and enumerates a whole series of separate acts. Jesus Christ says,
'One thing is needful.... This is the work of God.' He brushes away
the sacerdotal answer and the answer of the mere moralist, and He
says, 'No! Not _do_; but _trust_.' In so far as that is act, it is the
only act that you need.

That is evidently reasonable. The man is more than his work; motive is
more important than action; character is deeper than conduct. God is
pleased, not by what men do, but by what men are. We must _be_ first,
and then we shall _do_. And it is obviously reasonable, because we can
find analogies to the requirement in all other relations of life. What
would you care for a child that scrupulously obeyed, and did not love
or trust? What would a prince think of a subject who was ostentatious
in acts of loyalty, and all the while was plotting and nurturing
treason in his heart?

If doing separate acts of righteousness be the way to work the works
of God, then no man has ever done them. For it is a plain fact that
every man falls below his own conscience--which conscience is less
scrupulous than the divine law. The worst of us knows a great deal
more than the best of us does; and our lives, universally, are, at the
best, lives of partial effort after unreached attainments of obedience
and of virtue.

But, even supposing that we could perform, far more completely than we
do, the requirements of our own consciences, and conform to the
evident duties of our position and relations, do you think that
without faith we should be therein working the works of God? Suppose a
man were able fully to realise his own ideal of goodness, without any
confidence in God underlying all his acts; do you think that these