of your doings. Cease to do evil,
learn to do well. Then though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be
white as snow."

"Salvation by righteousness--this is the message of the Old Testament,"
Matthew Arnold used to say. "Righteousness through Jesus Christ," this
is the message of the New Testament! And this nineteenth century man
of letters was but echoing the words which fell from the lips of those
prophets in the eighth century before Christ.

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?" said Micah. "Will the Lord
be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil? He
hath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require
of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy
God."

"Seek justice," Isaiah said; "relieve the oppressed, judge the
fatherless, plead for the widow. If ye be willing and obedient ye
shall eat the good of the land. If ye refuse and rebel ye shall be
devoured." This was the heart of his message. It was the call of God
to personal righteousness.

He represents the Almighty as sitting upon the throne of the universe,
summoning His people into friendly conference with Him. "Come now, let
us reason together, saith the Lord." Religion is not a thing of magic.
There is no sleight-of-hand or hocus-pocus in the benefits it seeks to
confer. Religion is rational and moral. It is a reasoned form of
intercourse between an intelligent and moral being who is finite and
the Intelligent and Moral Being who is Infinite. Its benefits are to
be realized in that direct impress of the spirit of God upon the soul
of the man who has made an intelligent and honest approach to his Maker.

The young prophet saw his country threatened with disaster from both
sides. He saw upon the south the selfish and cruel designs of Egypt.
He saw the encroachments of mighty Assyria from the north. He saw the
madness of those Israelites who thought they could combine wickedness
and worship, the observance of religious forms with lives of moral
unconcern. And in that hour the truths he lifted before them were "The
majesty and authority of God, the everlasting obligation of personal
righteousness, the certainty of the ultimate triumph of God's Kingdom
over the wrath of man." These were the mighty truths by which he
sought to inspire the hearts of men to do their duty, come what might.

Have we not great need at this very hour of just such men! It has been
given to yo