The gospel of Christ, as we understand it, undertakes to effect an entire change, a radical reformation, in human character. It proposes to reform the life by changing the heart, by giving new aims, new affections, new aspirations, new objects of love and pursuit. Jesus does not endeavor to alter and improve, a little here and a little there, on the outside of the character, to improve a little our modes of action in this and the other particular; but he alters the conduct and character by altering the fundamental ideas, and inspiring an inward life. This wonderful change, which takes place in the profoundest depth of our nature, under the influence of the Gospel,—this great event of life, which forms the turning-point of our being and history,—is called in the New Testament “the new birth,” “regeneration,” “to be born again,” “conversion,” “a new creation,” “to be born of God,” “to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” “to put off the old man,” “to have Christ formed within us.” It is a very superficial view which explains away the meaning of all these profound expressions, and supposes that they only signify a little outward improvement and reformation. We need just such a change as is here described—a radical one, not a superficial one. All need it. Those who are the most pure in heart and most blameless in character (spotless children, as they seem to us, of a heavenly world) feel their own need of this change no less than do the profligate and openly vicious. Parents and friends say, “We have no fault to find with them.” They do not say they have no fault to find with themselves. They feel they have all kinds of fault to find with themselves, and nothing is so painful to them as this commendation. They say, “Outwardly we may seem innocent, but we feel an inward want that weighs on our heart like a frost.”