e on the other, it is impossible to
pronounce at once which are most likely to be right: it depends on the
sort of case on which the difference exists; for the victories of truth
and of good are but partial. It is not all truth that triumphs in the
world, nor all good; but only truth and good up to a certain point. Let
them once pass this point, and their progress pauses. Their followers,
in the mass, cannot keep up with them thus far: fewer and fewer are
those who still press on in their company, till at last even these fail;
and there is a perfection at which they are deserted by all men, and are
in the presence of God and of Christ alone.

Thus it is that, up to a certain point, in moral matters the majority
are right; and thus Christ's gospel, in a great many respects, goes
along with public opinion, and the voice of society is the voice of
truth. But this, to use the expression of our Lord's parable, this is
but half the height of that tower whose top should reach unto heaven.
Christianity ascends a great deal higher; and therefore so many who
begin to build are never able to finish. Christ's disciples and the
world's disciples work for a certain way together; and thus far the
world's disciples call themselves Christ's, and so Christ's followers
seem to be a great majority. But Christ warns us expressly that we are
not his disciples merely by going a certain way on the same road with
them. They only are His, who follow Him to the end. They only are His,
who follow him in spite of everything, who leave all rather than leave
him. For the rest, He does not own them. What the world can give they
may enjoy; but Christ's kingdom is shut against them.

Speaking, then, according to Christ's judgment, and we must hold those
to be of the world, and not of Him,--and therefore in God's judgment, to
be the evil and not the good,--who do not make up their minds to live in
His service, and to refer their actions, words, and thoughts to His
will. Who these are it is very true that we many times cannot know: only
we may always fear that they are the majority of society; and therefore
we are rather anxious in any individual's case to get a proof that he is
not one of them, because, as they are very many, there is always a sort
of presumption that any given person is of this number, unless there is
some evidence, or some presumption at any rate, for thinking
the contrary.

When we speak, then, of the good and of the evil side in hu