then vice was the direct product of idolatry, every Christian virtue is the direct result of the Christian revelation as we have above considered it. Morality to the Christian bears a constant reference to the dogma of the Incarnation, lives by it, and perishes when severed from it. The vision of God which the Christian Faith communicated to the human soul possessed and transformed it. A Divine Person laid hold of the nature of man, and became, as it were, a soul within the soul: henceforth in Him, His example, His life, and His death, what had been the imperfect virtues of the natural state obtained a new root. Man's life had no fewer sorrows than before, but all were viewed in the light of God's passion; man had equal need of help from his brother man, but the Master of charity had first given His life for His enemies; and those of His followers would be likest Him who should approach nearest to the sacrifice of self.

Let us see how these principles were practically applied to the circle of human life.

First let us consider the tissue of human acts, affections, and energies in the mass, before we proceed to dwell on its several parts.

And, again, this morality in the mass may be looked at from four points of view: its motive, its standard, its support, and its reward. We will

take each in its order.

1. As to the motive of morality, this sevenfold vision of God told on it with great power by re

storing at once the idea of creatureship on man's part, and of beneficent providence on God's. In that wide sea of ignorance wherein the heathen nations lay tossed, man knew not whence he was, how he came upon the earth, to what he tended. The common idolatry mixed up the earth and its productions, the stars, and the gods in an existing whole, or system, if that which had no unity could be so called, without knowing its origin or determining its relations. Such was the state of the mass, while among cultivated minds one widely-spread philosophy declared specifically that the gods meddled not with human affairs for government, reward, or punishment. Another substituted the notion of Nature for that of God, stripping Him thereby of personality. To idolater and philosopher alike man was not a creature but a substance among other substances above or below him, a portion of the whole, a physical portion of a physical whole, the former without responsibility, as the latter was without providence. But in this vision which the Christian faith disclosed man saw himself clearly, distinctly, and in the most vivid light a creature, at a certain time called forth out of nothing, formed with sovereign wisdom and power, sent into the world, guided, guarded, watched over in it; and then, morcover, a creature to God so precious, that after creating him He would be made Himself man and die for him. Redemption, if it did not explain Creation, cast round it a light which drew

man towards God with an invincible attraction. And with the idea of creatureship man recovered the complete idea of duty; not an idea of that merely which was fitting for the good of human society, for so much as this, so long as he was a social animal, he could not wholly lose,-but an idea of that great primary relation in which he stood to God as the work of His hands. Thus only the value of his acts as a free agent stood revealed to him: thus only their consequences. God, creatureship, duty, and judgment for the acts of freewill came upon him together, and formed a new motive of his life. How distinct the two voices sound! Marcus Aurelius gives us that of the old heathen world. "There is one light of the sun, though it is distributed over walls, mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individual circumscriptions. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided."— "How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man! for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal. And how small a part of the whole substance! And how small a part of the universal soul! And on what a small clod of the whole earth thou creepest! Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as thy nature leads thee, and to endure that

which the common nature brings."-" Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state; what difference does it make to thee whether for five years or three? For that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the hardship, then, if no tyrant, nor yet an unjust judge, sends thee away from the state, but Nature who brought thee into it? The same as if a prætor, who has employed an actor, dismisses him from the stage. 'But I have not finished the five acts, but only three of them.' Thou sayest well; but in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution; but thou art the cause of neither. Depart, then, satisfied, for he also who releases thee is satisfied."* Human life becomes desolate, morality evaporates, under such teaching. Would you hear what bound it up, what gave it an abiding motive, a distinct course and end? It is that other voice of the great Teacher, surrounding man's life with the tender care of the Father. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; better are you than many sparrows." A Father and his children succeed to that notion of a physical whole without sympathy or succour

very

• Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts, xii. 30, 32, 36; Long's translation.

for its parts. But it is in redeeming that the Father is disclosed. And the Son whom He has sent is likewise the Judge. It is not a simple notion of duty which has been elicited, but a desire of pleasing God manifested as the redeeming God. The abiding presence of One who is at once Creator, Father, Redeemer, and Judge surrounds men, no longer units and atoms before an unbending necessity, but persons before a personal God. This thought at once rules the present and embraces the future, as St. Paul says: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore we labour -whether present or absent-to be well pleasing to Him: for we must all of us be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil."*

2. Again, what standard of morality was there placed before man in that old heathen world? It is here that the false gods told with most demoralising effect. It is here that Marcus Aurelius with his spectral form of fatalism called Nature, and Epicurus with his gods who knew not human affections, nor cared for human life, nor considered human actions, were more moral at least than Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Apollo, Mercury, Isis, Baal, Mylitta, and a thousand others. For their power • 2 Cor. v. 1, 9, 10.