Surely to us the most wonderful thing in life is personality, and it is human personality which may be the highest sacrament of good, or the most terrible sacrament of ill. Our deeds are often at their best poor clumsy acts that stray in the dark; our thoughts are all imperfect, and our words fail to express them fully. But in spite of all [p.82] this failure, soul acts upon soul, we know not how, and the influence of one life upon another goes out continually like the myriad rays of a lamp. Silently men are changed and transformed by this influence. And there is no man but is doing his part for good or ill in this transforming work, whatever he may be, wherever he may go. Is it not thus that God's self-revelation in Christ becomes real to the Christian? God speaks to us in Jesus through human personality. We draw near to him as a man, we see his life and listen to his words, and as we gaze and listen, we feel that God has taken hold of us. We are very near now to the greatest of sacraments. Did not the apostle speak of the union of the Church with Christ as μέγα μυστήριου, /magnum sacramentum/? The follower must bear, in some measure, in his life, the likeness of his master; the nearer we draw to him, the more his presence will mould our lives with the impress of his character. In the ideal marriage, even as we know it realised sometimes now, husband and wife live in such close communion, so share their thoughts, and feelings, so enter into each other's lives, that each character, reacting on the other, grows ever more like to it. May not this thought help us to understand something of what is meant by Christ's union with his Church? The Church is humanity in its ideal form, humanity as a whole striving after its true goal, and the human race comes to [p.83] understand and realize its aim by union with Christ, thus gradually growing to be more like him and to share his nature. The end and the means to it are no mere rapture of holy emotion, no selfish joy of idle contemplation. The relation- ship is much deeper; it must affect our whole character. It is not a rush of sentiment but a union of will.