these chance adhesions; and the purpose of any
system looks towards those extreme points where it steps valiantly
beyond tradition and returns with some covert hint of things outside.
Then only can you be certain that the words are not words of course, nor
mere echoes of the past; then only are you sure that if he be indicating
anything at all, it is a star and not a street-lamp; then only do you
touch the heart of the mystery; since it was for these that the author
wrote his book.

Now, every now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christ finds a
word that transcends all commonplace morality; every now and then He
quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed, and throws out a
pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only by some bold poetry
of thought that men can be strung up above the level of everyday
conceptions to take a broader look upon experience or accept some higher
principle of conduct. To a man who is of the same mind that was in
Christ, who stands at some centre not too far from His, and looks at the
world and conduct from some not dissimilar or, at least, not opposing
attitude--or, shortly, to a man who is of Christ's philosophy--every
such saying should come home with a thrill of joy and corroboration; he
should feel each one below his feet as another sure foundation in the
flux of time and chance; each should be another proof that in the
torrent of the years and generations, where doctrines and great
armaments and empires are swept away and swallowed, he stands immovable,
holding by the eternal stars. But, alas! at this juncture of the ages it
is not so with us; on each and every such occasion our whole fellowship
of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder and implicitly denies
the saying. Christians! the farce is impudently broad. Let us stand up
in the sight of heaven and confess. The ethics that we hold are those of
Benjamin Franklin. _Honesty is the best policy_, is perhaps a hard
saying; it is certainly one by which a wise man of these days will not
too curiously direct his steps; but I think it shows a glimmer of
meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences; I think we perceive a
principle behind it; I think, without hyperbole, we are of the same mind
that was in Benjamin Franklin.

CHAPTER II

But, I may be told, we teach the ten commandments, where a world of
morals lies condensed, the very pith and epitome of all ethics and
religion; and a young man with these pr