and harassing work, this composed condition of mind is not so much within reach. If in his case it does exist, be sure it belongs to his soul and not to his face. Goodness is intrinsic, not extrinsic; it belongs to the inner man, not to the outward; it dwells in the house, not on the scaffolding. You can no more put it on and take it off than you can do without your lungs and heart. If it is a possession, it is a vital one; its roots penetrate into the lowest depths of the spiritual being.

"There is none good but one-that is God." He is the only Being who possesses absolute goodness-underived and infinite purity. All others are but "broken lights," rays from the central sun, or at best planets reflecting a borrowed glory. To be in right relations with the infinitely good One is to be in a state of godliness, which, being interpreted, is godlikeness. The young man who came to Christ to inquire about eternal life is a most striking instance of the way in which people may deceive themselves in reference to the nature of goodness. He mistook the appearance for the reality-the good man's clothes for the good man himself. That he was respectable enough, who would deny? In substance, in moral integrity, in reputation, in all qualities and possessions that most men prize, few could surpass him whom Jesus loved, and who yet went away sorrowful. Did he not want to do the good thing rather than have goodness? And was not the appearance of religion more to him than religion itself? The love of God is the root of all goodness; and there was within this young man love of earthly possession and of all which that possession included, and hence goodness shut her gates, leaving him with a full house but an empty heart.

To use a beautiful but somewhat hackneyed phrase, we may say that those who live near to God are good people. As God is the only infinitely good being in the universe, so is He the only source of goodness. The eternal life is one of fellowship with the Divine Being. Its intensity and blessedness depend upon the reality and earnestness of prayer. By supplication with thanksgiving we come into direct contact with the Divine mind, and this contact creates conformity to the Divine character. The prayer must be the outcome of a believing, trustful heart, and the communion must be that of a loving child with his loving father. Otherwise, no likeness will grow up, no spiritual affinity will be kindled. The prisoner does not grow good by being brought before the judge; the relationship is utterly unfavourable to the exercise of spiritual influence. But the fellowship of child with parent, of husband with wife, will produce ineradicable effects on the character. If, therefore, God's love to us and our love to God lead to daily communion of a real and living character, our spirits must inevitably be transformed and renewed. Secret prayer will receive its open reward. We must not, however, suppose that in order to live near to God we must live far from man.

The lodge in the wilderness may be a valuable place for dreaming of goodness, and for weaving together bright fancies of a perfect world, but it is not the home where goodness lives. The life-boat is a fine object as it lies on the wet beach during the summer afternoon, a thing of curiosity for all the sea-side idlers; but it looks far nobler when, battling with the breakers, it cleaves the foaming surge to rescue the shipwrecked sailor. Incarnate goodness came into contact with wickedness, and lived then most near to God when living most near to sinful man. To touch sin with the hand of inclination is to soil your soul, but to touch it with infinite compassion, as the Saviour did, is the very height and climax of goodness.

Goodness is a growth, and often a very difficult one. It does not come spontaneously. None of us are born good. We have to become good, and the becoming process is very protracted. As life goes on our views on this subject enlarge; and the contracted sphere of virtues with which we were satisfied in childhood is miserably inadequate for maturer years. With the individual as with the world, there is an education on this point. The negative morality of Moses was a very lofty height to the minds of the Israelites just escaped from slavery. The minute and almost childish details of traditionalism were all important to the Pharisees. But in the fulness of time the world wanted a Christ who should touch character as well as conduct, the root of the tree as well as its branches. And with these enlarged and ever-widening views there comes an intenser purpose. The high mountain peaks have been unveiled, and the upward traveller puts on a new ardour, in order to reach them. "Not that I have already attained or were already perfect," says one of the best men that ever lived. "Oh, for a closer walk with God!" exclains another. The pursuit of goodness becomes an all-absorbing passion. Weights are thrown aside, and nothing is remembered but the prize of the high calling.

The growth is often apparently impeded, but really helped by difficulty. What does a young man know of the deep meanings of salvation till the restraints of home are removed and the real tug of war commences? We learn by contrasts. The piety of home life is only thrown into bright relief by the wickedness of the world. You cannot tell whether the tree is healthy till the glass-house is taken down. The heart may, all unconsciously to itself, contain hidden inclinations which wait the magnetism of opportunity to call them forth; and hence one part of our discipline is self-knowledge. The first step in salvation is consciousness of sin. We have to grow to goodness, not from innocency, but from badness. Adam, before his fall, stood on a higher level than we do; but when we are saved we shall stand on a higher level than he did. Goodness is nobler than innocence; the former is the book inscribed with

many a glorious thought, the latter is a book of blank leaves. How often do we see the remedial effects of suffering on the spirits of men! The saint is frequently the lonely, patient, pain-bearing invalid. What acts of quiet heroism are performed on the sick bed! what grim giants are slain there! If trial works in us submission to God, goodness grows, the good angel who watches us rejoices; if it irritates us and makes us charge God foolishly, goodness withers, the good angel weeps.

Since goodness is a growth, there is more need of hope than of discouragement. All worthy growth is gradual. Slowness is divine. The upward way is slippery, and with all our effort our feet often slide back when our faces are turned onward and heavenward. The downward road is easy. Our very difficulties, therefore, should at least encourage us with the thought that we are on the right road, however slow may be our progress thereon.

