the strong virtues of which we have already said so much. Wisdom cannot be cold, knowledge cannot be hard, understanding cannot be sharp, counsel cannot be cruel, nor might relentless, neither can reverence be infected with any breath of terror, in the man who has the charity of the Spirit.
I think William James may be brought in again to help us in his useful dispassionate way:[1] The saint, he is saying, is a success, no matter what his immediate bad fortune may be; and, after mentioning a dozen examples of saints, which show that with all his impartiality he was at heart not far from New England, he proceeds:
'They show themselves, and there is no question; every one perceives their strength and stature. Their sense of mystery in things, their passion, their goodness, irradiate about them and enlarge their outlines while they soften them. They are like pictures with an atmosphere and background; and, placed alongside of them, the strong men of this world and no other seem as dry as sticks, as hard and crude as blocks of stone or brickbats'
The genial Fruits of the Spirit, then, in their totality form the distinctively Christian character, and are then rightly called by the high name of Charity. When religious circles are not unmistakably marked by them, those circles may be devoted to, religion and show fruits of religion, but it is not the Christian religion that they are devoted to, for
- ↑ Varieties of Religious Experience, 1904, p. 376.
