We are bound therefore to ask, can that method of conduct be wrong which has won this triumphant issue? It may be ironically true that we love Him most for those very acts of His which we are least likely to imitate; but is not this our tacit testimony to the essential rightness of these acts? In our better, or our softer moments; or in those moments when we are most conscious of the cruelty of life, and most in need of love, do we not feel, as the life of Jesus grows before us, that this is how life should be lived? Dare we question that a world governed wholly by the ideals of Jesus would be a far happier world than this we know? Love, as the one necessary law of life, clearly stands justified in Jesus, since it has produced the most adorable character in history. If we admit this, it is foolish to speak of Christ's ideals as impracticable. What we approve in another's life we cannot wholly repudiate in our own. Let it be added also, that a life lived by another is always a life that others can live. We may seek to cover our failure, and the world's failure, to reproduce the life of Jesus, by the plea of incompetence, but against our plea Jesus records His verdict, "_Behold I have left you an example_." From that verdict there is no appeal. LOVE AND JUDGMENT _MOTHER AND SON_ _When, for the last time, from His Mother's home The Son went forth, foreseeing perfectly What doom would happen, and what things would come, Was there upon His lips no stifled sigh For happy hours that should return no more, Long days among the lilies, pure delights Of wanderings by Galilee's fair shore, And converse with His friends on starry nights? Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun With this one word, "Father, Thy will be done!"_ _With a low voice the stooping olive-trees Whispered to Him of His Gethsemane; The cruel thorn-bush, clinging to His knees, Proclaimed, "I shall be made a crown for Thee!" And, looking back, His eyes made dim with loss, He saw the lintel of the cottage grow In shape against the sunset, like a cross, And knew He had not very far to go. Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun, Still saying this one word, "Thy will be done!"_ _So, when the last time, from His Mother's home The Son passed out, no choir of angels came, As long before at Bethlehem they had come, To comfort Him upon the road of shame. Alone He went, and stopped a little space, As one overburdened, stopped to look again Upon His Mother's pleading form and face, And wept for her, that she should know this pain. Then, silently, He faced the setting sun And said, "Oh, Father, let Thy will be done!"_ VII LOVE AND JUDGMENT