all our green places with barrenness.  Somehow, and at all costs, we must get back our lost sense of responsibility.  If we would remember that God has a right hand and a left hand; if we would put to ourselves Browning’s question, “But what will God say?” if sometimes we would pull ourselves up sharp, and ask—­this that I am doing, how will it look then, in that day when “Each shall stand full-face with all he did below”? if, I say, we would do this, could life continue to be the thing of shows and make-believe it so often is?  It was said of the late Dean Church by one who knew him well:  “He seemed to live in the constant recollection of something which is awful, even dreadful to remember—­something which bears with searching force on all men’s ways and hopes and plans—­something before which he knew himself to be as it were continually arraigned—­something which it was strange and pathetic to find so little recognized among other men.”  But, alas! this is how we refuse to live.  We thrust the thought of judgment from us; we treat it as an unwelcome intruder, a disturber of our peace; we block up every approach by which it might gain access to our minds.  We do not deny that there is a judgment to come; but our habitual disregard of it is verily amazing.  “Judge not,” said Christ, “that ye be not judged;” yet every day we let fly our random arrows, careless in whose hearts they may lodge.  “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment;” yet with what superb recklessness do we abuse God’s great gift of speech!  “We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God;” yes, we know it; but when do we think of it?  What difference does it make to us?

What can indifference such as this say for itself?  How can it justify itself before the bar of reason?  Do we realize that our neglect has Christ to reckon with?  These things of which I have spoken are not the gossamer threads of human speculation; they are the strong cords of Divine truth and they cannot be broken.  “You seem, sir,” said Mrs. Adams to Dr. Johnson, in one of his despondent hours, when the fear of death and judgment lay heavy on him, “to forget the merits of our Redeemer.”  “Madam,” said the honest old man, “I do not forget the merits of my Redeemer; but my Redeemer has said that He will set some on His right hand and some on His left.”  Yes, it is the words of Christ with which we have to do; and if we are wise, if we know the things which belong unto our peace, we shall find for them a place within our hearts.

II

The issues of the Judgment may be summed up in a single word—­separation:  “He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”  Stated thus broadly, the issue of the Judgment satisfies our sense of justice.  If there is to be judgment at all, separation must be the outcome.  And in that separation is vindicated one of man’s most deep-seated convictions.