(4) Last of all, we must learn to set Christ's value upon ourselves. This is the tragedy of life, that we hold ourselves so cheap. We are sprung of heaven's first blood, have titles manifold, and yet, when the crown is offered us, we choose rather, like the man with the muck-rake, in Bunyan's great allegory, to grub among the dust and sticks and straws of the floor. In the times of the French Revolution, French soldiers, it is said, stabled their horses in some of the magnificent cathedrals of France; but some of us are guilty of a far worse sacrilege in that holy of holies which we call the soul. "Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold," but with blood, precious blood, even the blood of Christ. And the soul which cost that, we are ready to sell any day in the open market for a little more pleasure or a little more pelf. The birthright is bartered for the sorriest mess of pottage, and the jewel which the King covets to wear in His crown our own feet trample in the mire of the streets. The pity of it, the pity of it! In one of Dora Greenwell's simple and beautiful _Songs of Salvation_, a pitman tells to his wife the story of his conversion. He had got a word like a fire in his heart that would not let him be, "Jesus, the Son of God, who loved, and who gave Himself for me." "It was for me that Jesus died! for me, and a world of men, Just as sinful, and just as slow to give back His love again; And He didn't wait till I came to Him, but He loved me at my worst; He needn't ever have died for me if I could have loved Him first." And then he continues:-- "And could'st Thou love such a man as me, my Saviour! Then I'll take More heed to this wand'ring soul of mine, if it's only for Thy sake." Yes, we are all of worth to God, but we must needs go to the Cross to learn how great is our worth; and, as we bow in its sacred shadow, may we learn to say: "For Thy sake, O Christ, for Thy sake, I'll take more heed to this wandering soul of mine."[34] * * * * * CONCERNING SIN "O man, strange composite of heaven and earth! Majesty dwarfed to baseness! fragrant flower Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth Choking corruption! weakness mastering power! Who never art so near to crime and shame, As when thou hast achieved some deed of name." NEWMAN. * * * * * VIII CONCERNING SIN "_When ye pray, say.... Forgive us our sins._"--LUKE xi. 2, 4.