admire what is good, even though they be naughty themselves; and if
you tell them of any very loving, generous, or brave action, their
hearts leap up in answer to it. They feel at once how beautiful
goodness is.

But why?

St. John tells us. That feeling comes, he tells us, from Christ, the
light who is the life of men, and lights every man who comes into the
world; and that light in our hearts, which makes us see, and admire,
and love what is good, is none other than Christ himself shining in
our hearts, and showing to us his own likeness, and the beauty
thereof.

But if we stop there; if we only admire what is good, without trying
to copy it, we shall lose that light. Our corrupt and diseased
nature (and corrupt and diseased it is, as we shall surely find, as
soon as we begin to try to do right) will quench that heavenly spark
in us more and more, till it dies out--as God forbid that it should
die out in any of us. For if it did die out, we should care no more
for what is good. We should see nothing beautiful, and noble, and
glorious, in being just, and loving, and merciful. And then, indeed,
we should see nothing worth loving in God himself:- and it were
better for us that we had never been born.

But none of us, I trust, are fallen as low as that. We all, surely,
admire a good action, and love a good man. Surely we do. Then I
will go on, to ask you one question more.

Did it ever strike you, that goodness is not merely A beautiful