do. But
Christ's law of love is a mentor that searches out the deep things of
man. The inside of the cup and platter, the things that are within, the
hidden man of the heart--it is on these its eyes are fixed. It gives
heed both to the words of the mouth and the meditations of the heart.
And, sometimes, when the lips are speaking fair, suddenly it will fling
open the heart's door and show us where, in some secret chamber, Greed
and Pride and Envy and Hate sit side by side in unblest fellowship.
Verily this law of love is living and active, sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints
and marrow, quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.

There is no room to do more than mention the fact which crowns the
revelation of this new law of righteousness. Christ's words about
goodness do not come to us alone; they come united with a life which is
their best exposition. Christ is all His followers are to be; in Him the
righteousness of the kingdom is incarnate. From henceforth the righteous
man is the Christ-like man. The standard of human life is no longer a
code but a character; for the gospel does not put us into subjection to
fresh laws; it calls us to "the study of a living Person, and the
following of a living Mind."[41] And when to Jesus we bring the old
question, "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal
life?" He does not now repeat the commandments, but He says, "If thou
wouldest be perfect, follow Me, learn of Me, do as I have done to you,
love as I have loved you."

III

Such, then, is the good life which Christ reveals, and to which He calls
us. To say that to Him we owe our highest ideal of righteousness, is
only to affirm what no one now seriously denies. John Stuart Mill has,
it is true, alleged certain defects against Christianity as an ethical
system, yet Mill himself has frankly admitted that "it would not be easy
now, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of
virtue from the abstract to the concrete, than to endeavour so to live
that Christ would approve our life." If Christ be not our one Master in
the moral world, it will at least be soon enough to discuss a rival's
claims when he appears; as yet there is no sign of him. But the point I
am most anxious to emphasize just now is not simply that Jesus has put
before us an ideal, the highest of its kind in the world, but that there
is nothing of