"FOLLOW ME"

New Zealand Tablet, 6 October 1921, Page 33

" FOLLOW ME"

(John 21: 19)

In these two words, "follow Me," our Divine Lord gives us not only a compendium of Christanity, a code of morals and a practical rule of life, but also the application of a fundamental truth. In these two words Christ holds out before us' an ideal and exhorts 'us to follow it according to our power. It is a fundamental truth of human nature that every man has an ideal, which he endeavors to copy as often as he acts with deliberation and purpose. This ideal serves him as a model which he endeavors to imitate, for man is by nature a creature of imitation. Without such a model man's actions and his life would be aimless

and irrational. Consequently an ideal of some kind is indispensable. Man's ideals are the parents of his acts, and hence the first thing to be done in any work is to acquire an ideal. All the rest is but the executing and realising of this ideal. The painter begins with his ideal which he gradually expresses on the canvas.. The sculptor patiently chisels the block of granite, shaping and polishing it according to the ideal, until, at last, the rugged stone is transformed into a work of art. The architect labors long and patiently before he sees the edifice rise out of the shapless mass of brick and stone and timber; yet it is thus he realises the ideal with 'which he started out, and so it is with life. Just as our language is the expression and equivalent of our thoughts, so our actions and our life are but the outward expression and equivalent of our ideals. It fs a diversity of ideals that accounts largely for the difference among men. Some men have fanciful and impossible ideals, and we call them dreamers, because they are always building castles in the air. Others have low and sordid ideals, and we call them degenerates and people of depraved taste. Others again, observing the golden mean, have elevated and practical ideals, and we call them successful men and women because'-their ideals are well chosen and faithfully executed. As men seldom rise above their ideals and often fall below them, it is well to know and to calculate on this tendency in human nature of falling below the mark.

The artist who places before his pupil a masterpiece as a model does not expect a perfect reproduction, but rather 1 a more or less imperfect copy, according to the skill and capacity of the student. Yet he keeps before him'a masterpiece to educate his taste and form his ideals after a perfect model. So our divine Lord, the great teacher of Christianity, has given us in Himself a perfect model, and in these-words "follow Me" applies that, fundamental law of human nature and furnishes us a masterpiece which we should-imitate and reproduce according to our .-capacity. In that short sentence, '"'follow Me," Christ gives us the essence of Christianity, for Christianity is not a mere theory, it is a practice.. It is not a mere science, it is an art, and every man who is a Christian in reality and not merely in name, is an artist, with Christ as his model, and is striving to reproduce in himself in some degree, at least, an image of this great masterpiece.— Truth N.Y.