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It is characteristic of St. Paul that in his Epistles, as in his ministry, he uses his own life, his own personality, almost as if they were not his own; they are as much at the service of his argument as of his work. Such was the nature of his self-surrender to Christ. There is much in the faculty of imitation, and in the facts connected with it, that is mysterious, much beyond our ken. Man is presented to us in Holy Scripture on the one hand in his first state before the fall, as a creature of imitation, made after the likeness of God. On the other hand, in his fallen state we find him wearying himself with all kinds of yearnings after the likeness of God manifested in every kind of idolatry. In the fulness of time Christ came on earth, in His human nature, both restoring the Divine image and making it possible for man to realise the long lost ideal. What wonder, then, that St. Paul, realising and profoundly impressed with this great feature of the Incarnation, should emphasise imitation of himself as leading to Christ, imitation of Christ, and imitation of God in Christ? What wonder if of all books (next to the Bible itself) the most dear to devout souls and spirits striving upwards after heavenly things should be the "Imitatio Christi" of Thomas A.Kempis? But before we go on to consider how this can become potent in our life and practice, we ought not to fail to observe one aspect of imitation which is of infinite importance to us in its effects for good or for ill. Imitation is not only a conscious activity, by which we can strive to follow and adapt ourselves to any example which we may select for ourselves. It is a part of nature; not only of human nature. It has its unconscious as well as its conscious side. It pervades animal life to an extent which we are apt to ignore or forget. It is the first didactic force. It is concerned with the simplest and most necessary problems of life. By it the young of many animals are first taught to take their food. For instance, in the case of chickens hatched by an incubator, if they are to be artificially reared, it is necessary that the example of picking up their food should be set them in some way. By imitation they learn to live. Imitation, as Darwin has pointed out, is one of the chief factors in the advancement and modification of such intellectual powers as animals possess. There are, indeed, subtle indications of its force in lower animal life, but it is most manifest in birds and in the apes, whose very name furnishes a verb of kindred meaning. And again, as we rise in the scale of animal life, it is very noticeable as a characteristic of savage races of men; of man, indeed, in what some are wont to call his primitive state. We need hardly dwell upon its development in civilised man. It is dominant in those arts which claim so large a portion in his education, his enjoyment of life, his material well-being. Again, as part of human nature, imitation has two functions, which it is important that we should observe, explanatory as they are in a measure of that which we have noticed in the history of man in relation to God. On the one hand he received the likeness, on the other hand he sought it outside himself. Even so, just as in the nervous and muscular system of the body we have the division into involuntary and voluntary, so the imitative faculty in man is unconscious and conscious, is passive as well as active. Much more of it perhaps is unconscious than conscious, and the mystery of its essential being and origin is more inexplicable in the former than in the latter. Why is it that such physical defects as squinting and tricks of movement are said to be infectious, capable of being communicated at sight to very young children? Why is it that, as so often happens, a boy's handwriting becomes like his tutor's? All these instances point to unconscious, involuntary imitation. The surroundings of a child, of a boy, of a young man, have more effect upon him than he himself can discern, or any one else can determine, and that because of this faculty of imitation, which is part and parcel of his nature. He assimilates them as he does his food, they become portions of his being, and affect his growth, his development, his ultimate destiny. Nay more, it seems as if these influences became hereditary in their effects. We cannot limit these effects to merely physical characteristics or physical results. If our intellectual and spiritual being is thus subject to the supreme influence of assimilation and unconscious imitation, can we doubt its power in the sphere of morality? "Tell me who he lives with, and I will tell you who he is," is an old proverb. "With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with the perfect man thou shalt be perfect. With the clean thou shalt be clean, and with the froward thou shalt learn frowardness." Youth is plastic. And without doubt the first and most important counsel is: "Be not over hasty in making friends"; take heed as to the associates whom you choose to live with. Remember you will probably become like them. All unconsciously your moral being will receive the impression of their moral being, their conversation, their tone, their virtues, or their vices. Unless the soul proposes to itself the imitation of good, it will prove unconsciously to be assimilating and imitating evil. The Apostle Paul had so devoted himself to the imitation of Christ, that as we have seen he regarded himself as living in Christ, and Christ living in him. This imitation cannot be without effort, and if, as in the mixed community of Corinth with all its blemishes, and weaknesses, and grievous sins, it was not easy to rise to the ideal of the unseen, yet still the nearer ideal of the good man is better than none, and the apostle did not hesitate to set his own example before them. There must be few of us who cannot find some such good example, some good and holy, some pure and honourable, some generous and manly life, to which we may look with satisfaction and hopefulness, and a desire so to follow it as to rise "upon the stepping stones of our dead selves to higher things." But even so the imitation must ultimately be not even of good and holy men, but of Christ in them. "Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ." The work of the Incarnation was not only to restore to humanity the image of the perfect man in Christ but also the power, to them that believe in Christ, of reflecting that image, and by conscious and unconscious imitation of becoming more and more like Him. I know not at what time of life this work of the imitation of Christ can be entered upon more freely, more reasonably, more joyfully, than that in which, when childish things are being put away, the young man reaching toward the maturity of his physical and mental powers, is still occupied with his own education and improvement, and is not yet immerged in the world-life with all its engrossing toil of business and pleasure, its triumphs, its disappointments, its sorrows, and soul-enthralling anxieties.

(E. Warre, D.D.)

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KJV: Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

WEB: Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.