262 SAVING AND INSTRUCTING GRACE
of the Lord Jesus Christ, grace had drawn aside the curtain of mystery and explained to him the great sight ; and she has a similar lesson for all who learn at her school.
.^ Christ came. The soul the most full of love, the most sacredly virtuous, the most deeply inspired by God and the future, that men have yet seen on earth — Jesus. He bent over the corpse of the dead world, and whispered a word of faith. Over the clay that had lost all of man but the movement and the form. He uttered words until then unknown — love, sacrifice, a heavenly origin. And the dead arose. A new life circulated through the clay, which philosophy had tried in vain to reanimate. From that corpse arose the Christian world, the world of liberty and equality. Prom that clay arose the true man, the image of God, the precursor of Humanity. Christ expired. All He had asked of mankind wherewith to save them — says Lamennais — was a cross whereon to die. But ere He died He had announced the glad tidings to the people. To those who asked of Him whence He had received it, He answered: From God, the Father. From the height of His cross He had invoked Him twice. There- fore upon the cross did His victory begin and still does it endure. Have faith, then, 0 you who suffer for the noble cause — apostles of a truth which the world of to-day comprehends not — warriors in the sacred fight whom it yet stigmatizes with the name of rebels ! To-morrow, perhaps, this world, now incredulous or indifferent, will bow down before you in holy enthusiasm. To- morrow victory will bless the banner of your crusade. Walk in faith, and fear not. That which Christ has done, humanity may do. Believe and you will conquer.^
4. Hitherto we have been occupied in considering the negative teaching of grace, by which her pupils are trained to deny un- godliness and worldly lusts. But while this negation and repudia- tion must necessarily come first, no greater mistake could be made than to suppose that the teaching of grace is merely or mainly negative, or that it aims simply at repressing that which is recognized as evil. On the contrary, this is one of the most prominent points in which grace stands in contrast with law. The demands of law are, not exclusively perhaps but mainly, negative. The claims of grace are principally positive.
Much is being said now in regard to different types of Christianity — an Oriental type and an Occidental type, a first-
^ Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini, iii. 143.
TITUS II. II, 12 26
v)
century type, a medi?eval type, and a modern type ; and we hear also of a possible Japanese and Hindu type. There is some truth in such distinctions, but, after all, there is but one type of true life. No matter when a man lived, there was but one way to live — a sober, righteous, and godly way, No matter what type of Christian life may be developed in Japan or India, it must be a sober, righteous, and godly type.
(1) Soberly, — The word "soberly" has by no means the narrow signification which the besetting vice of England has given to it now — viz., abstinence from, or a very restrained use of, intoxicating liquors, nor even the wider one of a curbing of the desires of sense. The meaning may be better represented by self-control than by any other rendering. Now, if there were no men in the world but myself, and if I had no thought or know- ledge of God, and if there were no other standard to which I ought to conform, I should have had, in my own nature, with its crowd of desires, tastes, inclinations, and faculties, plain indication that self-government was essential. For we all carry with us desires, inclinations, appetites — some of them directly connected with our physical frame, and some of them a little more refined — which are mere blind inclinations to a given specific good, and will be stirred up, apart altogether from the question of whether it is expedient or right to gratify them.
^ Of how few who [like Mr. Gladstone] have lived for more than sixty years in the full sight of their countrymen, and have been as party leaders exposed to angry and sometimes spiteful criticism can it be said that there stands on record against them no malignant word and no vindictive act ! This was due not perhaps entirely to natural sweetness of disposition, but rather to self-control and to a certain largeness of soul which would not condescend to anything mean or petty. Pride, though it may be a sin, is to most of us a useful, to some an indispensable, buttress of virtue. Nor should it be forgotten that the perfectly happy life which he led at home, cared for in everything by a devoted wife, kept far from him those domestic troubles which have soured the temper and embittered the judgments of not a few famous men. Ee\'iewing his whole career, and summing up the concurrent impressions and recollections of those who knew him best, this dignity is the feature which dwells most in the mind as the outline of some majestic Alp thrills one from afar when all the lesser beauties of glen and wood, of crag and glacier, have