Let us consider that. It is sometimes complained that the church tries to force Jesus Christ on men. People say, Why always "believe in Jesus Christ?" There ave people who say that they are "tired of having Jesus Christ everlastingly preached to them Why do you do it?" Because He "cannot be bettered" and the proper thing is always in man as well asin nature to aim at the highest—at "that which cannot be bettered." Why aim at that which can be bettered as every other man who might be taken as our standard but Jesus can be? We are sometimes accused of dogmatism and narrowness _in holding up Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, Not at all. Jesus comes before the world solely on His merits. People forget that. If you can find a better saviour go to him. There is no compulsion. Christ uses no force. If you can find anyone who can do more for you than Jesus Christ you are entirely at liberty to go to him. When many went back on Him when He was on earth He let them go. Christianity does nothing but what business men of the right kind do. We all see pages of the newspapers filled with motor-car advertisement. The burden of then all is this. Try our car and you will believe all we say about it. They say, Our car ''cannot be bettered" and you can satisfy yourself that it is so. That is just what we say about Christ. We say there is no one like Him; no one who can bring us to God as He can; no one who can make us ashamed of ourselves as He can and yet can fill us with such hope as He can, that, sinners as we are we may be like Him and everyone can try Him. He wrote nothing Himself. He was not like a literary man such as Rope who wrote most of his private letters with a view to their publication. Jesus did nothing of that kind. How do we know anything about Him" then? In this way. He made such a tremendous impression on those who did know Him—sucl an impression of love, of pity, of purity, of strength, of Acline that they said. "We must write this down; the story of Him must not be lost." And they wrote it down and preached Him, and here we are, strangers on the eastern edge of Asia, talking. about Him and trying to follow Him. People talk about "the supersession of Christianity by something better." All right. It is quite open to anyone who likes to set up as someone better or find someone better—who will do more for us, than Jesus Christ who will take away the incubus of sin on our souls and save this naughty world.' Let them; but meanwhile we stick to our thesis. ''The works of nature do always aim at that which cannot de _bettered"; and up to date the best is Jesus Christ.
Notice next, that the world has had a good long time to evolve or develop someone better. Two thousand years, nearly, is a long time. Man has been debating on religion, morals, conduct all these ages since the Son of Man lived; thousands of books have been written on all these eternal subjects; there have been quite 2 lot of very saintly man in these ages but, asa plain fact, Jesus Christ has not been bettered. That is an admitted fact. John Stuart Mill, though no avowed Christian, said that after all it is hard to find a better rule of life for a man than so to live as that Jesus Christ would approve his life. "That ought to make a great many people, one knows, think very hard. They are keen on having the best in everything else. If a new and better Jamp is invented they fit their house out with it. They like the best; then why treat lightly this Christ who has not been bettered yet? For notice next this extraordinary thing in human history—that there has been an unparalleied advance in everything else since His time—in science, in economics, in social conditions—but there has been no advance in morals, in spiritual things and attainment since Jesus wrist. How do you account for that if He is not the Son of God? "He cannot be bettered." That is just as true now as when Paul said it to these Ephesians, They have had a good try to beat Him but they cannot.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.