y,
tenderness--in one word, any touch, however momentary, of unselfishness,-
-let us spring at that, knowing that there is the soul we seek; there is
a lost sheep of Christ; there is Christ Himself, working unknown upon a
human soul; there is a soul ready for the gospel, and not far from the
kingdom of God. But what shall we say to that lost sheep? Shall we
terrify it by threats of hell? Shall we even allure it by promises of
heaven? Not so--not so at least at first--for that would be to appeal to
bodily fear and bodily pleasure, to the very selfishness from which
Christ is trying to deliver it; and to neglect the very prevenient grace,
the very hold on the soul which Christ Himself offers us. Let us
determine with St. Paul to know nothing among our fellow-men but Christ
crucified. Let us appeal just to that in the soul which is unselfish;
not to the instincts of loss and gain, but to those nobler instincts of
justice and mercy; just because they are not the man's or the woman's
instincts; but Christ's within them, the light of Christ and the Spirit
of Christ, the spirit of love and justice saying, "Do unto others as you
would they should do unto you." Do you doubt that? I trust not. For to
doubt that is to doubt whether God be truly the Giver of all good things.
To doubt that is to begin to disbelieve St. Paul's great saying, "In me,
that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." To doubt that is to lay
our hearts and minds open to the insidious poison of that Pelagian heresy
which, received under new shapes and names, is becoming the cardinal
heresy of modern disbelief. No; we will have faith in Christ, faith in
our creeds, faith in catholic doctrine; and will say to that man or that
woman, even as they wallow still in the darkness and the mire, "Behold
your God! That cup of cold water which you gave, you knew not why,--
Christ told you to give it, and to Him you gave. That night watch beside
the bed of a woman as fallen as yourself,--Christ bade you watch, and you
watched by Him. For that drunken ruffian, whom you, a drunken ruffian
yourself, leaped into the sea to save, Christ bade you leap, and like St.
Christopher of old, you bore, though you knew it not, your Saviour and
your God to land." And if they shall make answer, "And who is He that I
did not know Him? who is He that I should know Him now?" Let us point
them--and whither else should we point them in heaven or e