And if you haven't it, the way to get it is to be filled with God's spirit, and the way to do that is to pray, to commune with God in secret, to patiently wait for Him, as David did (Psalms xl, 1), and to be with Him so much that He shall become more real to you than the objects of sight and sound and feeling that surround you. MATTHEW V: 13. "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men." Jesus takes the most familiar facts and objects to convey the truths and doctrines which He wished to communicate. Here he uses for illustration an object, with the properties and uses of which everybody is familiar--namely, salt. It is good to prevent corruption and to preserve life. Without it life could not continue. I have heard of a party of travelers whose supply of salt almost gave out; and not having enough for themselves and their horses, the horses grew weak, would stagger, and finally fall and die, though they had food for them. Yet the lack of salt could not be supplied by any amount of food. So it is with Christianity. It prevents corruption, moral corruption, in the individual, and so prevents social corruption, political corruption, national corruption, and is the means of purification in all these respects. But it not only prevents corruption, it imparts spiritual life and vigor and sends its possessors on their way filled with an energy that goes out after others. Christianity is suited to be the salt of the earth. It demands a perfect morality, a perfect righteousness, and offers the highest motives to men to attain this. It teaches, with assurance, that there is a righteous God who demands holiness on our part, and, at the same time, it encourages men and inspires them with hope because it declares that this God loves men, as sinners, and so it gets hold of men by the heart. If man will only compare those nations that are Christian with those that are not, he will find out what a difference there is. But the text refers to the holy lives of Christians as being the salt of the earth. The savor of Christians is an unction from the spirit of God that produces purity, humility, patience, long-suffering, self-denial, tenderness, sympathy and unselfish love. And when men see a person whose daily life presents all these beauties, they are forced to pause and regard it. It is such an unnatural and such an unearthly thing that they can not help it. And it is far more convincing and eloquent than all logic and rhetoric put together. There is no way of getting around it. Men know that a gifted orator can dress things up so as to make any cause seem a fair and plausible one, but men know also that neither a gifted orator nor any one less than God can make men humble, pure, patient, gentle, long-suffering, unselfish and glad to spend and be spent for others than themselves.