402 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE: PERSONAL 



is to see the Father. All that is implied in the Christian faith 

 originated in a life, the life of the Master; and its perfect work is 

 done when other lives are moved by the same spirit. The heart 

 of religion lies not in adherence to an abstract system of thought, 

 not acceptance of certain great truths, nor even reverence of great 

 moral principles, but adherence to that thought and truth and 

 morality as they are revealed in a great personality, as they are 

 incarnated in a life. The dynamic of religion is personal love; 

 the driving power is found in the devotion of the disciple to his 

 Lord. Every great religion has had this personal note; and 

 Christianity has it in a preeminent degree. It asks for disciple- 

 ship, demands submission to the authority of Christ, and can be 

 satisfied with nothing less than personal spiritual relations with 

 him. This is why the faith can be universal, since it asks not for 

 intellectual assent to propositions, but personal loyalty to a match- 

 less personality; and is not an idle sentiment, but a power in actual 

 life, presenting an ideal to every man that sees the vision. It is 

 not a system of teaching merely, but a new principle of life, which 

 takes root and assimilates elements of its environment, transforming 

 them into new forms of life. The beginning of this process is when 

 a man becomes a Christian, when he opens heart and life to the 

 influence of Jesus; but that is only the beginning of a process, 

 the goal of which is that he is a man in whom Christ lives. It is 

 a spiritual transformation after the image of Christ. No part of 

 the being of man is to be left out of this great scheme; the body 

 and its members are to be the body and members of Christ and 

 to be treated as such; the mind is to be the mind of Christ; the 

 heart is to be the seat and throne and sanctuary of Christ. What 

 a magnificent ideal this New Testament conception is of the Christ- 

 birth in a man till he becomes a veritable reincarnation, until he 

 is no longer he, but Christ, reclothed in flesh and human attributes 

 by him, so that he can say with some measure of truth, as Paul 

 could say, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 



The psychology of it is, that we bring every thought into sub- 

 jection to the obedience of Christ, superimposing Christ's will 

 and mind over ours, desiring to serve and please him and not our- 

 selves, making him in all things our conscience, and bringing every- 

 thing to the test of that conscience. We let him color opinion 

 and thought and judgment and desire and ambition and hope, 

 transforming them all into his glorious purpose. The bond of 

 personal attachment is the deepest thing in religion. And, as a 

 matter of historical fact, Christ's personality has been the domi- 

 nating power in the Christian religion. The Christian character is 

 modeled on his character. The Christian mind is the same mind 

 as was in Jesus Christ. Only this personal element can give the 



