God is all for quality; man is for quantity. The immediate need of the
world at this moment is not more of us, but, if I may use the
expression, a better brand of us. To secure ten men of an improved
type would be better than if we had ten thousand more of the average
Christians distributed all over the world. There is such a thing in
the evangelistic sense as winning the whole world and losing our own
soul. And the first consideration is our own life--our own spiritual
relations to God--our own likeness to Christ. And I am anxious,
briefly, to look at the right and the wrong way of becoming like
Christ--of becoming better men: the right and the wrong way of
sanctification.
Let me begin by naming, and in part discarding, some processes in
vogue already for producing better lives. These processes are far from
wrong; in their place they may even be essential. One ventures to
disparage them only because they do not turn out the most perfect
possible work.