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and wrong, when the whole issue can be settled by guns and armaments-at least, if we are quite sure of being two to one! Ah, but no issue is ever finally settled by guns and armaments and the mailed fist and superior numbers: Assyria overwhelms Israel and carries it into captivity-but Israel is alive and Assyria has been dead thousands of years, because the breath of life, the spirit of the Lord, was in the one and not in the other. But individuals and nations are tried and tested by what they praise and set store by, and the widespread reliance on material power is a symptom which condemns and shames us.

Far-called, our navies melt away,

On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre;
Judge of the nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget-lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word-

Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

And time would fail me were I to enumerate all the poor and worthless objects, attributes, achievements, upon which praise and admiration are lavished by people who little dream that they are furnishing an exact measure of their mental and moral standard by the commendations they bestow. There are persons who really, as the saying is, "love a lord," who look up with respect and even something like affection to those who treat them with insolence, who admire a man who

can afford to live without working: well, they reveal the souls of flunkeys, that is all. One has met persons who are tremendously impressed with the exploits of a swindler who is clever enough to baulk the law; one hesitates to say what kind of verdict they pass upon themselves, but one has an uncomfortable feeling that they would like to do the same if they could. And on a somewhat higher plane, are not a great many people far too ready to applaud merely intellectual gifts even when they are unaccompanied by other and finer qualities? I shall always remember an occasion when a group of men were discussing a certain wellknown writer, one of us alone indicating, by silence rather than speech, an unfavourable estimate, from which we vainly tried to make him budge. "Well," someone exclaimed as a last resort, "you'll admit at any rate that he's very clever." "Yes," was the reply, given in the quietest tones, "that's just what he is "-and we one and all felt rebuked. The finingpot for silver, and the furnace for gold, but a man is tried by the thing which he praises."

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Here is the conclusion of the whole matter-and if I put it briefly, you will be able to work it out in fuller detail for yourselves: there is no greater need for each one of us than the education of the judgment in the light of Christian principle, for our judgment of men and things trains and portrays our character, and as a man thinketh, such is he. To habituate ourselves to praise and take delight in goodness will stimulate us by the grace of God to practise the like. To look not at the surface glitter and glamour, but at the things that abide and endure, not omitting "that best part of a good man's life, the little nameless,

unremembered acts of kindness and of love": to esteem strong principle, to prize humble loyalty, to value silent dutifulness rather than show and self-advertisement; to spend as much time as we are able in the study of lives animated by unselfishness, simplicity, singleness of aim and sympathy with their brethren : that is the training for which none of us is too young or too old. And above all, let us immerse ourselves in the life of Him in whom was life, even the light of men. To acquire not merely a taste but a passion for what is noble and beautiful and uplifting, that is to live truly, for if we are tried by our praise, it is true, as the poet says, that we live by admiration.

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise,

In all His words most wonderful,

Most sure in all His ways!

What more shall we add but this—“ Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!"

IX

THE EXCELLENCE OF CHARITY

"He that covereth a transgression seeketh love."PROV. xvii. 9.

WHEN the Revised Version of the New Testament appeared, a little over thirty years ago, one of the changes that struck everyone in the new translation was the disappearance of the word "charity," and its replacement by "love." Where people noticed the alteration most was of course in the great thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, where we were now taught to reverence love, not charity, as "the greatest of these "-greater than hope, greater than even faith. Needless to say, the change had not been introduced without due consideration. Charity is one of those words which have come down in the world through being misused and misapplied, made to stand chiefly for alms-giving, and that in not too generous or kindly a spirit, but rather of a perfunctory and official kind. On looking the matter up, I find that the phrase “as cold as charity" had become proverbial in English speech so long ago as the earlier half of the eighteenth century does not the fact tell its own sad tale? Then, besides the dislike of charity which its coldness excited, men began to view the system of doles with a very proper suspicion and resentment, both because they

saw in it a means of undermining the manhood and independence of the poorer classes, and a cheap substitute for social justice-crumbs thrown from the table of the well-to-do in order to quiet the discontent of the disinherited. Who that knows rural England can deny that charity of this kind has been copiously used as an instrument of political corruption—an engine of snobbery and jobbery? To this day, are there not districts where for a villager to show the colours of the candidate who is frowned upon by the Squire and Parson is to disqualify himself for the Christmas charity of coals and blankets and the like? And in the industrial strata, with their rising selfrespect, is there not the strongest objection to all that savours of the patronage of the respectable poor by fussy people of the more prosperous classes who want to fill up a few of their idle hours in a way which ministers to their self-complacency and gives them a gentle glow of satisfaction at a not very exorbitant cost of energy or money? Have we not heard of processions of the unemployed with banners bearing the legend-horribly shocking to respectable sentimentalists!" Curse your Charity"? Clearly there was a strong case for the course the Revisers took in striking out this unfortunate word from the New Testament and putting another in its place.

Now I know that it is with nouns as with peopleonce they lose their characters, it is difficult to regain them. And yet I would like to try and put in a plea on behalf of the old word " charity"-to see whether we cannot give it back its former and better meaning. For to tell the truth, one is not quite satisfied with "love" as the substitute for it love has

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