" But then, if you speak the truth, you say, "And in the end what
am I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful."
What is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch of
genius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminates
the moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness,
the science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desire
of doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit that
belongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst of
your soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; but
what is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality which
comes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living person
first--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm,
the ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it is
right. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear of
contradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainly
we are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;
certainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, the
thirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because it
is right.
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