' A. Moody Stuart, Rrcollections of John Duncan, 17. " T. E. I}ro\vn, Old John and Othtr Poems, 181.
PSALM XXXIV. 8 109
a God who was good could have done the bad things I had imagined.^
^ The Lord's goodness surrounds ns at every moment. I walk through it almost with difficulty, as through thick grass and flowers.^
^ He took his pain and all the trials of his days, and said, " They say there is a better land, but it is hard to believe." Thus he was a true pilgrim, for it is only stupid people who think that the vision of the loveliest city in the loveliest land dims the pilgrim's eyes to the fair beauties of this world. He did not make the most of two worlds ; but as he lived to be worthy of that city with foundations, God counted him worthy to find along the dusty road of traffic and toil and pain the well of deep joys which only the true pilgrim can discover. These wells were at many stages of the day's road : he found one deep spring of pure, sparkling water in the morning reading of the Bible and hymn-book ; an- other when his hands were clasped in prayer.^
2. The true standard of goodness we find in Jesus Christ. Ordinary human nature measures its purity and nobility by itself, by the customs of society, by the decrees of law courts, by the maxims of current philosophy. The blessed life takes its estimate from the doctrine and spirit of Jesus. This means a higher-toned goodness which we call holiness, and applies only to those who, besides being virtuous in their actions, are possessed with an un- affected enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice, regard even a vicious thought with horror. Here is an ideal which ordinary ethics not only do not reach, but do not even attempt. When Jesus says, " If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them," the test is as spiritual as it is practical. " These things " include what He referred to as a pure heart ; an inner life, that is, which is utterly true to both the great commands, as He interpreted and emphasized them. How much more this means than the honesty which keeps men out of prison, and the kindness which makes daily life tolerable, no words are needed to show. The blessed life receives Christ Jesus as Lord ; that is the open secret of its ethical and spiritual superiority to every other life.
(1) The hope of the world lies in its vision of goodness, in its
1 Mrs. Pearsall Smith. 2 ^ ^^ Barbour, Thoughts, 107.
* Love and Life : The Story of J. Denholm Brash, 198.
no THE GOODNESS OF GOD
realization of character. The only radical and final remedy for human misery is in the remoulding of human character. It is a potent truth, alike for good and ill, that character is influenced by environment. But it is even more true and potent that environ- ment is influenced by character. The elevation of individual character is an old highway to social happiness, but it is confessedly difficult, and many eager philanthropists have sought for shorter cuts. Sooner or later, however, the return has to be made to the only road. What it all comes to is that the blessed life is ulti- mately the only hope of humanity. Christendom may sadly fail to teach or to exemplify this hope. But that is not the failure of Christianity. For the needs of the whole world, Christianity has never yet been tried. The modern Christian, like the ancient Israelite, is continually forsaking the true God to worship idols. Hence the Church's impotence to bless the world. But if only the profession of Christianity did mean on all hands the embodiment of the blessed life, full churches would be but a small fraction of the result. Much more may be affirmed with no lees truth — even this, that the curses of civilization (which may well alarm un- belief) would come to an end as surely as noxious bacteria in sunlight ; society would be leavened with even more certainty than yeast leavens dough ; human sorrows would be brought to their natural and tolerable minimum; and the nations would be in such assurance of permanent peace that the millions expended on murderous battleships could be utilized for the abolition of poverty and the enrichment of humanity.
^ There is one signal service which the appeal of the Christian character is peculiarly apt to render in the cause of faith. It is often the only power which can confront the steady, surreptitious, miserable pressure with which the sins of Christians tight against the work of Christ. It may be that the contest between these two forces covers by far the greater part of the whole battlefield ; and that; while critics and apologists, with their latest weapons (or with the latest improvement of their old ones), are charging and clashing amid clouds of dust — with the world still thinking that here at last is the real crisis — the practical question between belief and disbelief is actually being settled for the vast majority of men by the silent and protracted conflict between the con- sistent and the inconsistent lives of those who alike profess them- selves Christians; the conflict between the contrasted experience