Now if the moral value of our actions depends on their motive, on the reason why we do them, then it, may be confidently contended that Christian belief provides the highest conceivable motive, and conduct inspired by it is most pleasing to God.

But were there no lives, in Israel or in heathendom, before Christ came, that presented features approved by God?  There is evidence in the New Testament for the view that there were.  Enoch was assured that ‘he had been well‑pleasing unto God’;^[1] the Old Testament prophets were inspired by the Spirit of Christ,^[2] and our Lord found more commendable faith among pagans and converts to Judaism, than among His Jewish contemporaries.^[3]  The commandments of the Law are ‘holy, and righteous, and good’, wrote St. Paul,^[4] and in Romans 2 he argues that by following their moral sense Gentiles kept the Law, and became a law unto themselves.  In spite of the depths of depravity to which paganism had descended, the indications are that an earnest seeking after God was by no means wanting,^[5] and that it did not go unsatisfied.  The case of Cornelius (Acts 10) is an example of this tendency.  Although of Gentile origin, a knowledge of the true God and a desire for the good life were his principal concern, and for the time being he found the answer in the religion of the Jewish synagogue, in which he worshipped and lived acceptably to God.^[6]  But his adopted Judaism was only a stage on his way to Christianity.  It was, in fact, among people who had made the same spiritual pilgrimage as Cornelius, from paganism to Judaism, i.e. proselytes, that the Gospel first secured a firm footing in the world.  Later some important Church writers pointed out that Greek moralists and philosophers did for paganism what the Law did for the Jew; it served as a ‘tutor (paidagogos) unto Christ’.^[7]  It is difficult not to believe that in this great trend of preparation for the Gospel, in Jewish Law and Prophets and Greek philosophy alike, there were many worthy souls whose work and influence were pleasing to God.