+IV. How this noblest of arts may be acquired.+ 1. _By setting before ourselves, and carefully studying, the noblest models._ Thus do those who would become proficient in other arts: music, painting, sculpture, architecture, &c. Now the great Master in the art of well-doing was our Lord Jesus Christ: we must therefore study Him and His works. But as it is often a help to the discovery of the secrets of a great master's excellences to study the works of his disciples, as thus our attention is sometimes directed to points we might otherwise overlook, and as by the contrast between him and them, even when they have done their best, we get a clearer view of his transcendent power--so it will be helpful to us to study the character of Christ's noblest disciples,[4]--always, however, coming back to the study of _His_ character, remembering that we shall succeed in doing well only in proportion as we become like _Him._ 2. _By becoming imbued with the principles by which the great masters in this art were animated._ Mere mechanical imitation is always a poor thing, and often a grotesque and pitiable thing; because circumstances are continually varying. What kind of an English home would the most exact reproduction of the most beautiful of all classic villas be? The architect who forgot that the climate of England is not like that of Rome or Athens would be accounted a fool. Yet many professed imitators of Christ have fallen into a similar mistake; they have imitated merely the outward circumstances of His life, and have forgotten that the essential thing it to have "the _mind_ that was in Christ." When we have _that,_ all else will follow as a matter of course. Now the great principle which governed Christ and His noblest disciples was love--love to God and man: a _docile_ love, which did not seek to please God in _its_ way, but in _His_ way, and evermore searched the Scriptures to discover upon what things God looks with delight. 3. _By patient and persevering endeavours to embody in our practice the truths we have thus discovered._ Only by such endeavours can the mastery in any art be won. 4. _By fidelity in little things._ The master's ease is reached only by the student's painstaking--by his careful endeavour to be _right_ in each individual note, line, shade, stroke, word. It is _thus,_ and thus only, that the _habit_ of doing well is gained.