But if so, they come from God; they are God’s gift, and not any natural product of our own hearts: and for that very reason we can and must keep them alive in us by prayer. As long as we think that the sentiment of justice and truth is our own, so long shall we be in danger of forgetting it, paltering with it, playing false to it in temptation, and by some injustice or meanness grieving (as St. Paul warns us) the Holy Spirit of God, who has inspired us with that priceless treasure.
But if we believe that from God, the fount of justice, comes all our justice; that from God, the fount of truth, comes all our truthfulness, then we shall cry earnestly to him, day by day, as we go about this world’s work, to be kept from all injustice, and from all falsehood. We shall entreat him to cleanse us from our secret faults, and to give us truth in the inward parts; to pour into our hearts that love to our neighbour which is justice itself, for it worketh no ill to its neighbour, and so fulfils the law. We shall dread all meanness and cruelty, as sins against the very Spirit of God; and our most earnest and solemn endeavour in life will be, to keep innocence, and take heed to the thing that is right; for that will bring us peace at the last.
FOOTNOTES
[243] Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on Tintern Abbey.’