it brings good or evil depends on the receptivity of that on which it falls. When it falls on cultivated ground full of good seeds it quickens it into fruitfulness and beauty; when it falls on a malarial swamp it quickens it to pestilence and death; when it falls on the barren sands of Sahara they only glow in their barrenness with a fiercer heat. God is the eternal fullness of wisdom and love overflowing with good into the universe, pouring through all his works of nature and providence, of law and grace, and free to every one who comes into harmony with the wisdom and the love and so becomes capable of receiving the everflowing good. A man's own free choice is the key which opens the flood-gates and lets the divine goodness pour through his life and flood it with blessing.

God himself is eternally blessed in the perfection of his own being; and he expresses his wisdom and love in finite things. Man, by coming into harmony with God and with the divine wisdom and love which are expressed in the universe and are the constitution of things, becomes a participator in the true good. He is blessed in himself and receives blessing from God and from all that exists. He is not the creator or originator of good, but the participator in the good that is eternal. He has the peace of God which passeth all understanding; blessedness in himself, in God and all God's works, like the blessedness of God himself-that blessedness which is peculiar to rational persons in the perfection of their being, in the rightness of all their doings, and their harmony with eternal wisdom and love. Evil, on the contrary, is not eternal; it is created or originated by finite rational beings; it is subjective, personal and local; it is contingent on the action of finite wills, and so dependent for its existence on individual sinners; and in the entire moral system sporadic and exceptional.

Here is an additional evidence that happiness alone is not “our being's end and aim." For if so, the end would have been more surely attained if man had been left to the guidance of instinct only; for this guidance, so far as it reaches, is unerring. The fact that man is endowed with reason and free-will is proof that he exists for some higher end than pleasure. In the light of reason he must with careful consideration compare the sources of enjoyment and estimate their worth; and by rejecting this and choosing that, by resisting and regulating his impulses, by substituting for the evil which he desires the good which reason estimates to have worth, by overcoming evil with good, he is to cultivate and develop himself, and in his own perfection attain his true good and at the same time accomplish his true work of love to others.

A rational being is always to be served, never to be acquired, possessed and used. He is always an end, never an instrument or tool.

This is accordant with the dignity of a rational being; by realizing his own ideals he finds his true good, and finds it within himself. Hence it is involved in his personality that he is an end and not a means, a person to be served, not a thing to be used. Hence he is never to be possessed and used by others for their ends, but to be helped by them in a service of righteousness and benevolence in accomplishing his perfection and well-being. Even Society in its organic capacity may not use him for its own ends, but, while commanding his free and intelligent service, must itself seek his good in rendering to him the service of righteousness and good-will. For government is "a minister of God for good" to the governed; and the well-being of society can be advanced only in proportion as the individuals composing it attain their own well-being in their own personal perfection.

This general conception of the good is presented with poetic beauty in the first Psalm. The blessedness of man is found within himself; it is the perfection of his being and the right doing of his work; it is what he is and does rather than what he gets. Such a man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water. It is immaterial to the growth of a tree whether it stand in the garden of a hut or a palace. Of all that is put on the ground around it only that is of service which it can take up into itself and organize into its own substance. So all that is external contributes to the good of a man only so far as it contributes to his growth and fruitfulness; only so far as he takes it up into himself and makes it help his own development and give scope and efficiency to his work of love. The Psalm represents the tree as in a garden, watered by artificial canals. So man's blessedness does not grow wild; it is the result of painstaking culture, appropriating God's sufficient grace, the ever full and flowing river of water of life.

51. Merit and Demerit.

I. When a man chooses and acts in accordance with the truths, laws and ideals of reason, we know by an intuition of reason that he is worthy to have the true good. In this course of action and in seeking these ends reason judges him worthy of the approval of himself and of all rational beings; worthy of the favor of God; worthy of all the good which the universe can give him; worthy to be "heir of all things." And this is true of every rational being thus living; for by virtue of his personality he has his end and his good in himself; all beings are to minister to him in securing that end and good; and when through the man Christ Jesus he is lifted from condemnation and sin and brought to put himself by his own free determination into harmony with God and the constitution of things, then in very deed he becomes with Christ “heir of all things," "heir of God and joint heir with Christ;" then he

"reigns with Christ," who, by lifting him out of his sins into harmony with God, has in very deed "put all things in subjection under his feet," has made the "angels minister to him as heir of salvation" and "all things work together for his good." Every rational being who is in harmony with God, the supreme Reason, is entitled by the prerogative of reason to use all irrational things and to receive the willing service of all rational beings in attaining his own perfection and good.

If, on the contrary, a man is living in antagonism to the truths, laws and ideals of reason, reason pronounces him unworthy of the good, worthy only of the evil.

The worthiness of good, thus adjudged by reason, is called merit and the unworthiness of good is called demerit. The word desert is common to both; as one deserves well or ill. Merit is sometimes used to denote the desert of evil; as we say, a criminal merits his punishment. The noun merit, however, is commonly used to denote the desert of good.

II. We necessarily believe that whoever chooses and acts in accordance with the truths, laws and ideals of reason will certainly attain the true good; he will not merely merit it, but will attain it. Every one who seeks will find.

