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In the classic pictures of the gods, some held in the right hand an olive branch, some a sceptre, Neptune a trident, Apollo arrows, Mercury a wand, Minerva a scroll, Venus a golden apple. It is a proof of superiority in this picture from the psalmist that his Deity seemed to reach forth a right hand full of righteousness. The word "right" comes through all the civilized languages, without much change, from an old classic radical, signifying straight or true to a rule. When the old mason found his work answering to the plumb-line, he said rectus; or answering to his level, or to his model, he said rectus. Hence righteousness signifies abounding in, conformity to a moral ideal, full of correspondence to some perfect rule of action or being. Religion has a less clear significance. When we have said that it is a spiritual binding of man to God, we have said all we know about the world's primitive significance. The relation between man and man is called society; between man and country, patriotism; between man and God, religion. Religion aspires to an ideal — that which it sees in God. Righteousness and religion must, therefore, be closely related. And to see this more clearly think of man's unrighteous conduct — what a history that is. No ancient sword was ever stayed while it had power to kill, or victim to be killed. Julius Caesar is said to have slain one million, two hundred thousand human beings; and the conquerors of Jerusalem put to death three million. Man has been a worse foe to man than have all the beasts of the forest, and all the storms or plagues of nature. Unrighteousness is the great foe of the human race. If one will sit down with this black history open before him, how beautiful upon its background will all deeds of righteousness appear, deeds that conformed to infinite right of neighbour. Whether you recall all the tenderness there has been in the world between parents and children, between friends, between rulers and subjects, and the justice of law and of the courts, each fact will reveal at once the divineness of righteousness, its whiteness, its sweetness. In estimating the worth of right, it is a great mistake if you limit this righteousness to the obedience of statute or common laws. Such limitation gives an honest man or a law-abiding citizen, but not a righteous man; for righteous means abounding in right, in fitting, in appropriate action. When you watch by the bedside of the sick, or teach the ignorant, or comfort the sorrowful, or give to the helpless poor, you are acting righteously, because there are unwritten laws of humanity; there is an ideal law out of the statute, and above the statute, to which the deed conforms, and from which secures its title of righteousness. Whether there could be high and correct action without religion I am unable to say. I know of no data from which to draw a conclusion. The world has never made the experiment, for religion has always rushed to the field so early in all national life, that man has never been able to know what he might have done without that element. Blair, long ago, said, "You may discover tribes of men without policy, or laws, or cities, or arts, but not without religion." Plutarch had said the same. Hence it seems that the nature of man is such that it will never give science an opportunity to learn how perfect a righteousness there might be without the influence of a God. But how is it to be explained that a sense of righteousness and a belief in God appears simultaneously and invariably in higher forms of society? It is no accident any more than the simultaneity of the harvest field and the warm sunshine. God's right hand is full of righteousness, and the right hand of righteousness is full of God. As a fact, all those who have been the students or servants of right have been believers in God. It is the man of science that generally moves away from the idea of God. Atheism has always been a camp-follower of the naturalist. From Lucretius to Huxley it has been so. But all the toilers in the domain of right, from Justinian to Webster, from Plato to Grotius, from Solomon to Franklin, have been near and firm in their friendship for the Divine idea. "True religion is the foundation of society." This is not from Huxley, but from Edmund Burke. "Religion is a necessary element in any great human character." This is not from Darwin, but from Webster. We mean no insult to the students of science, but mean that, as a fact, the study of law has always led the mind toward the Deity, and has thus revealed the casual connection between right and God. The inferences from this dependence of human purity upon God must be these —

(1) Christ, in unfolding the character of God, in tearing down all idols, and in filling the universe with one spirit, infinite and blessed, has done a work that should bind Him upon the forehead and heart of man.

(2) If God is the ideal of justice, it becomes the Christian world to see to it that His character is so painted that the human mind can look up to Him and feel the grandeur of the ideal, not to be repelled, but charmed and conquered. The blessed name must be freed from the whole terrific associations of ages of cruelty and brute force, and so set before mankind in the spotless robes of justice, that the human heart may ever gladly and securely rest therein.

(David Swing.)

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KJV: According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness.

WEB: As is your name, God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness.