ousness, and hatest wickedness." A scepter is a kind
of staff borne by kings as an emblem of their authority. It is a
comfort to know that the scepter of Jehovah, as King of the universe,
is a scepter of righteousness. We could never know that God is
righteous, and that he loves righteousness, except by being told in
his Word of Truth. This world does not give unequivocal testimony to
the righteousness of God. The wicked bear rule, and the nations
tremble. Evil often overcomes good, and wrong triumphs over right.
Disease or accident lays the good man low in death; while the wicked
near by is left to exult in the strength of his arm. I say it is
comforting to know, in the midst of these apparent contradictory
evidences of the just government of the world, that God is
nevertheless righteous: and although iniquity largely bears rule and
carries the day, God still hates wickedness. God does not acquiesce in
the injustice and wrong that is being perpetrated in the world. He
merely permits it; and he permits it for the reason that he can not
arrest and put an end to it without destroying man's freedom. Man is
free as to his will and understanding--free to believe what is false
and to do what is wrong. But he is just as free to believe what is
true and to will what is good. This freedom is what makes him capable
of being reformed and saved.

It is self-evident that righteousness, which is right doing from right
willing, is the basis of all true order and happiness in earth and
heaven. "God is love," and he therefore loves righteousness because it
is good, and hates wickedness because it is evil. But man has fallen
from his primeval state of righteousness, and therefore he is not in a
condition of mind and heart fit for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit,
nor capable of enjoying the divine presence in the society of the pure
and good. Righteousness and holiness are related to each other very
much as the fruit is related to the tree that bears it. Holiness
corresponds with the sap, fiber, life and whatever else makes the tree
good; and righteousness corresponds with the fruit the good tree
bears; and "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

But probably no subject in the line of human thought has given rise to
so many different opinions as the subject of how righteousness is to
be attained. The Jewish leaders and representatives in our Lord's day
upon earth were very exact in their outward lives. They kept clean the
_outs