Thus it is that, up to a certain point, in moral matters the majority are right; and thus Christ’s gospel, in a great many respects, goes along with public opinion, and the voice of society is the voice of truth.  But this, to use the expression of our Lord’s parable, this is but half the height of that tower whose top should reach unto heaven.  Christianity ascends a great deal higher; and therefore so many who begin to build are never able to finish.  Christ’s disciples and the world’s disciples work for a certain way together; and thus far the world’s disciples call themselves Christ’s, and so Christ’s followers seem to be a great majority.  But Christ warns us expressly that we are not his disciples merely by going a certain way on the same road with them.  They only are His, who follow Him to the end.  They only are His, who follow him in spite of everything, who leave all rather than leave him.  For the rest, He does not own them.  What the world can give they may enjoy; but Christ’s kingdom is shut against them.

Speaking, then, according to Christ’s judgment, and we must hold those to be of the world, and not of Him,—­and therefore in God’s judgment, to be the evil and not the good,—­who do not make up their minds to live in His service, and to refer their actions, words, and thoughts to His will.  Who these are it is very true that we many times cannot know:  only we may always fear that they are the majority of society; and therefore we are rather anxious in any individual’s case to get a proof that he is not one of them, because, as they are very many, there is always a sort of presumption that any given person is of this number, unless there is some evidence, or some presumption at any rate, for thinking the contrary.

When we speak, then, of the good and of the evil side in human life, in any society, whether smaller or larger,—­this is what we mean, or should mean.  The evil side contains much that is, up to a certain point, good:  the good side,—­for does it not consist of human beings?—­contains, unhappily, much in it that is evil.  Not all in the one is to be avoided,—­far from it; nor is all in the other by any means to be followed.  But still those are called evil in God’s judgment who live according to their own impulses, or according to the law of the society around them; and those are to be called good, who, in their principles, whatever may be the imperfections of their practice, endeavour in all things to live according to the will of Christ.

And in this view the characters of Jacob and Esau are, as it seems to me, full of instruction; and above all to us here.  For I have often observed that the early age of an individual bears a great resemblance to the early age of the human race, or of any particular nation; so that the characters of the Old Testament are often more suited, in a Christian country, for the instruction of the young than for those of more advanced years.  To Christian men, looking at Jacob’s