had built their nests in his hair—­until his nails, like those of the King of Babylon, had grown like birds’ talons—­until they had grown into his hands—­and he became absorbed into the Divinity.

We will take another instance, and one better known.  In ancient Sparta it was the custom to teach children to steal.  And here there would seem to be a contradiction to our proposition—­here it would seem as if right and wrong were matters merely conventional; for surely stealing can never be anything but wrong.  But if we look deeper we shall see that there is no contradiction here.  It was not stealing which was admired; the child was punished if the theft was discovered; but it was the dexterity which was admired, and that because it was a warlike virtue, necessary it may be to a people in continual rivalry with their neighbours.  It was not that honesty was despised and dishonesty esteemed, but that honesty and dishonesty were made subordinate to that which appeared to them of higher importance, namely, the duty of concealment.  And so we come back to the principle which we laid down at first.  In every age, among all nations, the same broad principle remains; but the application of it varies.  The conscience may be ill-informed, and in this sense only are right and wrong conventional—­varying with latitude and longitude, depending upon chronology and geography.

The principle laid down by the Apostle Paul is this:—­A man will be judged, not by the abstract law of God, not by the rule of absolute right, but much rather by the relative law of conscience.  This he states most distinctly—­looking at the question on both sides.  That which seems to a man to be right is, in a certain sense, right to him; and that which seems to a man to be wrong, in a certain sense is wrong to him.  For example:  he says in his Epistle to the Romans (v. 14.) that, “sin is not imputed when there is no law,” in other words, if a man does not really know a thing to be wrong there is a sense in which, if not right to him, it ceases to be so wrong as it would otherwise be.  With respect to the other of these sides however, the case is still more distinct and plain.  Here, in the judgment which the apostle delivers in the parallel chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (the 14th), he says, “I know, and am persuaded of the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself:  but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”  In other words, whatever may be the abstract merits of the question—­however in God’s jurisprudence any particular act may stand—­to you, thinking it to be wrong, it manifestly is wrong, and your conscience will gather round it a stain of guilt if you do it.

In order to understand this more fully, let us take a few instances.  There is a difference between truth and veracity.  Veracity—­mere veracity—­is a small, poor thing.  Truth is something greater and higher.  Veracity is