goodness, but to seek to attain an all-round perfectness, even in
regard to the graces least natural to our dispositions. And we can
rejoice to believe that God is generous in His acceptance and
praise. He does not grudge commendation, but takes account of the
deepest desires and main tendencies of a life, and sees the germ as
a full-blown flower, and the bud as a fruit.

Learn, too, that solitary goodness is possible. Noah stood
uninfected by the universal contagion; and, as is always the case,
the evil around, which he did not share, drove him to a more rigid
abstinence from it. A Christian who is alone 'in his generations,'
like a lily among nettles, has to be, and usually is, a more earnest
Christian than if he were among like-minded men. The saints in
'Caesar's household' needed to be very unmistakable saints, if they
were not to be swept away by the torrent of godlessness. It is hard,
but it is possible, for a boy at school, or a young man in an
office, or a soldier in a barrack, to stand alone, and be
Christlike; but only on condition that he yields to no temptation to
drop his conduct to the level around him, and is never guilty of
compromise. Once yield, and all is over. Flowers grow on a dunghill,
and the very reeking rottenness may make the bloom finer.

Learn, too, that the true place for the saint is 'in his
generations.' If the mass is corrupt, so much the more need to rub
the salt well in. Disgust and cowardice, and the love of congenial
society, keep Christian people from mixing with the world, which
they must do if they are to do Christ's work in it. There is a great
deal too much union with the world, and a great deal too much
separation from it, nowadays, and both are of the wrong sort. We
cannot keep too far away from it, by abstinence from living by its