OUR MORAL INHERITANCE. 331 upon the sensitive spirit of the boy, touched and possessed the imagination of the youth, helped to form the thoughts and purposes of the man. Out of the past come the invisible but plastic hands that shape us for work in the present, for use in the future, making us vehicles of the influences and qualities we inherited that we may transmit, not as inherited but as modified and changed by our individual action. He who thus stands amid the generations of men can serve the order and ends of a beneficent Providence only as he "seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." But there is another aspect of the matter, and it must not be forgotten. The man who is a citizen in God's kingdom, believes in God, in the reality of His Providence, in the sufficiency of His wisdom and might. And Providence does not exist simply for the universe as a whole, or for individuals, it is exercised over families. Now the God of the fathers does not forget the sons; to the faithful household as to the faithful man "light ariseth in the darkness." Where this is a living belief, it brings comfort to those who live in families, who without concern for themselves suffer deep concern for their children. What we fear, are the possibilities rather than the actualities of life, what may be rather than what is. Now the Christian man can set over against his fear of the future his faith in God. And He who is sufficient for to-day will be sufficient for to-morrow, He who is trusted as able to do divinely well for the everlasting future may be trusted to do humanly well for the vanishing present. The father who believes that much as he loves his boys, God loves them still more, tender as he is to his girls, God is yet tenderer, can hardly think that either he or they will ever be comfortless. The belief will stimulate his forethought, neglect of those for whom God cares becoming to him sinful, but it will be without the old corrosive and distracting anxiety. The future is not in his hands alone, it is in God's as well, and he will work for his home with nobler energy when he feels himself "a worker together with God." Wife and children are never so creative of joy as when loved in God, believed to be conscious or unconscious objects of His care, subjects of His kingdom. Then the work of the present can be done untroubled by fear of the future. Its untoward possibilities can never outwit or master the calm but invincible Providence that guides our lives, teaches suffering to make us perfect, adversity to work out our good. 3. The truth stated in the text concerns man also as a social and political being. Citizenship in the kingdom of God best qualifies for true and efficient citizenship in the civil kingdom. These two do not exclude or oppose each other; nay, the kingdom of God includes whatever is true, righteous, humane, in the kingdom of man. The religion of a good man is not the antithesis of his politics, rather we may say, his politics are his religion applied to the conduct and the affairs of state. And the more religious the man the better the citizen. The highest duty man owes to society and the State is to be the best that is possible to him, for the nearer he comes to the best possible the more will he do the best he is capable of doing. "Ye are the salt of the earth," said Christ, conserving society; "Ye are the light of the world," making evident to the State the ways of righteousness and peace. EXALTED PERSONS EXALT PEOPLES. 333 Exalted personal characters exalt whole peoples; the higher our character the higher our service to the cause of civil order and progress. But the highest is ever the hardest service. Any man can gravitate to the level of inconspicuous commonplace; only elect spirits can rise above it. And the kingdom of God makes its every citizen elect, a spirit gifted with Divine insight and purpose, conscious that the Eternal lives in every moment of his time, that the inspiration of the Almighty acts in every choice of his will. No duty that is proper to man will then be wittingly neglected. Justice will not rejoice over generosity, nor generosity over justice. The secular and the spiritual will not then be distinguished as two worlds with their respective laws and principles, under which the man may alternately live; but the two will be unified in the simple yet sublime unity of a character to which every secular act is spiritual, and every spiritual duty secular, because done in and for a living world. But this highest and hardest service can yet be rendered by the lowliest; where the goodness born of God is, it is performed without effort or consciousness. Man has found out many inventions which have almost infinitely enriched the earth, increased its wealth, sent it through many channels to many lands and many men, lessening year by year the area of famine and pestilence, enlarging daily the reign of health and plenty. But we may say with reverence, though the things be incomparable, that a single character has achieved more of social good for man than all the inventions of men. The character of Christ has been the soul of all philanthropic action in the modern state, has been the dynamical force in all the beneficent agencies in our modern civilization. But every man who, seeking the Divine kingdom, labours to realize Christliness of character, does a similar work; by being a contribution to the forces active for God and goodness helps to lift man throughout the world. There is nothing that so makes vice impossible as the presence of virtue, nothing that makes freedom so natural and necessary as the liberty man realizes in Christ. He who best loves the ideals of the Eternal will do most to create their realization in time. Christ then here teaches a truth of universal application, a truth the more universal that it is so 'individual. It applies to every man and to the whole man, and to all his duties and relations. By making the best of him it does the best for him, and so does enough. He can demand no more, no more can be demanded of him. To be righteous is to be right in all things-character, state, relations, to be lifted above doing wrong or being wronged, for nothing can be to us an ultimate injury which leaves us morally right. Society is to a man what the man is to society. We receive but what we give. If we are sources of evil, we cannot be recipients of good, and so long as He reigns who can make even the wrath of man to praise Him, and suffering become the minister of obedience, all the other forces in the universe will never be able to work us ill. Seek ye first then the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and in a grander sense than dream of all things will be added unto you. you "Then fearless walk we forth, Yet full of trembling, messengers of God; THE LOVE OF CHRIST. "Whom having not seen, ye love."-1 Pet. i. 8. 1. AFFECTIONS are evoked, not created, educed from within, not implanted from without. Conditions or occasions of action may be external, but the forces that act are internal; the objects men love may live. without the spirit, but the love itself lives within. Every child born into the world is a centre of latent loves, and these but need appropriate objects and conditions of action to be drawn into exercise and nursed into strength. The child may grow into an unloving man, but he does it by repression of nature, not by expansion of soul. The quality of the object determines indeed the kind and quality of the affection. There cannot be a good and happy love of a bad being. Love of a bad person either debases the person loving, or becomes in him a pity, painful in proportion to his own goodness. Perfect love is perfect joy only where the loving and the loved are alike good, holy, and true. The one love that has had power to transform and command men, is the love of the Holiest and the Best, and the more man has loved Christ, the holier and the better has he become. Here it is that belief creates love, and the love rises into a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. |