1. _In Coming into the Kingdom._--We are introduced through others into all spheres of value, including friendship even with God. In the atmosphere of those who already feel the value, our interest is aroused; we find it possible at least to take those initial steps of a dawning attention, which give the value opportunity to make its own impression upon us, and bring us to an appreciation, to a faith of our own. Only so is that most difficult of all tasks in the redemption of a man--that first stirring of a new appetite, a new desire, a new aspiration, a new ideal--accomplished. We are members one of another here to an extent that deserves ever fresh emphasis. We cannot too often say to ourselves, Had it not been that there were those who actually entered into the meaning of the revelation of God in Christ--who, in John's language, "beheld his glory"--the record of that revelation never could have come down to us. Christianity must have perished at its birth. "Hence," in the vital language of Herrmann, "the picture of his inner life could be preserved in his church or 'fellowship' alone. But, further, this picture so preserved can be understood only when we meet with men on whom it has wrought its effect. We need communion with Christians in order that, from the picture of Jesus which his Brotherhood has preserved, there may shine forth that inner life which is the real heart of it. It is only when we see its effects, that our eyes are opened to its reality so that we may thereby experience the same effect. Thus we never apprehend the most important element in the historical appearance of Jesus until his people make us feel it. The testimony of the New Testament concerning Jesus is the work of his church, and its exposition is the work of the church, through the life which that church develops and gains for itself out of this treasure which it possesses."[89] The Christian is no Melchizedek, then, without father or mother; he comes into life in a community of life, and usually, moreover, through the personal touch of some other individual life. It is the one primal law, of life through life.