1 42 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



had been a law given which could have given life, 

 verily righteousness should have been by the law." 

 But such is the inherent corruption of human nature, 

 that no law, however holy or however sanctioned, could 

 reach and cure the disease. The laying of it as a stan- 

 dard of righteousness before a soul dead in trespasses 

 and sins, is as useless as was the laying of the prophet's 

 staff on the dead child's face. It only shows the dead- 

 ness of the soul all the more. 



And if this be the case with the great impersonal 

 method for the salvation of the whole race and of 

 the whole of human nature from all the evil effects 

 of sin, we find that it is very strikingly the case with 

 every individual attempt to overcome the individual 

 evils of sin in particular persons. Much of the ex- 

 ercise of benevolence in these days is impersonal. As 

 our agricultural occupations are now carried on by the 

 aid of machinery; as our fields are sown and reaped, 

 not by manual labour coming into close contact with 

 the seed In the sowing and with the stalks of ripe corn 

 in the reaping, but by means of implements that remove 

 the human agency to a greater distance from the objects 

 that are acted upon ; so much of our spiritual sowing 

 and reaping is also done by means of formal organiz- 

 ations committees, associations, and societies, with 

 limited liability. Many try to do good by means of 

 others. They bribe substitutes to undertake the duty 

 which rests upon every human being to relieve per- 

 sonally the brother whom he sees in want, and by 

 paying an occasional fine in money or money's worth, 



