"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain."--_Jude 11._
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."--_Romans x. 3._
We are becoming, according to the canons of this world, a righteous nation; the standard of civic and commercial righteousness is elevated as never before. Sleuth-hounds are scenting every indication of misrule and running to earth evil-doers, high and low. Our cities are keeping tab rigidly on sewerage, cesspools, and outhouses; a persistent war is being waged on flies, mosquitoes, and germs of all kinds. Private citizens are everywhere organizing to coöperate with officials for public welfare. Corporation and municipal rings must answer at the bar of an outraged public conscience.
Righteousness is in the air; it resounds from the pulpit, platform and press. Chautauqua specialists who have discovered some deflection in the political and social woof and warp declare, amid salutes of fluttering handkerchiefs, the righteousness of twentieth century standards. Preaching on the cardinal doctrines of the Bible has been displaced by rhetorical messages on altruism: light, ethics, mercy, cleanness, goodness. "The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," with a flavour of intellectualism, is the gospel that is now being emphasized with much gusto, and never fails to solicit the indorsement of all denominations. "Be good and do good" is the _multum in parvo_ of present day righteousness.
Who but a chronic faultfinder could object to this upward move, so obvious now in all directions? The world is getting kinder, more sympathetic, more charitable; creed lines are dissolving like snow under an April sun; sectarian prejudice is dying under the withering frown of new ideals. Does this not indicate a gradual leavening of the "whole lump"? The spirit of Christ, they tell us, is being adopted everywhere. He is mounting the throne of universal empire, and the time surely is not far distant when the social, political, commercial and domestic life will be regenerated by His influence. Yes--it would appear so to be; much that is done bears a Christian label; it comes in the name of Christ; but, says a writer, "it is the Christ of Bethlehem and not the Christ of the Cross." It is the human Christ and not the sacrificial--the exponent of a blood Atonement.