Scripture, and lays firm and broad in the depths the foundation-stones
of a reasonable faith, draws the contrast between 'that Light' and
them whose business it was to bear witness to it. As for the former, I
cannot here venture to dilate upon the great, and to me absolutely
satisfying and fundamental, thoughts that lie in these eighteen first
verses of this Gospel. 'The Word was with God,' and that Word was the
Agent of Creation, the Fountain of Life, the Source of the Light which
is inseparable from all human life. John goes back, with the
simplicity of a child's speech, which yet is deeper than all
philosophies, to a Beginning, far anterior to 'the Beginning' of which
Genesis speaks, and declares that before creation that Light shone;
and he looks out over the whole world, and declares, that before and
beyond the limits of the historical manifestation of the Word in the
flesh, its beams spread over the whole race of man. But they are all
focussed, if I may so speak, and gathered to a point which burns as
well as illuminates, in the historical manifestation of Jesus Christ
in the flesh. 'That was the true Light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world.'

Next, he turns to the highest honour and the most imperative duty
laid, not only upon mighty men and officials, but upon all on whose
happy eyeballs this Light has shone, and into whose darkened hearts
the joy and peace and purity of it have flowed, and he says, 'He was
sent'--and they are sent--'to bear witness of that Light.' It is the
noblest function that a man can discharge. It is a function that is
discharged by the very existence through the ages of a community
which, generation after generation, subsists, and generation after
generation manifests in varying degrees of brightness, and with
various modifications of tint, the same light. There is the family
character in all true Christians, with whatever diversities of