t understand the Dean's
test of goodness, nor do I understand Mr. Seccombe's or Mr. Vincent's
test of badness. What do we mean by a good man or a bad one, a good
woman or a bad one? Most people, like the young man in the song, are
'not very good, nor yet very bad.' We move about the pastures of life
in huge herds, and all do the same things, at the same times, and for
the same reasons. 'Forty feeding like one.' Are we mean? Well, we have
done some mean things in our time. Are we generous? Occasionally we
are. Were we good sons or dutiful daughters? We have both honoured and
dishonoured our parents, who, in their turn, had done the same by
theirs. Do we melt at the sight of misery? Indeed we do. Do we forget
all about it when we have turned the corner? Frequently that is so. Do
we expect to be put to open shame at the Great Day of Judgment? We
should be terribly frightened of this did we not cling to the hope
that amidst the shocking revelations then for the first time made
public our little affairs may fail to attract much notice. Judged by
the standards of humanity, few people are either good or bad. 'I have
not been a great sinner,' said the dying Nelson; nor had he--he had
only been made a great fool of by a woman. Mankind is all tarred with
the same brush, though some who chance to be operated upon when the
brush is fresh from the barrel get more than their share of the tar.
The biography of a celebrated man usually reminds me of the outside of
a coastguardsman's cottage--all tar and whitewash. These are the two
condiments of human life--tar and whitewash--the faults and the
excuses for the faults, the passions and pettinesses that make us
occasionally drop on all fours, and the generous aspirations that at
times enable us, if not to stand upright, at least to adopt the
attitude of the kangaroo. It is rather tiresome, this perpetual game
of French and English going on inside one. True goodness and real
badness escape it altogether. A good man does not spend his life
wrestling with the Powers of Darkness. He is victor in the fray, and
the most he is called upon to do is every now and again to hit his
prostrate foe a blow over the costard just to keep him in his place.
Thus rid of a perpetual anxiety, the good man has time to grow in
goodness, to expand pleasantly, to take his ease on Zion. You can see
in his face that he is at peace with himself--that he is no longer at
war with his elements. His society, if you are f