1. This is involved in the fact that reason is supreme in the universe. Under the benign government of perfect reason ordering the universe in wisdom and love, every one whose ends and acts are accordant with reason must be blessed. If the universe is so constituted and governed that character and action perfectly wise and right may issue in evil, and character and action altogether unwise and wrong may issue in good, it would contradict our deepest moral convictions, subvert all moral law and confound all moral distinctions; the principles, laws and ideals of reason would have no reality, and the universe would be founded in unreason. If we trust reason at all, we must trust it as supreme. So trusting, we must believe that he who seeks ends which reason estimates as having true worth, will find the true and highest good. This is the rational optimism.

But, further, action in harmony with reason realizes the true good, because it insures perfection of the being and the harmony of the being with the constitution of things, and because the happiness peculiar to these issues spontaneously; and these constitute the essential good.

And thus all external conditions are made into relative good. If a man experiences pain, loss, disappointment, persecution, death, whatever evils may assail a man from without, by meeting them in wisdom and love he develops himself towards perfection, and so transforms the evil into good. Scientific lecturers picture an immense cylinder of ice moving with great velocity into the sun, and tell us that it would instantly be not only melted but burned, contributing to increase the heat and

brightness of the sun. So all evils make the man, whose life is in harmony with reason, wiser, purer and stronger, and so promote his good.

2. Thus, even in this life, every right act receives immediately and invariably its reward in securing to the agent his good or true wellbeing, and every wrong act its punishment by bringing on the agent evil.

3. The objection that the world is not governed by a righteous God, because good and evil are distributed with no regard to character, is founded only on a false conception of what the good is. It is wealth, and honor among men, and the like which are distributed without regard to character. But God is poor indeed if he has no good higher and more essentially good than these.

"Wealth on the vilest often is bestowed

To show its vileness in the sight of God."

God rewards his servants with the durable riches of righteousness. He forms them into his own likeness; quickens them to love and serve like Christ, and thus makes them capable of godlike joys and the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven. That kingdom he that is not born of God into the life of love cannot enter, cannot enjoy, and, for so our Lord says, cannot even see.

4. The true good as estimated by reason is the highest good. Although it is impossible empirically to determine what course of action will yield the greatest intensity, continuity and duration of enjoyment, yet we can determine it by the rational standard. Whoever follows implicitly the guidance of reason and conscience knows that he is insuring his own highest good, even when for the time being his action subjects him to privation and suffering. This is evident from the whole course of the foregoing discussion.

52. The Feelings Pertaining to the Idea of the Good.

I. The feelings pertaining to the rational idea of the Good presuppose the idea. I am not speaking of enjoyment, which belongs also with the natural emotions; but of feelings pertaining to the rational idea distinctively. We do not derive the rational idea of worth from our feelings, but the feelings presuppose the idea and are occasioned by it. This is analogous to the relation of the feelings to the other rational ideas, and needs only to be mentioned.

II. There are two subdivisions of this class of feelings.

First, the motives and emotions of self-respect, the sentiments of worthiness and unworthiness, of the noble and the ignoble, of honor and

shame, the feeling of conscious dignity. Such feelings appear in scorn of all that is base and mean, in sensitiveness to honer, in aspiration for all that is noble. Paul gloried in the reproach and cross of Christ, esteeming it honorable to suffer for the truth.

A second subdivision consists of prudential motives and emotions. Man is so constituted that he desires happiness rather than misery, wellbeing rather than its contrary, these being the only objects compared. When in the light of reason he sees what his welfare truly consists in, his conviction that it is the true good will lead him to wish for it, even though, taking all that interests and attracts him into the account, he does not choose it. This prudence is a motive to which appeal may always be made even in the most sinful man, inducing him to seek his true good.

This class of feelings is often called self-love; self-respect, the feeling belonging to the first subdivision, is the man's interest in his own dignity and honor and pertains to worth, the rational element of the good. Prudence, which constitutes the second subdivision, is the interest which a man takes in his own happiness in the whole of his being. It pertains to the empirical element of the good. The two are manifestations of self-love.

53. Practical Importance in the Conduct of Life.

A correct knowledge of the good is essential to the right education and progress both of the individual and of society. Man may forego the gratification of a present desire because it is at the moment overpowered by a stronger. But if this is all, he is living the life of impulse, which is the life of a brute. In early infancy little higher than this appears; and the same reign of impulse is a prominent characteristic of savages. Manhood reveals itself and begins its true development only when man begins to control his desires by reason; only when from the darkness and mystery of his being the man emerges in the majesty of reason upon the dark and stormy waves of passion, like Jesus walking on the sea, and commands obedience. Progress both of the individual and of society begins in learning with intelligent forethought to forego the gratification of present impulse for future welfare. But if the forethought has regard only to degree of enjoyment, no real improvement is insured; for the sources of enjoyment are determined by the subjective state of the man. If the sources of his enjoyment are earthly, sensual, devilish, his quest of greater pleasure will only strengthen his existing preferences; his discoveries and inventions will only give new skill and power in seeking the same sordid ends, will develop skill and power, but not well-being; and the civilization result