There is a time in the history of some men when to be good is the easiest thing in the world. Man is a bundle of habits, and if the law of habit can be enlisted on the right side, goodness gains an invincible strength. Indeed, it may be said that no man is truly good until wisdom's way is one of pleasantness as well as peace. For some it is easy to be good, and you would as soon suspect the angel Gabriel of sin as suspect their natures of any lurking evil. Such a man was Nathanael, the Israelite, in whom was no guile. The light of Christ's presence, which did so much to detect the hidden weakness and sin of others, acted on his soul as does the sun on the cathedral window. It gave an additional beauty to the character, and brought the attractive features into greater prominence. There is no finer sight in the world than that of an old man whose character is as stainless as his hoary hair, and whose face, beaming with brightness, tells of a peaceful heart. Many an English village has boasted of such a man, who seemed as closely associated with the place as the yew trees of the old churchyard, or the ivied church where the simple rustics assembled to worship. Of such a man it has been said,—

"E'en children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile."

It is a great mercy that we have such transparent characters moving amongst us. They reflect the light of another world on us, and are the salt of the earth. For men so good and true, so gentle in their strength, and so strong in their gentleness, one would even dare to die.

The good man must be distinguished and marked off from the goodnatured man, for they are essentially different. It is often urged, by way of excuse for a man who is not all he should be, that he is good at heart. The "good fellow," the man with a great deal of bon hommie in him, is, figuratively speaking, but a tinkling cymbal. A sentence of

Lord Bacon's on this point is worth remembering: "Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of nature the inclination." To have one's instincts in the right direction, and one's resolutions carefully and cautiously made, is only to think about being good. One step on the road is worth all the fine language wherewith the beauties of the way may be described.

The sanctimonious man is not a fair example of goodness. He may be a hypocrite, without a grain of real piety in his soul; but in any case he is but a poor specimen of humanity. The cultivation of a saintly tone in the voice, the upturned eyes, the unctuous smile, the conventional religious phrases,—these are not the marks of a good man. Behind them there often beats a life that is born of God, but in themselves they are repulsive; for there is nothing so natural in its ways as goodness. It wants no honeyed phrases to recommend it, and no extraneous and extrinsic ornaments to make it the most beautiful thing in the world. The sanctimonious man is ever saying to all beholders, "See how good I am; stop and admire me as the pattern of all true piety." But goodness loses self-consciousness, and never obtrudes itself on the rude gaze of the multitude. The holy person is a healthy one-the saint is a MAN. His goodness shows itself as much in the market-place as in the temple; it is as pronounced when he makes a bargain as when he sings a hymn. You never feel that he has two coats, the Sunday and the weekday; and his conversation about religion is as easy and natural as that about pounds, shillings, and pence. He does not pull himself up to talk a little religion, or throw in a few favourite phrases to season his secular speech. His light cannot be hid.

Goodness brings with it largeness of heart. The narrow-minded man has never looked beyond his own garden-wall. Of him we hear it said continually, "He is a good man, but -"Every one feels that there is a fly in the pot of ointment. He is shut up and self-contained. Many of his virtues are in an iron safe, where no one can reach or see them. His little world and little creed are magnificence itself to his mind, and outside his own religious or ecclesiastical circle nothing is right and pious. But to the good man there arises enlargement of soul. His heart is elastic with the passing years, and grows to a larger capacity. He gets to the top of many a truth, question, or sect, and sees that there is another side; and though his own convictions are strong, yet he wishes that all the Lord's people were prophets.

There is nothing so strong, and in some respects so stern, as goodness. Its strength is that of gentleness, and yet, like the silent sunlight, it subdues all things to its dominion. It is attractive to the well-disposed, and its face is as that of an angel; but in its hands is a flaming sword, wherewith it drives off or slays the obdurately wicked. It brings war into the world-war to the death; and often its own end is that of

suffering, contempt, and crucifixion. But for goodness there is always a resurrection. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. The Cross is the road to the crown; the dark portal leads to immortal day; the burden and brunt of the battle will be followed by the eternal weight of glory. Gird on thine armour, therefore, and be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

SAMUEL PEARSON.

Cowper; and what Religion did for him.

IN studying the life of this amiable man and Christian poet, the melancholy side of his character is, as a rule, too exclusively dwelt upon, while the consolation and joy he found in religion are almost overlooked. Some even ascribe his gloom to his religious tendencies; but they forget that his sky was darkened, even in his earliest years, and that it was not till he reached the age of thirty-two that religion began to influence him. His own testimony on this point is conclusive. "At the age of eighteen," he says, “I was as ignorant of all kinds of religion as the satchel at my back. I cannot recollect that I had ever any serious impressions of a religious kind, or bethought myself of the things of my salvation, except in one or two instances, till the thirty-second year of my age."

Had he but earlier known the value of the Christian's hope, and trust in God, what a different history might his have been. Had he, when he lost his mother, but rested on the sweet assurance, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," how that loving, filial heart of his might have cast itself upon the love of which a mother's is but the faint, far-off shadow. Had he, during the cruel oppression of his school life, but listened to the winning accents, Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," how would he have been strengthened to endure.

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On one occasion, indeed, he records some such experience. "Sitting alone upon a bench in the school-room, melancholy and almost ready to weep at the recollection of what I had already suffered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, the words of the Psalmist came into my mind, I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.' I applied them to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God that would have been no disgrace to an experienced Christian. I instantly perceived in myself a briskness of spirits, and a cheerfulness I had never before felt. Happy had it been for me if this early effort towards a dependence upon the blessed God had been frequently repeated by me. But, alas! it was the first and last instance of this kind between infancy and manhood."

Thus did Cowper himself deplore his early neglect of God; and he must have wished in later years that, amid the sorrows of his youth, he had remembered that God was as able to soothe as to smite, to heal as to wound, for then he would never have put up the awful prayer that God would take