ism grows, the dead crystal increases. The first grows vitally from
within, the last adds new particles from the outside. The whole
difference between the Christian and the moralist lies here. The
Christian works from the center, the moralist from the circumference.
The one is an organism, in the center of which is planted by the living
God a living germ. The other is a crystal, very beautiful it may be; but
only a crystal--it wants the vital principle of growth.

And one sees here also, what is sometimes very difficult to see, why
salvation in the first instance is never connected directly with
morality. The reason is not that salvation does not demand morality, but
that it demands so much of it that the moralist can never reach up to
it. The end of Salvation is perfection, the Christ-like mind, character
and life. Morality is on the way to this perfection; it may go a
considerable distance toward it, but it can never reach it. Only Life
can do that. It requires something with enormous power of movement, of
growth, of overcoming obstacles, to attain the perfect. Therefore the
man who has within himself this great formative agent, Life, is nearer
the end than the man who has morality alone. The latter can never reach
perfection; the former _must_. For the Life must develop out according
to its type; and being a germ of the Christ-life, it must unfold into _a
Christ_. Morality, at the utmost, only develops the character in one or
two directions. It may perfect a single virtue here and there, but it
cannot perfect all. And especially it fails always to give that rounded
harmony of parts, that perfect tune to the whole orchestra, which is the
marked characteristic of life. Perfect life is not merely the possessing
of perfect functions, but of perfect functions perfectly adjusted to
each other and all conspiring to a single result, the perfect working of
the whole organism. It is not said that the character will develop in
all its fullness in this life. That were a time too short for an
Evolution so magnificent. In this world only the cornless ear is seen;
sometimes only the small yet still prophetic blade. The sneer at the
godly man for his imperfections is ill-judged. A blade is a small thing.
At first it grows very near the earth. It is often soiled and crushed
and downtrodden. But it is a living thing. That great dead stone beside
it is more imposing; only it will never be anything else than a stone.
But this small blade