life to explain the higher, the outward to shed light upon the inward. We
pluck with foolish, aimless fingers at this strange tangle of human life.
We judge God's way with us as far as we can see it, and we think we have
got to the end of it. We draw our shallow conclusions. Faith teaches us
that God's way with us is a longer and a deeper way, and the end of that
way is down in the depths of our spirit, hidden in the love of our
character. It is not here and now. It is in what we shall be if God have
His will with us.

All the true definitions of things are written in the soul. It was here
that the Psalmist found his definition of evil. 'The Lord shall keep thee
from all evil; He shall keep thy soul.' Then evil is something that
threatens the soul. It is not material, but spiritual. It is not in our
circumstances themselves, but in their effect upon the inward life. The
same outward conditions of life may be good or evil according to their
influence on our character. Good and evil are not qualities of things. They
have no meaning apart from the soul. The world says that health and wealth
are good, and that sickness and poverty are evil. If that were true the
line that separates the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor,
would also separate the happy from the miserable. But we find joy and
sorrow on both sides of that line. We are drawn to look deeper than this
for our definition of good and evil. We have to make the soul the final
arbiter amid these conflicting voices. Here we must find the true
definition of evil. The first question we ask when we hear of a house
having been burnt down is this: 'Was there any loss of life?' All else lies
on a vastly lower plane of interest and importance. So must we learn to
distinguish between the house of circumstance, or the house of the body,
and the soul that dwells in it. The only real loss is the 'loss of life,'
the loss of any of these inner things that go to make the soul's strength
and treasure. The man who has lost everything except faith and hope has,