In one sense it was _not_ so. Jesus did not seek to maintain His holiness intact and unspotted by avoiding contact with the world. He mingled familiarly in its busy crowds. He frowned on none of its innocent enjoyments; He fostered, by His example, no love of seclusion; He gave no warrant or encouragement to mortified pride, or disappointed hopes, to rush from its duties; yet, with all this, what a halo of heavenliness encircled His pathway through it! "I am from above," was breathed in His every look, and word, and action, from the time when He lay in the slumbers of guileless infancy in His Bethlehem cradle, until He said, "I leave the world, and go to my Father!" He had moved uncontaminated through its varied scenes, like the sunbeam, which, whatever it touches, remains as unsullied, as when it issues from its great fountain. But though Himself in His sinless nature "unconquerable" by temptation--immutably secure from the world's malignant influences, it is all worthy of note, as an example to us, that He never unnecessarily braved these. He knew the seducing spell that same world would exercise on His people, of whom, with touching sympathy, He says, "_These_ are in the world!" He knew the _many_ who would be involved and ensnared in its subtle worship, who, "minding earthly things, would seek to slake their thirst at polluted streams!" Reader! the great problem you have to solve, Jesus has solved for you--to be "_in_ the world, and yet not _of_ it." To abandon it, would be a dereliction of duty. It would be servants deserting their work; soldiers flying from the battle-field. _Live_ in it, that while you live, the world, may feel the better for you. _Die_, that _when_ you die, the world, the _Church_, may feel your loss, and cherish your example! On its cares and duties, its trusts and responsibilities, its employments and enjoyments, inscribe the motto, "The world passeth away!" Beware of every thing in it that would tend to deaden spirituality of heart; unfitting the mind for serious thought, lowering the standard of Christian duty, and inducing a perilous conformity to its false manners, habits, tastes, and principles. As the best antidote to the love of the world, let the inner _vacuum_ of the heart be filled with the love of God. Seek to feel the nobility of your regenerated nature; that you have a nobler heritage to care for than the transitory glories which encircle "an indivisible point, a fugitive atom." How can I mix with the potsherds of the earth? Once, "I lay among the pots;" now, I am "like a dove, whose wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold!" "Stranger--pilgrim--sojourner" "my _citizenship_ is in heaven!" Why covet tinsel honors and glories? Why be solicitous about the smiles of that which knew not (nay, which frowned on) its Lord? "Paul calls it," says an old writer, "_schema_ (a mathematical figure), which is a mere _notion_, and nothing in substance."--(_Thomas Brooks._)