--the market, the bar, the
smoking-room--that moment his love of humanity fails him. He must be
charming, attractive, genial, everywhere; for the severance of
goodness and charm is a most wretched matter; if he affects his
company at all, it must be as innocent and beautiful girlhood affects
a circle, by its guilelessness, its sweetness, its appeal. I have
known Christians like this, wise, beloved, simple, gentle people,
whose presence did not bring constraint but rather a perfect ease, and
was an evocation of all that was best and finest in those near them. I
am not recommending a kind of silly mildness, interested only in
improving conversation, but rather a zest, a shrewdness, a bonhomie,
not finding natural interests common and unclean, but passionately
devoted to human nature--so impulsive, frail, unequal, irritable,
pleasure-loving, but yet with that generous, sweet, wholesome fibre
below, that seems to be evoked in crisis and trial from the most
apparently worthless human beings. The outcasts of society, the
sinful, the ill-regulated, would never have so congregated about our
Saviour if they had felt Him to be shocked or indignant at sin. What
they must rather have felt was that He understood them, loved them,
desired their love, and drew out all the true and fine and eager and
lovable part of them, because he knew it to be there, wished it to
emerge. "He was such a comfortable person!" as a simple man once said
to me of one of the best of Christians: "if you had gone wrong, he did
not find fault, but tried to see the way out; and if you were in pain
or trouble, he said very little; you only felt it was all right when
he was by."

XXIV

PROGRESS

We must always hopefully and gladly remember that the great movements,
doctrines, thoughts, which have affected the life of the world most
deeply, are those which are most truly based upon the best and truest
needs of humanity. We need never be afraid of a new theory or a new
doctrine, because such things are never imposed upon an unwilling
world, but owe their strength to the closeness with which they
interpret the aims and wants of human beings. Still more hopeful is
the knowledge which one gains from looking back at the history of the
world, that no selfish, cruel, sensual, or wicked interpretation of
life has ever established a vital hold upon men. The selfish and the
cruel elements of humanity have never been able to band themselves
together against the