- less and loved saints of the earth, rise too rarely
on our dull horizons to make a rule for the world. The law of things is that they who tamper with veracity, from whatever motive, are tampering with the vital force of human progress. Our comfort and the delight of the religious imagination are no better than forms of self-indulgence, when they are secured at the cost of that love of truth on which, more than on anything else, the increase of light and happiness among men must depend. We have to fight and do lifelong battle against the forces of darkness, and anything that turns the edge of reason blunts the surest and most potent of our weapons." We do not believe in compromising, because it makes no contribution to the larger discerning of truth or the triumphing of that truth over error.
In the second place, we do not believe in it because it creates a great many more difficulties than it removes. Now, Paul was invited to this compromising course in Jerusalem by his misguided friends because they thought it would avoid trouble. They wanted to set Paul right with the Jewish Christians in the city, and maybe with the Jews who were not Christians; they wanted to remove an impression which they thought prevailed regarding Paul's attitude towards the Mosaic customs in the Gentile world.
Now, as a matter of fact, the principle of that
