heep and the
goats, the good and the bad, and there are no others. To us it seems
impossible to divide men thus. They are not, we think, good _or_ bad,
but good _and_ bad. "I can understand," some one has said, "what is to
become of the sheep, and I can understand what is to become of the
goats, but how are the alpacas to be dealt with?"[59] The alpaca, it
should be said, is an animal possessing some of the characteristics both
of the sheep and the goat, and the meaning of the question is, of
course, what is to become of that vast middle class in whose lives
sometimes good and sometimes evil seems to rule?

Now it is a remarkable fact that Scripture knows nothing of any such
middle class. Some men it calls good, others it calls evil, but it has
no middle term. Note, _e.g._, this typical contrast from the Book of
Proverbs: "The path of the righteous is as the light of dawn, that
shineth more and more unto the noon-tide of the day. The way of the
wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble." Or listen to
Peter's question: "If the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the
ungodly and sinner appear?" In both instances the assumption is the
same: there, on the one hand, are the righteous; and there, on the
other, are the wicked; and beside these there are no others. The same
classification is constant throughout the teaching of Jesus. He speaks
of two gates, and two ways, and two ends. There are the guests who
accept the King's invitation and sit down in His banqueting hall, and
there are those who refuse it and remain without. In the parable of the
net full of fishes the good are gathered into vessels, but the bad are
cast away. The wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest; then
the wheat is gathered into the barn, and the tares are cast into the
fire. The sheep are set on the right hand, and the goats on the left
hand; and there is no hint or suggestion that any other kind of
classification is necessary in order that all men may be truly and
justly dealt with.

All this may seem very arbitrary and impossible until we remember that
the classification is not ours but God's. It is not we who have to
divide men, setting one on the right hand and another on the left; that
is God's work; and it is well to remind ourselves that He invites none
of us to share His judgment-throne with Him, or, by any verdict of ours,
to anticipate the findings of the last great day. And because to us such
a division is