be not there, only then has he a right to believe if the Christ find him there.  And where is that?  When a man takes up the highest duties, when he accepts the noblest life, when he lays open his soul to the great exactions and obligations which belong to him in his spiritual nature, when he tries to be a pure man, a devoted man, a noble man, only then has he a chance to know that force which only then comes into its activity.  Only when a man tries to live the divine life can the divine Christ manifest Himself to him.  Therefore the true way for you to find Christ is not to go groping in a thousand books.  It is not for you to try evidences about a thousand things that people have believed of Him, but it is for you to undertake so great a life, so devoted a life, so pure a life, so serviceable a life, that you cannot do it except by Christ, and then see whether Christ helps you.  See whether there comes to you the certainty that you are a child of God, and the manifestation of the child of God becomes the most credible, the most certain thing to you in all of history.

It may have been that such moments have been in some of your lives.  Think of the noblest moment that you ever passed, of the time when, lifted up to the heights of glory, or bowed down into the very depths of sorrow, every power that was in you was called forth to meet the exigency or to do the work.  Think of the time when you stood upon the mountain top or plunged into the gulf.  Remember that time—­it may have been the death of your little child, it may have been your own sickness, it may have been your failure in business, it may have been the moment of your complete success in business, when you were solemnized as the great shower of wealth poured down upon you, and you felt that now you really had some work for God to do in the world.  Ah, look back to that moment and see if then it seemed so strange to you that God should come into the presence and person of His universe, of His children, and take possession of their life.  We grow so easily to forget our noblest and most splendid times.  It seems to me there is no maxim for a noble life like this:  Count always your highest moments your truest moments.  Believe that in the time when you were the greatest and most spiritual man, then you were your truest self.  Men do just the other thing.  They say it was “an exception, a derangement of my nature, an exultation, a frenzy, it was something that I must not expect again.”  How about the time when they plunged into baseness and made their soul like a dog’s soul?  They shudder at the thought of that because they think it would come again.  Nay, nay, shudder if you will at the thought of that, but believe that the highest you ever have been you may be all the time, and vastly higher still if only the power of the Christ can occupy you and fill your life all the time.