The self-giving on the part of one trying to win another into character must precede the self-giving of the sinner; for the sinner's own willingness to yield himself to the influence of the character of the other must first of all be won. This initial winning of the coöperative will of the other is the heart of the whole battle. And here the power relied on is not only the unconscious contagion and imitation of character that enlists a man's interest almost by surprise, but also the mightiest influence men know in breaking down the resisting will and winning men consciously and with final abandon--the influence of a patient, long-suffering, persistent, self-sacrificing love that cannot give the sinning one up. Most certainly, then, redemption cannot be without cost to the redeemer of men--not only that cost to the hero of the superior showing of superior character in a superior task, but that other cost, indissolubly linked indeed with this, of reverently, patiently, to the bitter end, helping another to conquer himself--the inevitable suffering of all redemptive endeavor for those whom one loves. This involves (1) suffering in contact with sin, (2) suffering in the rejection by those sinning, and most of all, (3) suffering in the sin itself of those one loves because one loves them--suffering which is the more intense, the more one loves. 2. _The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of Substitution and Propitiation._--Can we go yet a step farther here? It may be fairly taken for granted that where the church has strongly and persistently stood for certain modes of putting a doctrine--though the precise putting may be unfortunate--that in all probability there is there some real and important truth after which the consciousness of the church is dimly feeling. Starting, now, from this same great law of the contagion of character and the inevitable influence of an association in which there is mutual self-giving, is it not possible to show that there is a strict ethical and spiritual sense that we can understand, in which Christ's suffering may be truly called vicarious, and himself a substitute for us, and a propitiation?