The Purposes of the Incarnation. 47 thy paleness has become the glistening white of an angel of light. So He destroys the works of the devil by giving the gift of life which destroys death. As to darkness. This is intimately associated with the thing already said. The gift of light always comes out of life. If there be death, then there is no vision. If there be life, there is light. Light means knowledge and hope and guidance, so that there is no more wandering aimlessly. By bringing light into human life and into the world He has destroyed the works of the devil. As to hatred. He destroyed hatred by His gift of love. Benevolence—and I am not using the word idly as we often do; I am using it in all its rich, spacious, gracious meaning— benevolence, well-willing, self-abnegation, kindness in the apostle’s sense of the word when writing to the Galatians he gives kindness as one of the qualities of love, the specific do ing of small things out of pure love. All these things are things by which the works of the devil are being destroyed. Hatred, avarice, jealousy, selfishness, are destroyed by shed ding abroad love which is the warmth of life, as light is its illumination. By these things He destroys the works of the devil. As to lawlessness. This He destroys by the gift of law; passion for the rights of God, service to our fellowmen; the finding of self in the great abnegation, and the finding of self in the perfect freedom because I have become the bond-slave of the infinite Lord of love. Nineteen centuries ago the Son of God was manifested, and during those centuries in the lives of hundreds, thou sands, He has destroyed the works of the devil, mastered death by the gift of life; cast darkness out by the incoming light; turned the selfishness of avarice and jealousy into love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness. He has taken hold of lawless men and made them into the willing, glad bond-
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