have sinned, it is the God in us (we call it conscience) that tells us so; and if we know that we ought to get right, it is our God-given judgment that seeks to direct. We can trust these, regardless of what our feelings are or are not.

I spoke once at the University of Tennessee on the social meaning of a man's sin. W—, the captain of the football team and the President of the Young Men's Christian Association, told me next day that after the address one of his team-mates had come into his room and, with tears in his eyes and signs of deep emotion, had told W- he had been unfair toward him; that he had tried to defeat him for the cap