(2) But, again, what is meant by the 'imitation of Christ' has been also misconceived. Imitation is not a literal mechanical copying. To make the character of another your model does not mean that you are to become his mimic or echo. In asking us to follow Him, Christ does not desire to suppress our individuality, but to enrich and ennoble it. When He says, on the occasion of the feet-washing of His disciples, 'I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you,'[7] obviously it was not the outward literal performance, but the spirit of humility and service embodied in the act which He desired His disciples to emulate. From another soul we receive incentives rather than rules. No teacher or master, says Emerson, can {152} realise for us what is good.[8] Within our own souls alone can the decision be made. We cannot hope to interpret the character of another until there be within our own breasts the same moral spirit from which we believe his conduct to proceed. The very nature of goodness forbids slavish reproduction. Hence there is a certain sense in which the paradox of Kant is true, that 'imitation finds no place at all in morality.'[9] The question, 'What would Jesus do?' as a test of conduct covers a quite inadequate conception of the intimate and vital relations Christ bears to our humanity. 'It is not to copy after Christ,' says a modern writer, 'but to receive His spirit and make it effective--which is the moral task of the Christian.'[10] Christ is indeed our example, but He is more. And unless He were more He could not be so much. We could not strive to be like Him if He were not already within us, the Principle and Spirit of our life, the higher and diviner self of every man. What is meant, then, by saying that Christ is the ideal character or norm of life is that He represents to us human nature in its typical or ideal form. As we behold His perfection we feel that this is what we were made for, this is the true end of our being. Every one may, in short, see in Him the fulfilment of the divine idea and purpose of man--the conception and end of himself.[11] II _The Christian Motive_.--Rightly regarded Christ is not only the model of the new life, but its motive as well. All the great appeals of the Gospel--every persuasion and plea by which God seeks to awaken a responsive love in the hearts of men--are centred in, and find expression through, the Person and Passion of Christ.