truth of computation in the highest branches of moral life and action, and He only can follow the silent and hidden progressiveness of the soul; but He knows all these secrets, they are written in His book, and they will regulate the final verdict.

It would be rank presumption to attempt to say how far refinement of character may go. In this age we are chary of attempting to define the potentialities of any thing or creature whatever, much less must we venture to place limits to the ennobling of character and life. Who may affirm to what ultrasensitiveness, to what sovereign strength conscience may attain in a fully consecrated life! Just as science has brought timepieces to an almost absolute perfection, then enclosing them in hermetically sealed cases that the mechanism may not be affected by changes of temperature or of atmospheric pressure; so conscience enshrined in, tempered by the Holy Ghost, acquires an almost infallible truth of delicacy. Who may declare the capacity of the human will! Without doubt it may be educated until it enjoys perfect freedom and ineffable delight in executing the behests of the highest righteousness. Who may set a limit to the richness of love, to the power of self-sacrifice, to the sublimity of purity, of which a true heart is susceptible! Who dares to assign a boundary to the power of holiness in practical life! Holy Writ assures us that we may be cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and that we may perfect holiness in the fear of God. Have we, then, more faith in the corruption and weakness of human nature than we have in the redeeming and hallowing grace of the Spirit of power and holiness? As already intimated,

great are the possibilities of material things, great are the possibilities of the human mind, and we have seen the folly of fixing arbitrary limits to their capacity of development; but is it not far more glaring presumption to attempt to confine within any narrow lines the unfolding of the moral life? "I have seen an end of all perfection; but Thy commandment is exceeding broad." The infinity of the law argues the infinity of the soul, and its vast possibilities of vision, power, beauty, and blessedness. We do ourselves amazing injustice by qualifying the ideal of human perfection. "The gold of that land is good." Outside the kingdom of God is much auriferous gravel; immediately within its borders is coarse gold; but in its depths alloys, adulterations, and debasements are finally purged, and human nature throughout its structure, manifestations, and experiences has become even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal, or as pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

In the highest reaches of character and action do we taste the ineffable satisfactions of godly life. "The least in the kingdom of heaven" is conscious of unearthly blessedness, but the lower stages of the better life have no glory by reason of the glory that excelleth. The last degrees of perfection in anything mean more than all that went before. The trifling superiority of the historical diamond in size and water give it an altogether disproportionate value; so minute are the excelling perfections of the prize rose that they are inappreciable to an untrained eye; the skimming of the final film of alloy makes poetry of the gold on the fire; it is a fine stroke, a soft touch, a last ethereal grace that constitutes an artistic master

piece and invests it with fabulous wealth and glory; and it is when purity loses its final specks of dross, when love precipitates its lingering sediment of selfishness, when the scent of pride and vanity is gone, when the thoughts, emotions and motives are ultimately clarified, when life attains to perfect simplicity, sincerity and loftiness, that we enter into the fullness of joy which is beyond all other joy as the flower transcends the leaf. Strive toward these highest ends, follow the "more excellent" way, "that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light."

XXXV

TRUTH

For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. -2 Cor. xiii. 8.

T

RUTH is a question of far wider scope than verbal literal accuracy; indeed, the prosaic man who prides himself on rigid accuracy of statement, and upon his habit of calling a spade a spade, is sometimes essentially untruthful. One may be severely precise about dates, numbers, and circumstances, and yet through suppression and bias egregiously misrepresent and discolour the facts of the situation. Much has been written about the photograph as a false witness. The general notion is that a photograph must be, without question, an almost ideal of truthfulness; we feel sure that the sun cannot lie. And yet it has been shown in an ancient-lights case that photographs can be taken of the same site which are mutually contradictory. The photograph is made to speak for this or for that, according to the interests of the parties concerned. The artist has to select his lens, to find the desired standpoint, and to take the picture at the right time of day. By sundry devices walls may be represented as near or far, windows misplaced by a sinister angle, various sections of the premises

magnified into disproportion, and the whole scene confused by lights and shadows cunningly distributed. When the two photographs taken in the interests of the two litigants were brought into court they gave diametrically contradictory witness. Thus although in one sense the camera must be literally accurate, yet in another sense the photograph may seriously lie and mislead. And just as photography, whilst mechanically veracious, may give directly false evidence, so the verbally accurate witness, whilst telling the circumstantial truth in the main, may, through prejudice, pride, or interest, suppress some item or introduce some small and concealed element of falsehood as serves to turn the whole of his testimony on the side of unrightness.

On the other side, it is quite possible for imaginative and emotional people to give the literal truth a certain exaggerated and poetical setting which does not violate the essential truth or mislead. This is so with much of the fiction of Sir Walter Scott; the graphic, romantic presentment bringing home to the reader more forcibly the essential truth of certain historical scenes than could have been done by literal statements and statistics. Turner furnishes a similar illustration in art. Critics of a sort complain of his inaccuracies, and that they fail to recognize in his cities and landscapes the features which are known to distinguish them; but the apologists of the great artist contend for his exceptional truthfulness; he neglects topographical precision, yet the essential characteristics of the scenery are seized and depicted with unerring delicacy and fidelity. It is quite possible to be intensely faithful