^ It is the blending of purity with gentleness that makes "goodness." A good man is something more than a strictly righteous man or a strictly just man. There is a gentleness and grace to add a charm to what might otherwise be repellent in the strength and vigour of his convictions and life. A good man is a man who has strong convictions, and who, having them, has also graces that impart a beauty to them. The earth has a backbone of granite rock, but it does not project its granite rock in every spot of charming landscape. There, as a rule, it shows its gentleness and grace ; and even when by mighty upheavals or convulsions it shows here and there its rocky ribs, it clothes them with some "half tone" of moss or lichen or foliage. So that, associated with the most rugged force, there is a gentle grace and ' H. W. Mabie, The Life of the SpirU, 133. EPH.-COL. — 1 6
242 THE FRUIT OF THE LIGHT
beauty. It is only when we try the strength of the earth that we find the strength of backbone it has. And so in the case of the typical good man. Such are his gentleness and grace that it is only when men try the strength of his principles that they find the granite rock under all. The good man is the gentle man — gentle in the gentleness, and strong in the strength, of Christ.^
^ I must, from time to time, remind you of what I have often recommended to you, and of what you cannot attend to too much : sacrifice to the Graces. The different effects of the same things, said or done, when accompanied or abandoned by them, is almost inconceivable. They prepare the way to the heart ; and the heart has such an influence over the understanding that it is worth while to engage it in our interest. It is the whole of women, who are guided by nothing else ; and it has so much to say even with men, and the ablest men too, that it commonly triumphs in every struggle with the understand ing.^
(2) " In all goodness " — goodness of every variety. The piety of one man is deep and silent like the broad winding river which carries peace and plenty to the country through which it passes ; the piety of another is strong and demonstrative like the wind which drives the ship from one continent to the other with its weight of wealth and commerce ; the piety of the third is modest and retiring like the violet which flourishes best in the shade, but whose fragrance is never hidden. And yet they are all the fruit of the light. The piety of Peter is the piety which is active, energetic, impulsive, impetuous, rushing down the hill like an Alpine torrent, or over the precipice like a mighty cataract. The piety of John and Mary is the piety of the meditative mystics, who lay the head on the Master's breast to listen to the pulsations of His heart, or who sit at His feet to drink in His message and to catch every breeze that blows from the throne. The piety of the publican is the piety that dares not look up to heaven, and yet grows one of the sweetest fruits in the garden of God — humility. " The fruit of the light is in all goodness " — in the type that says nothing, and in the type that says everything, in the type that works, and in the type that waits.
^ A great many mistakes are made about amiability. A man may be amiable simply through mere want of interest or force ; he
^ D. Davies, Talks with Men, Women and Children, vi. 379. * Lord Chesterfield, Letters to his Son, i. 326.
EPHESIANS V. 9, 243
may be so constituted that he really does not much care who is who or what is what. He may have a senile grin — call it a smile if you please — for anybody and for all persons alike, — a nice old man who never says a cross word, and never has a frown upon his face. That is not amiability. Here is a man who is naturally unamiable ; he looks with a discriminating eye upon man and things; he is very passionate, fiery, self-asserting. Yet, by the grace of God, he is kept back ; at times he shakes in the leash ; he often seems as if he would break it and be away ! Yet God's hold upon him is such that he speaks gentle words, restrains terms of indignation and wrath, moderates his rising passion. There — though he cannot look very amiable, though he may have a grim face — is the amiable man.^
^ " He went about doing good." So we might say in our own age of two or three who have been personally known to us, "He or she went about doing good." They are the living witnesses to us of His work. If we observe them we shall see that they did good because they were good — because they lived for others and not for themselves, because they had a higher standard of truth, and therefore men could trust them, because their love was deeper, and therefore they drew others after them. These are they of whom we read in Scripture that they bear the image of Christ until His coming again, and of a few of them that they have borne the image of His sufferings, and to us they are the best interpreters of His life. They too have a hidden strength which is derived from communion with the Unseen ; they pass their lives in the service of God, and yet only desire to be thought unprofitable servants. Their way of life has been simple — they have not had much to do with the world. They may have been scarcely known, or not known until after their death ; they may have had their trials too — failing health, declining years, the ingratitude of men — but they have endured as seeing Him who is invisible.^