faith in Him He had faith in them; and that ultimately made them men.

It sounded much like cruel sarcasm when He told that weak, vacillating
Simon that he was a rock. Those who knew Peter best must have smiled;
he was more like a jellyfish. But Jesus could see the best that was in
a man. He detected the hidden good even in Peter. He proves His own
goodness by His faith in the good in every man.

Somewhere in every man there is some good. Overlaid it may be by
passion, by habits, by prejudice grown out of wrong and suffering
perchance; but still it is there. Faith in this and sympathy, these
are the golden keys that unlock the doors to where the good lies buried.

The saviours of society have always been those who looked for the best
in it. If you go through life seeking the beast in man, you will find
it, and the chances are it will devour you; if you look for the beauty
that is from above you will find it, and it will bless you. It is just
as necessary to have faith in man as it is to have faith in God. If
men cannot become good, then there is no God in the sense of a power
that makes for goodness. The optimist not only believes in the best,
he creates the better.

Some there are who reluctantly admit that God is a little better than
they are, though that may be due to His circumstances, but they have
never imagined for an instant that any one else is at all good.
Believe that men are wholly bad and they will not disappoint you.
Every man somehow responds to the expectations of others. You had
better damn a man than despair of him. Neither a church nor an
individual can help this world when they have more confidence in the
power of evil to become all pervasive than in the power of the Most