them the spiritual atmosphere with which it
surrounds them is bleak and gray. But, "Let Thy loving spirit lead me
forth into the land of righteousness";--"The Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy Glory";--"Unto you that fear My Name
shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings," says the
Old Testament; "born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God";--"Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God";--"Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world,"
says the New. The ray of sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;
the austerity of the sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak
is healed; he who is vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are
possible to Him"; "he is a new creature."

Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear
taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not
hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this handle
the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of it by
this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take hold of it
by what will bear handling." Jesus, being asked whether a man is bound to
forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers: "I say not unto
thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven." Epictetus here
suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of injuries which Jesus
does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is on that account a better
moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the emotion, of Jesus' answer fires
his hearer to the practice of forgiveness of injuries, while the thought
in Epictetus's leaves him cold. So with Christian morality in general: its
distinction is not that it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and
thy neighbor," with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity,
than other moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an
inspiration which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon
it. It is because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of
this nature, that he is--instead of being, like the school from which he
proceeds, doomed to sterility--a writer of distinguished mark and
influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must be
pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with them,
that he falls just short of being a great writer....

The man w