The same divine Cause tends always to similar effects. Unhappily it does not always act without obstruction--obstruction which need not be. There are no doubt obstructions to its action which are inherent in our mortality; things which have to do really with physical temperament, or again with external circumstances which we may be helpless to modify. But the Cause, _in itself, tends always_ to the effects visible in this noble passage of Christian affection. The possession and knowledge of Jesus Christ, in spirit and in truth, tends always, by an eternal law, to warm and open as well as to purify the human heart; to anchor it indeed immoveably to God, but also to suffuse it with a gracious sympathy towards man, and first and most of all towards man who is also, in Christ, cognizant of the "free-masonry" of faith. Let this be our first main Lesson in Faith and Love in our Philippian studies. The section which we have traversed is full of points of interest and importance otherwise; but this aspect of it is so truly dominant that we may rightly take it for the true message of the whole. Let us welcome it home. Let us question ourselves, in presence of it, and before our Lord, first about our personal possession of the Cause, and then about our personal manifestation of the effects. Let us put to our own hearts some very old-fashioned interrogations: _Am I indeed in Jesus Christ? Is He to me indeed Possessor, Lord, Giver of grace and peace? Is my life so lived and my work so done in contact with Him that through Him, and not merely through myself, "my fruit is found"? Is His promised Day the goal and longing of my heart, as I submit myself to Him that He may perfect His work in me by the way, and watch over myself that I may meet Him single-hearted and "without offence" at the end? Is He the pervading and supreme Interest of my life? Is He the inward Power which colours my thought and gives direction and quality to my affections?_ No answer which a heart fully wakeful to God can give to such deliberate inward questionings can possibly be an easy or "light-hearted" answer. The gladdest and most thankful utterance of such a heart will carry along with it always the prayer, "Search me, O God, and try my heart"; "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant." Yet we are assuredly meant, if we are in Christ, so to know the fact as to rejoice in it, and to be strong in it; we are invited, without a doubt, so to know Him as to know we know Him, and to find in Him "all our salvation, and all our desire." Let us not rest till, in great humility but with perfect simplicity, we so see Him as to leave behind our doubts about our part and lot in Him, and, "believing, to rejoice."