idiosyncrasies, and national life or ecclesiastical distinctions.
Whether it be Francis of Assisi or John Wesley, whether it be Thomas a
Kempis or George Fox, the light is one that shines through these
many-coloured panes of glass, and the living Church is the witness of
a living Lord, not only before it, and behind it, and above it, but
living in it. They are 'light' because they are irradiated by Him.
They are 'light' because they are 'in the Lord.' But not only by the
fact of the existence of such a community is the witness-bearing
effected, but it comes as a personal obligation, with immense weight
of pressure and immense possibilities of joy in the discharge of it,
to every Christian man and woman.

What, then, is the witness that we all are bound to bear, and shall
bear if we are true to our obligations and to our Lord? Mainly, dear
brethren, the witness of experience. That a Christian man shall be
able to stand up and say, 'I know this because I live it, and I
testify to Jesus Christ because I for myself have found Him to be the
life of my life, the Light of all my seeing, the joy of my heart, my
home, and my anchorage'--that is the witness that is impregnable. And
there is no better sign of the trend of Christian thought to-day than
the fact that the testimony of experience is more and more coming to
be recognised by thoughtful men and writers as being the sovereign
attestation of the reality of the Light. 'I see'; that is the proof
that light has touched my eyeballs. And when a man can contrast, as
some of us can, our present vision with our erstwhile darkness, then
the evidence, like that of the sturdy blind man in the Gospels, who
had nothing to say in reply to the subtleties and Rabbinical traps and
puzzles but only 'I was blind; now I see'--his experience is likely to
have the effect that it had in another miracle of healing: 'Beholding
the man which was healed standing amongst them, they could say nothing