Himself said, however, that His mission was not to destroy the law, but to fulfil; and He certainly did not narrow, but on the contrary enlarged, its borders. But this of course is, consciously or unconsciously, ignored. the unphilosophical Just notice, if you please, injustice of which these thinkers are guilty. In studying Aristotle or Herbert Spencer, they try to discover the best meaning which the author's words are capable of bearing; but in regard to Christ's teaching, they always select the worst. It is really too bad. No amount of absurdity or inconsistency is too great to be attributed to Jesus. In fact, the more ridiculous they have made His teaching appear, the more confident do they seem that they have expressed His real meaning. Judge not!" they exclaim, for example. "Why, it is impossible to fulfil that command; and if it were possible, it would be detrimental!" Very true in one sense. Everybody knows that if we are certain a man has committed a crime, we cannot help judging him to be guilty. And everybody knows that if we did not award punishment, where punishment was due, society would be destroyed. Christian charity itself demands that we be very strict and inexorable in these kinds of judgments. What Christ is here warning us against is not social or legal judgment, but moral. By a moral judgment I mean the attempt to sum up the worth or worthlessness of a human character, considered not in regard to such and such actions, but as a whole. We may see very clearly that association with certain persons would be injurious to ourselves or to our families, and it is our bounden duty to form such judgments, and to act upon them. But this does not warrant our attempting to estimate a man's moral standing in the sight of God. The reason why Christ forbids our passing such judgments is, that they would be invariably wrong. Let me try and make this plain. In the first place, we have not sufficient data. "We see a few of the actions which a man performs, we hear a few of the words he utters; and that is all we know of him. Yet some of us imagine that, on the strength of this knowledge, we can form a complete and infallible judgment in regard to his moral worth. We could not make a greater or more foolish mistake. The question whether a man is good or bad, very good or very bad, how good or how bad, is a highly complex question, depending on an almost infinite variety of circumstances." In order to arrive at a correct decision, we must know the history of the man's ancestors for hundreds of R years past, and the different tendencies towards right and towards wrong which they have transmitted to him. We must know the exact quantity and quality of his brain, together with the value of his whole physique, considered as an instrument of the will. We must discover with how much ability he was endowed by nature, and how far his faculties have been improved by voluntary effort, or injured by voluntary neglect. We must be familiar with the advantages and disadvantages, the trials, temptations, and privileges of his trade or profession. We must ascertain the climate and other characteristics of the place in which he lived, and investigate their adaptation or want of adaptation to his particular temperament and constitution. We must glean information regarding the schoolmasters and clergymen from whom he received, or failed to receive, instruction. We must know what books he had it in his power to read, what he actually did read, and what were beyond his reach. so I might go on multiplying, ad infinitum, data which are essential to a correct solution of the problem-data which must be fully known and accurately estimated, before a moral verdict can be legitimately pronounced. Many of us are born," says the author of 'John Inglesant,'" with And seeds within us which make moral victory hopeless from the first, the seeds of disease, of ignorance, of stupidity." A few of us, on the other hand, the descendants of a long line of cultured ancestors, have had refinement and goodness in our blood to start with, so that we involuntarily shrink from vice, almost as we shrink from pain. Circumstances over which a man has had absolutely no control, may have conspired to render his conflict between duty and inclination either easy or terrific, may have made it almost impossible for him to do right, or almost impossible for him to do wrong. And the circumstances which have had this effect are infinitely subtle, complex, and involved. They can be fully understood only by omniscience. So that it is impossible to say of any human being how far he has made himself what he is, or how far his character may have been determined by extraneous forces; in other words, how far he is, or is not, responsible for himself. Again, we can never see what goes on in another's heart. We may detect his sins; but whether he has struggled against them, and to what extent, we can never tell. The moral conflicts in which each of us is engaged are known "We may be able only to ourselves and God. But to say," observes Mr Greg," this man has lied, has pilfered, has forged; and that man has apparently gone through life with clean hands. can we say that the first has not struggled long, though unsuccessfully, against temptations under which the second would have succumbed without an effort? We know that one is generous and open-handed, and another close, niggardly, and mean; but the generosity of the one, as well as the niggardliness of the other, may be a mere yielding to native temperament. In the eye of heaven, a long life of beneficence in the one may have cost less exertion, and may indicate less virtue, than a few rare, hidden acts of kindness wrung by duty out of the reluctant and unsympathetic nature of the other." Burns's words are as true as they are beautiful : : "Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us: He knows each chord, its various tone; Then at the balance let's be mute; We never can adjust it : What's done we partly may compute, And it is but a very partial computation we can give even of what is done. We are ignorant |