impossible, it does not therefore follow that it should be
so to Him before whom all hearts are open and all desires known. _We_
cannot separate men thus because human character is so complex. But
complexity is a relative term; it depends on the eyes which behold it;
and our naming a thing complex may be but another way of declaring our
ignorance concerning it. We all know how a character, a life, a course
of events, which, on first view, seemed but a tangled, twisted skein, on
closer acquaintance often smooths itself out into perfect simplicity.
And there is surely no difficulty in believing that it should be so with
human life when it is judged by the perfect knowledge of God. Life is
like a great tree which casts forth on every side its far-spreading
branches. Yet all that moving, breathing mystery of twig and branch and
foliage springs from a single root. To us the mystery is baffling in its
complexity: we have looked at the branches. To God it is simple, clear:
He sees the hidden root from which it springs. So that, to go back to
our former illustration, it is only our ignorance which compels us to
speak of "alpacas" in the moral world. To perfect knowledge they will
prove to be, as Mr. Selby says, either slightly-disguised sheep or
slightly-disguised goats.

There is a further fact also to be taken into account in considering
Christ's two-fold classification. Since it is the work of infinite
knowledge and justice it will have regard to all the facts of our life.
God looks not only at the narrow present, but back into the past, and
forward into the future. He marks the trend of the life, the bent and
bias of the soul. He chalks down no line saying, "Reach this or you are
undone for ever." He sets up no absolute standard to which if a man
attain he is a saint, or falling short of which he is a sinner. And when
He calls one man righteous and another wicked, He means very much more
than that one has done so many good deeds, and another so many evil
deeds; "righteous" and "wicked" describe what each is in himself, what
each will decisively reveal himself to be, when present tendencies have
fully worked themselves out. There are two twilights, the twilight of
evening and the twilight of morning; and therefore God's question to us
is not, how much light have we? but, which way do we face? to the night
or to the day? Not "What art thou?" but "What wilt thou?" is the supreme
question; it is the answer to this which sets so