ng at all. If
the earth had ceased to bear men pleasant in God's sight, it would have
passed away like the cities in the plain. But who are they? which are
they? how are we to know them? They are our leaders in this life
campaign of ours. If we could see them, we would follow them, and save
ourselves many and many a fall, and many an enemy whom we could have
avoided, if we had known of him. It cannot be that the thing is so
simple, when names of highest reputation are wrangled over, and such
poor counterfeits are mobbed with applauding followers. In art and
science we can detect the charlatan, but in life we do not recognise him
so readily--we do not recognise the charlatan, and we do not recognise
the true man. Rajah Brooke is alternately a hero or a pirate; and fifty
of the best men among us are likely to have fifty opinions on the merits
of Elizabeth or Cromwell.

But surely, men say, the thing is simple. The commandments are simple.
It is not that people do not know, but that they will not act up to what
they know. We hear a great deal of this in sermons, and elsewhere; and
of course, as everybody's experience will tell him, there is a great
deal too much reason why we should hear of it. But there are two sorts
of duty, positive and negative; what we ought to do, and what we ought
not to do. To the latter of these, conscience is pretty much awake; but
by cunningly concentrating its attention on one side of the matter,
conscience has contrived to forget altogether that any other sort exists
at all. 'Doing wrong' is breaking a commandment which forbids us to do
some particular thing. That is all the notion which in common language
is attached to the idea. Do not kill, steal, lie, swear, commit
adultery, or break the Lord's day--these are the commandments; very
simple, doubtless, and easy to be known. But, after all, what are they?
They are no more than the very first and rudimental conditions of
goodness. Obedience to these is not more than a small part of what is
required of us; it is no more than the foundation on which the
superstructure of character is to be raised. To go through life, and
plead at the end of it that we have not broken any of these
commandments, is but what the unprofitable servant did, who kept his
talent carefully unspent, and yet was sent to outer darkness for his
uselessness. Suppose these commandments obeyed--what then? It is but a
small portion of our time which, we will hope, is spent in re