love of good, and steady scorn of evil.
The government of the world is a problem while the
desire of selfish enjoyment survives, and when justice
is not done according to such standard (which will not
be till the day after doomsday, and not then), self-loving
men will still ask, why? and find no answer. Only to
those who have the heart to say, we can do without
that, it is not what we ask or desire, is there no secret.
Man will have what he deserves, and will find what is
really best for him, exactly as he honestly seeks for it.
Happiness may fly away, pleasure pall or cease to be
obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove unkind,
and fame turn to infamy; but the power to serve God
never fails, and the love of Him is never rejected.

Most of us, at one time or other of our lives, have
known something of love--of that only pure love in
which no self is left remaining. We have loved as
children, we have loved as lovers; some of us have
learnt to love a cause, a faith, a country; and what love
would that be which existed only with a prudent view
to after-interests. Surely, there is a love which exults
in the power of self-abandonment, and can glory in the
privilege of suffering for what is good. Que mon nom
soit fletri, pourvu que la France soit libre, said Danton;
and those wild patriots who had trampled into scorn
the faith in an immortal life in which they would be
rewarded for what they were suffering, went to their
graves as beds, for the dream of a people's liberty.
Shall we, who would be thought reasonable men, love
the living God with less heart than these poor men
loved their phantom? Justice is done; the balance is
not deranged. It only seems deranged, as long as we
have not learnt to serve without looking to be paid
for it.

Such is the theory of life which is to be found in the
Book of Job; a faith which has flashed up in all times
and all lands, wherever noble men were to be found,
and which passed in Christianity into the acknowledged
creed of half the world. The cross was the new symbol,
the divine sufferer the great example, and mankind
answered to the call, because the appeal was not to
what was poor and selfish in them, but to whatever of
best and bravest was in their nature. The law of
reward and punishment was superseded by the law of love.
Thou shalt love God and thou shalt love man; and that
was not love--man knew it once--which was bought by
the prospect of reward. Times are changed w