compromise blurs the line of cleavage between truth and error, and that is exactly what no one of us can afford to have done. We do not want the lines of distinction between what is true and what is false slurred over for us. We want them sharpened so that we shall make as little mistake as possible as to where they lie. Furthermore compromise gets us into more difficulty than it removes, because it throws together things that are not congruous or reconcilable. This is its very nature. It brings into one bed things that cannot sleep together, into one union things that cannot be tied. And it postpones real settlements in the interest of spurious arrangements, sacrificing some
"greater good for the less, on no more creditable ground
than that the less is nearer. It is better to wait, and to
defer the realization of our ideas until we can realize them
fully, than to defraud the future by truncating them, if
truncate them we must, in order to secure a partial triumph
for them in the immediate present. . . . What is the
sense, and what is the morality, of postponing the wider
utility to the narrower? Nothing is so sure to impoverish
an epoch, to deprive conduct of nobleness, and character
of elevation."
These are Mr. Morley's closing words. This is
the second reason why we believe there can be
no room for compromise in our Christian life or
service.
In the third place, it encourages evil by mak-
