Shall we not thence learn charity, and the better understand the
full meaning of some who have said that vices were virtues in excess or
restraint? Taking the lists of each, and faithfully comparing them from
beginning to end, not one shall be found which will not confirm this
seemingly paradoxical statement.
Take the great fact of continuous progressive development which applies
to all organisms, vegetable or animal, and see how it is one with the law
that "the holy shall be holy still, the wicked shall be wicked still."
Dare we think what would be the formula in statement of spiritual life
which would be correlative to the "law of continuity"? Having dared to
think, then shall we use the expression "little sins," or doubt the
terrible absoluteness of exactitude with which "every idle word which men
speak" shall enter upon eternity of reckoning.
On the other hand, looking at all existences as organisms, shall we be
disturbed at seeming failure?--long periods of apparent inactivity? Shall
we believe, for instance, that Christ's great church can be really
hindered in its appropriate cycle of progressive change and adaptation?
That any true membership of this organic body can be formed or annulled by
mere human interference? That the lopping or burning of branches of the
tree, even the uprooting and burning of the tree itself, this year, next
year, nay, for hundreds of years, shall have power to annihilate or even
defer the ultimate organic result?
The soul of man is not outcast from this glory, this freedom, this safety
of law.
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