But to have lived with
Christ must have made one like Christ: that is to say, A CHRISTIAN.
As a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce this effect.
It produced it in the case of Paul. And during Christ's lifetime
the experiment was tried in an even more startling form. A few
raw, unspiritual, uninspiring men, were admitted to the inner circle
of His friendship. The change began at once. Day by day we can
almost see the first disciple grow. First there steals over them
the faintest possible adumbration of His character, and occasionally,
very occasionally, they do a thing or say a thing that they could
not have done or said had they not been living there. Slowly the
spell of His Life deepens. Reach after reach of their nature is
overtaken, thawed, subjugated, sanctified. Their manner softens,
their words become more gentle, their conduct more unselfish. As
swallows who have found a summer, as frozen buds the spring, their
starved humanity bursts into a fuller life. They do not know how
it is, but they are different men.
One day they find themselves like their Master, going about and
doing good. To themselves it is unaccountable, but they cannot
do otherwise. they were not told to do it, it came to them to do
it. But the people who watch them know well how to account for
it--"They have been," they whisper, "with Jesus.
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