ching of morality,
or rather let me say of Christ's teaching of morality, is that it
shifts, if I may so put it, the centre of gravity from acts to being,
that instead of repeating the parrot-cry, 'Do, do, do' or 'Do not, do
not, do not,' it says, 'Be, and the doing will take care of itself. Be;
do not trouble so much about outward acts, look after the inward
nature.' Character makes conduct, though, of course, conduct reacts upon
character. 'As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,' and the way to set
actions right is to set the heart right.

Some of us are trying to purify the stream by putting in disinfectants
half-way down, instead of going up to the source and dealing with the
fountain. And the weakness of all the ordinary, commonplace morality of
the world is that it puts its stress upon the deeds, and leaves
comparatively uncared for the condition of the person, the inward self,
from whom the deeds come. And so it is all superficial, and of small
account.

If that be so, then we are met by this experience: that when we honestly
try to make the tree good that its fruit may be good we come full front
up to this, that there is a streak in us, a stain, a twist--call it
anything you like--like a black vein through a piece of Parian marble,
or a scratch upon a mirror, which streak or twist baffles our effort to
make ourselves righteous. I am not going, if I can help it, to
exaggerate the facts of the case. The Christian teaching of what is
unfortunately called total depravity is not that there is no good in
anybody, but that there is a diffused evil in everybody which affects in
different degrees and in different ways all a man's nature. And that is
no mere doctrine of the New Testament, but it is a transcript from the
experience of every one of us.

What then? If I must be righteous in order that I may do righteousness,
and if, as I have found out by experience (for the only way to know
myself is to reflect upon what I have done)--if I have found out that I
am not righteous, what then? You may say to me, 'Have you led me into a
blind alley, out of which I cannot get? Here you are, insisting on an
imperative necessity, and in the same breath saying that it is
impossible. What is left for me?' I go on to tell you what is left.

III. Union with Jesus Christ by faith makes us 'righteous even as He is
righteous.'

There is the pledge, there is the prophecy, there is the pattern; and
there is the power to redeem the p