every relation of life what it requires. And 'truth' is rather
the truth of sincerity, as opposed to hypocrisy and lies and shams, than
the intellectual truth as opposed to error.

Now, all these three types of excellence--kindliness, righteousness,
truthfulness--are apt to be separated. For the first of
them--amiability, kindliness, gentleness--is apt to become too soft, to
lose its grip of righteousness, and it needs the tonic of the addition
of those other graces, just as you need lime in water if it is to make
bone. Righteousness, on the other hand, is apt to become stern, and
needs the softening of goodness to make it human and attractive. The
rock is grim when it is bare; it wants verdure to drape it if it is to
be lovely. Truth needs kindliness and righteousness, and they need
truth. For there are men who pride themselves on 'speaking out,' and
take rudeness and want of regard for other people's sensitive feelings
to be sincerity. And, on the other hand, it is possible that amiability
may be sweeter than truth is, and that righteousness may be hypocritical
and insincere. So Paul says, 'Let this white light be resolved in the
prism of your characters into the threefold rays of kindliness,
righteousness, truthfulness.'

And then, again, he desires that each of us should try to make our own a
fully developed, all-round perfection--_all_ goodness and righteousness
and truth; of every sort, that is, and in every degree. We are all apt
to cultivate graces of character which correspond to our natural
disposition and make. We are all apt to become _torsos_, fragmentary,
one-sided, like the trees that grow against a brick wall, or those which
stand exposed to the prevailing blasts from one quarter of the sky. But
we should seek to appropriate types of excellence to which we are least
inclined, as well as those which are most in harmony with our natural
dispositions. If you incline to kindliness, try to brace yourselves with
righteousness; if you incline to righteousness, to take the stern,
strict view of duty, and to give to every man what he deserves, remember
that you do not give men their dues unless you give them a great deal
more than their deserts, and that righteousness does not perfectly allot
to our fellows what they ought to receive from us, unless we give them
pity and indulgence and forbearance and forgiveness when it is needed.
The one light breaks into all colours--green in the grass, purple and
red in the