the letters "T. W." were placed on the lower edge. of the Sovereign's neck. George IV. found this out, and was extremely angry. So Ruskin warns the artist against the pride of mind and heart that may betray him into introducing his own vain conceits into his pictures; when he ought simply to rejoice in the work of God's hands, and to give Him all the glory by a faithful representation of it. Vanity, conceit, and insolence in the artist will mar his work, however great he may be. The immortal masters forgot themselves in the glory of the world.

And far beyond the blighting effects of pride of heart, or intellect and its achievements, is its fatal influence on the moral life. Meekness, teachableness, responsiveness, are essential to high spiritual excellence. Just as pride is the root of all vices, humility is the ground out of which all moral perfections spring. The structure of the violet is, we believe, the most perfect known to botanists, inasmuch as it possesses all the parts of a plant according to scientific classification, which comparatively few plants possess, whilst many brilliant tropical plants are more or less defective in their organs. As the sweet emblem of humility comprehends all the parts of a plant, so humility itself holds the essence of universal goodness; and he who is clothed with it is perfect, lacking nothing.

The idea that men of marked humility and unselfishness are inept creatures has no foundation in fact. George Sand writes: "Humility of mind is a monkish virtue which God forbids to reformers." It is not so. Meekness was the grand characteristic of our Lord;

it is repeatedly and most touchingly revealed in St. Paul; and, whatever his traducers may say, the humility of Martin Luther was profound. A Turkish proverb well discriminates: "A man is harder than iron, more delicate than the rose." Noble men are ever thus; they have a side of lowliness, softness, condescension, helpfulness, the delicacy and sweetness of the rose; and with this simplicity and gentleness they blend qualities of the utmost strength and steadfastness.

P

XXXIV

DIFFERENTIATIONS IN

EXCELLENCE

The gold of that land is good.-GEN. ii. 12.

ROFOUND students of human nature are most

conscious of the complexity of moral character.

Analyzing the elements which enter into it they discover sound alloy in base metal. The soul of goodness in things evil is a favourite topic with some critics; and, it may be acknowledged, a legitimate one. It is good to think that pure evil is rare, if, indeed, it is ever met with. But, on the other hand, these assayers of human nature find dross in the most refined metal. Gold is never found pure, and they do not find humanity so. A reviewer writes: "With Thackeray no passion is simple, no motive unmixed. Affection is alloyed with injustice, innocence with selfishness, generosity with folly, love itself with jealousy and calculation." Indeed, good and evil in many instances are so undeniably present and so subtly interfused that the appraiser of character is puzzled by the anagram, and hesitates as to the category to which his ambiguous subject belongs. In California in some cases the more precious metals of silver and gold are found in con

nexion with copper. The gold in certain places is so largely mixed with the copper that it is a question whether the mine is a poor gold or a rich copper one. Most of us are acquainted with men and women who, concerning their moral qualities, present a similar problem; and many of us are familiar with the same problem in our own heart and life. There is gold and gold, as found it varies immensely in fineness; and even when we may humbly hope that through God's grace we rank with the higher metal, yet are we distressed that so much in our experience and character is mixed and amorphous.

The range of moral excellence is immense. The interval is wide between the ordinary precious stones of the working jeweller and the Cullinan diamond; between the seed pearl and the lustrous drop for the possession of which millionaires contend; between the meagre sparkle of the quartz and the refined gold of the treasury of kings: and this wide scheme of material values is only one illustration of the distance that often obtains between the worst and best of the excellent things of nature. In the intellectual world an all but infinite space divides the good artist in literature, colour, or music from the immortal masters. And the differentiations of moral worth are wider still, although they may not be equally obvious. Only He whose eye sees every precious thing can sum up the gradations, and measure the distance, between "the least. in the kingdom of heaven" and the saint who comes nearest to his Master and who is most like Him. A well-known work on ornithology has an illuminated frontispiece, on which are figured the first bird pre

served in the geological record and the highest bird existent on the earth to-day. The earliest known avine form is the archæopteryx, a creature which was unquestionably during life a feather-clad bird; yet it had only just passed the reptile stage, and still retained many reptilian characteristics-it is altogether a strange, monstrous form. By the side of this primitive creature is a picture of the last and highest type of bird, the bird of paradise-a form on which Heaven has lavished such a wealth of elegance and glory, that when a great living naturalist first beheld it in its native haunts he was so overpowered by its splendour that his heart beat violently and he nearly fainted. Millions of delicate differentiations have lifted the lizard-like original into an organized scrap of rainbow.

This teaching of natural history may remind us of the countless variations, transformations, and phases which crowd the wide interval separating the convert, freshly emerging from the mud of the slough with many gross characteristics yet adhering to him, and the saint, cleansed, disciplined, faultless-quite on the verge of heaven. We think of a man as a converted man, as a good man, and are content with the simple description; yet we must not forget that there is such a thing as comparative goodness, and that innumerable gradations exist among good men. The Scriptures repeatedly recognize these subtle differences in the character, consecration, and service of those who are, nevertheless, all recognized disciples. It is true that He alone who searcheth the hearts and who knoweth the mind of the Spirit is acquainted with the differential calculus of the interior world, the method and