sneaks under cover of this great mantle of truth when he tells his lie. For if all men were liars no one would believe his lie. Lying would cease to be any advantage. The lie is useful to the cheat and coward only because he preys upon the reputation of truthful men.

Well, there is always someone who raises the question, "Is not a lie sometimes justifiable? Are there not certain extreme and exceptional cases in which a lie becomes the necessary virtue?" This is not a new question. You can find it dealt with at great length in the most dusty tomes of a theological library, under the head of casuistry. Casuistry is the branch of moral science that deals with those particular cases of conscience which seem to constitute exceptions to general law. If you should glance into one of these medieval books of casuistry you would be amazed at the hair-splitting and juggling by which a lie is in certain cases justified. It is because of this that the word "casuist" has come to have a bad sense in modern speech, and indicates one who seeks to evade plain truth, and to squirm out of moral pitfalls by a confusion of right and

wrong. The premeditation of possible excuses for lying is no fit study for an honest. man. It is a maxim among lawyers that "hard cases make bad law." The virtue or justice of a law is not to be judged by the hardship which it effects in extreme and difficult particular cases.

It may be that in some dire exigencies, in some extreme act of self sacrifice for the good of others, great and truthful souls have permitted themselves a lie which the Recording Angel has forgotten to mark against them. But to all such vexing questions and suppositions the best answer is that of Dr. Jowett, the famous Master of Balliol. Someone asked him if he would not, in a certain extreme case, tell a lie in order to save the life of a person whom he loved. He said, "I suppose I should tell the lie, but I would rather not think about it beforehand, nor justify it afterward."

For the mo

There spake an honest man. ment you begin to formulate a science for lying, you open the floodgates of falsehood all along the line, and you make possible the casuist who believes that any lie is justifiable, if he whispers, "God forgive me!" behind his hand.

It is the part of Christians always boldly to speak the truth. It is not always easy. Sometimes it is a terrible ordeal. Sometimes it seems to be inviting disaster. But the God of truth will care for those who speak the truth. He will take care of the consequences. For it is with Him that we have to deal. Sad as are the consequences of falsehood in upheaving social order and in throwing into confusion the confidence between man and man, terrible as the effect is upon the soul that stains itself with lies, the great sin is against our Creator and Redeemer and Sanctifier.

The last words that rang in the ears of Ananias upon this earth, before his soul was wrenched free from the body that sprawled all at once lifeless at the feet of the Apostles, were these: "Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God!"

And into the unknown his spirit rushed irresistibly to meet Almighty God, bearing the stain of a lie.

IV.

THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS.

As Jesus prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering.— S. LUKE ix, 29.

THAT Jesus Christ is human-that He is Man-has never been so fully realized, since the days of His first disciples, as at the present time. Whatever unbelief in His divinity may be mingled with the modern emphasis upon His humanity, there is a gain, on the whole, in the apprehension of the old faith of Christendom, whenever the Founder of our religion is described as Perfect Man. The modern humanitarian can never conceive of a more splendid ideal than that of the Christian faith, which, if it asserts that God became Man and walked the fields of Galilee and the streets of Oriental cities nineteen hundred years ago, also proclaims, since the Man Jesus now sits at the right hand of God, as one who has experienced human sorrow and love and toil, that a Human Heart now beats at the very centre of the Universe.

The primitive disciples, lacking our theological prepossessions, were the companions of an intensely human Christ. He was their intimate personal friend. If they witnessed His mighty deeds, they shared with Him also the drab commonplace of everyday discomfort. Gracious words of divine blessing fell from His lips, and utterances that burned like flame, but the disciples could remember that He was rejected with contempt by His own town of Nazareth, where were the carpenter's bench, and the hammers, and hatchets, and saws, and gimlets, with which His hands had wrought a common trade.

Then there came a crisis of experience in which all this crude realism was penetrated by the vision of a deeper reality. They climbed one evening to a mountain-topJesus and His three most intimate disciples, Peter, and James, and John. They looked down upon the sunset view which a later tourist describes, and perhaps with the same impressions, for two thousand years have left the scene unchanged: "The Sea of Galilee was lit up with a delicate greenish-yellow hue, between its dim walls of hill. The flush died out, and a pale, steel-colored shade suc