shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." In these two commandments the whole law is summed
up, the whole duty of man is made known. It is well to emphasize this
two-fold aspect of the truth at a time when we are often tempted to
define religion wholly in the terms of morality, and, while insisting on
the duties which we owe to each other, to forget those which we owe to
God. If there be a God righteousness must surely have a meaning in
relation to Him; it cannot be simply another name for philanthropy.
Christ at least will not call that man just and good who does right to
all except his Maker. In the Christian doctrine of the good life room
must be found for God. At the present moment, however, it is the subject
in its man-ward aspect that I wish specially to keep in view, partly
because some limitation is obviously necessary, and partly also because
it is this of which Christ Himself had most to say.

I

What, then, is Christ's idea of righteousness? In other words, what did
He teach concerning the good life? Now here also, as in His teaching
about God, Christ did not need to begin _de novo_. Those to whom He
spoke had already their own ideals of duty and holiness. True, these
were sadly in need of revision and correction. Nevertheless, such as
they were, they were there, and Christ could use them as His
starting-point. Consequently, therefore, we find His ideas of
righteousness defined largely by contrast with existing ideas. "It was
said to them of old time ... but I say unto _you_." This is the note
heard all through the Sermon on the Mount. The contrast may be stated
in two ways.

(1) In the first place, Christ said that the righteousness of His
disciples must exceed that of publicans and heathen: "If ye love them
that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not
even the Gentiles the same?" There are virtues exhibited in the lives of
even wholly irreligious men. There are rudimentary moral principles
which they that know not God nevertheless acknowledge and obey. It was
so in Christ's time; it is so still. The popular American ballad, "Jim
Bludso," and Ian Maclaren's touching story of the Drumtochty postman,
are familiar illustrations of self-sacrificing virtues revealed by men
of coarse and vicious lives. Nor ought we to deny the reality of such
virtues; still less ought we to follow the bad example of St. Augustin