The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 532

duccd is the influence of a righteous reign in helping men to eee things as they really are, and to estimate persons according to their true worth, and not according to the mere show they may make. We deal specially with those confusions which come by false judgments of persons, and these take the following, among other forms. I. ADMIRATION OF TALENTS BLINDS us TO BADNESS OF CHARACTER, What is thought to be •1 genius" is too often allowed to excuse all sortij of laxity. The men who can astonish and amuse us may be unclean, untruthful, injurious; but we readily pass all this by. When righteousness reigns, talent will have to go with character, or men will count it to be Satanic agency. What a man can do mnst never be separated from what the man is. H. THE COMMAND OF WEALTH BRINGS FLATTERERS TO BAD MEN. There is no more painful sign of the moral deterioration of a race, than its worship of the rich because they are rich. Money can never make goodness. Wealth is not the stability of a nation. Its hope lies wholly in its good men. Yet the rich man may be violent, rude, masterful, cruel; nevertheless, multitudes will fawn on him, and call the "vile person liberal." When righteousness reigns, that confusion will_ be rectified, and the rich man shall have worship only if he deserves it for what he is. JII. THE RANK AND SOCIAL POSITION OF MEN NOW BEWILDER THEIR FELLOWS, A~D MAKE TRUE ESTIHA.TES NEARLY IMPOSSmLE. Well does Robert Burns remind us that "The rank is but the guinea-stamp, A mau'e a man for a' that." No .word of bitterness need be spoken concerning those to whom God has entrusted talents, or wealth, or social position. The point to enforce is simply the peril of letting these things confuse our ideas of moral character and moral worth. Evil is evil, and must be denounced as evil, in the genius, the man of wealth, and the man of title. Let Christ reign, and sin will be called sin, wherever it is found. He will strip all tlisguises off, and show us things as they a1·e, and men as they are. The Lord hasten his coming!-R..T, Ver. 8.-The stability of liberal men. "The liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand," or, "l:Je established." It is quite possible that Isaiah had in mind the good King Hezekiah, of whom very noble and generous things are narrated in 2 Chron. xix .. :zZ-'-26. Passing away to Messianic times, we are to see that the true subjects of Messiah, .the ideal Prince, the King who reigns in righteousness, will be distinguished by a noble-minded benevolence, contriving and persevering in the execution of enlarged schemes of charity. In Ps. ex. 3 they are very strikingly described as "a people of voluntarinesses." The term here used, "liberal," is a compre- hensi ~e one and may fairly include- !. THE NOBLE-MINDED MAN. That is the man who takes high, generous views; who does not make himself, and his own small interests, the measure of all his opinions and judgments. The man who is, everywhere and in everything, ruled by what is right, and not by what will pay, That man may oft~n seem to be at disadvantage. Keenly self-interested men push him aside and push before him. It is not really so. God will give him the only true and eternal prosperities. He deviseth liberal things; in liberal things he perseveres; and by liberal thiugs he shall stand. II. THE BROAD-MINDED MAN. Who is not limited in bis views by the sed or school to which he belongs, the class in society of which he forms part, or even by the bias which follows his own preferences in reading. The man who knows the "world is wide," and has room for all kinds of men and all varieties of opinion. The man who is quite sure there is a "soul of good somewhere, even in things evil." That man makes the best of life, gets honey everywhere. He is a "liberal soul, that shall be made.fat!'· III. 'l'IIE CHAilITAnLY MINDED MAN. One who accepts cheerfully the great "law of service," and recognizes thnt all he has is for the use and benefit of others. It is all for spending, none for hoarding. "Even Christ pleased not himself." He conld say, "I am 11.mong you 11B one that serveth." One who is sensitive to the wants and woes of his fellows, and has in him the soul of the Samaritan, who pities and helps, rather than the so•.tl of l?riesL or of Levite, who pity nnd pass 011. Such a man puts con-  536 THE BOOK OF Tll~ PROPHE'l' ISAlAEl, [ort. uxn. 1-20.