_Their Christian Transformation_.--But now if we compare the cardinal virtues with the conception of goodness revealed in Scripture, we are at once conscious of a contrast. We seem to move in a new atmosphere, and to be confronted with a view of life in which entirely different values hold. 1. While in the New Testament many virtues are commended, no complete description occurs in any single passage. The beatitudes may be regarded as our Lord's catalogue of the typical qualities of life, and a development of virtuous life might be worked out from the Sermon on the Mount. Beginning with poverty of spirit, {189} humility, and meekness, and rising up out of the individual struggle of the inner man, we attain to mercifulness and peaceableness--the spirit which bears the poverty of others, and seeks to make others meek and gentle. Next the desire for righteousness finds expression in a readiness to endure persecution, to support the burden of duty in the midst of worldly conflict; and finally in the highest stage the light of virtue shines through the clouds of struggle and breaks forth spontaneously, irradiating all who come into contact with it, and constituting man the servant of humanity, the light of the world.[7] Or we might turn to the apostle Paul, who regards the virtues as the fruit of the Spirit, describing them in general as 'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, faith, gentleness, humility.'[8] A rich cluster is also mentioned as 'the fruit of light'--goodness, righteousness, truth. A further enumeration is given in Colossians where the apostle commends compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, forbearance, and forgiveness.[9] And once more there is the often-quoted series in the Epistle to the Philippians, 'Whatsoever things are true, reverent, just, chaste, lovely, and kindly spoken of.'[10] Nor must we forget the characteristics of love presented in the apostle's 'Hymn of Charity.'[11] To these descriptions of St. Paul there ought to be added the remarkable passage in which St. Peter unfolds the process of the moral life from its seed to the perfect flower.[12] Though the authorship of this passage has been disputed, that fact does not make the representation less trustworthy and typical as an exhibition of early Christian morality. According to this picture, just as in St. Paul's view, the whole moral life has its root in faith, and character is nothing else than the working out of the initial energy of the soul into virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity--all that makes life worthy and excellent. Character is not built like a house, by the addition of stone to stone. It is evolved as {190} a plant from a seed. Given faith, there will ultimately emerge all the successive qualities of true goodness--knowledge, temperance, patience--the personal virtues, rising upwards to godliness or the love