them because unashamed to own their Lord and unfearing to follow Him.
Of such as those are we to be? Or will temptation intimidate us, and the tone of the conversation of the men and women with whom we mingle pull us down and cause us to fold our colours up and lay them away, as the man did whom the sneer of a serving maid caused to deny the Lord Who was dying for him?
Where are we to find that which will drive out this fear? "Perfect love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in love." From how many of our hearts to-day will the perfect love of Him Whom we call Master and Lord expel all fear? Let it be so now. Not years afterwards, when other things shall have palled upon us, years that shall have brought their dulling influence with them, but now, in all the full strength and richness and glory and eagerness of our lives, let us admit the perfect love that shall cast out fear and send us out the kind of men and women Christ would have us be, to join the great company of men and women and girls and boys who, unfearing,
". . . climbed the steep ascent of Heaven,
Through peril, toil and pain.
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train!"
Christian character needs this conquest of fear and it needs the love which is one of the deep
