THE TRUE STEPPING UPWARD.
In all its teachings the New Testament attests its divine source by arraying itself boldly and persistently against the accepted maxims and opinions of the world. It is generally more positive than polite in denouncing as sins what the world often considers virtues, and even high-class virtues. It insists upon what the world ought never to have forgotten, but which it made all possible haste to forget as unwelcome truths, that righteous words are nothing, except as they evidently indicate a corresponding mind or purpose, and that acts which the world loudly commends as evidences of rare Christian virtues, amount to nothing in the sight of God, except as they are the outcome of a heart filled with love to God and man akin to that which the Saviour manifested in the days of his work and teachings, and in the hours of his scourgings and crucifixion sufferings. We do not mean that what are commonly known as good works are not better than bad ones. What we mean to say is that no one ever climbed to heaven on any such ladder, or ever will. The first rounds of the ladder may seem safe and sure, but before a climber fairly begins to get out of sight of this world, the whole thing will collapse and let him down. The inspired apostle Paul had, of course, a thoroughly correct understanding of this subject. He illustrated that understanding in what we have as 1 Corinthians 13, a chapter which we can profitably read a great deal oftener than we do.—N. Y. Evangelist.