In that grace you are a shade improved. But that only brings out more
astoundingly your frightful shortcoming in other particulars. Now,
adopting Paul's method, this happens: Christ acts on our character
just as a person acts upon a mirror. The whole image is reflected at
once. How is it that society moulds a man? How can you tell in what
class in society a man has been brought up? Not by one thing, not by
his accent, not by his bearing, not by his conduct, but the whole
man. And why? Because a man does not consciously imitate this or that
feature of the society in which he is brought up, does not do it
consciously at all; he is merely reflecting it as a mirror, and
society acts on him as a whole, and makes him the man he is. "Just
so," says Paul. "Live with Christ, and He will make you the man that
you are destined to be."

One word in conclusion. I suppose there is no one who at one time or
other has not earnestly desired to be of some use in the world.
Perhaps there are few who have not even definitely desired to be of
some use in the kingdom of Christ. As soon as we recognise the
uniqueness of Christ's purpose and the uniqueness of His power in the
world, as soon as we recognise that all good influence and all
superlatively dominant influence proceeds from Him, and that really
the hope of our race lies in Jesus Christ--as soon as we realise
that, as soon as we see that with our reason, and not as a thing that
we have been taught to believe, as soon as we lay hold on it for
ourselves, we cannot but wish to do something to forward His purposes
in the world. But as soon as we form the wish we say, "What can we
do? We have not been born with great gifts; we have not been born in
superior positions; we have not wealth; we are shut off from the
common ways of doing good; we cannot teach in the Sabbath school; we
cannot go and preach; we cannot go and speak to the sick; we cannot