God.
In the last chapter we saw that the particular objects and duties which
make up our environment and moral life are not so many separate affairs;
but all have a common relation to the self, and its realization. We saw
that this common relation to the self gives unity to the world of
objects, the life of duty, the nature of virtue, and the character which
crowns right living.
There is, however, a deeper, more comprehensive unity in the moral world
than that which each man constructs for his individual self. The world
of objects is included in a universal order. The several duties are
parts of a comprehensive righteousness, which includes the acts of all
men within its rightful sway. The several virtues are so many aspects of
one all-embracing moral ideal. The rewards and penalties which follow
virtue and vice are the expression of a constitution of things which
makes for righteousness. The Being whose thought includes all objects in
one comprehensive universe of reason; whose will is uttered in the voice
of duty; whose holiness is revealed in the highest ideal of virtue we
can form; and whose authority is declared in those eternal and
indissoluble bonds which bind virtue and reward, vice and penalty,
together, is God.
THE DUTY.
+Communion with God is the safeguard of virtue, the secret of resistance
to temptation, the source of moral and spiritual power.+--Our minds are
too small to carry consciously and in detail; our wills are too frail to
hold in readiness at every moment the principles and motives of moral
conduct. God alone is great enough for this.
We can make him the keeper of our moral precepts and the guardian of our
lives. And then when we are in need of guidance, help, and strength, we
can go to him, and by devoutly seeking to know and do his will, we can
recover the principles and reinforce the motives of right conduct that
we have intrusted to his keeping; and ofttimes we get, in addition,
larger views of duty and nobler impulses to virtue than we have ever
consciously possessed before. Just as the love of father or mother
clarifies a child's perception of what is right, and intensifies his
will to do it, so the love of God has power to make us strong to resist
temptation, resolute to do our duty, and strenuous in the endeavor to
advance the kingdom of righteousness and love.
Into the particular doctrines and institutions of religion it is not the
purpose of this book to enter. These are matters which each individual
learns best from his own father and mother, and from the church in which
he has been brought up. Our account of ethics, however, would be
seriously incomplete, were we to omit to point out the immense and
indispensable strength and help we may gain for the moral life, by
approaching it in the religious spirit.
+Ethics and religion each needs the other.+--They are in reality, one
the detailed and particular, the other the comprehensive and universal
aspect of the same world of duty and virtue. Morality without religion
is a cold, dry, dreary, mass of disconnected rules and requirements.
Religion without morality, is an empty, formal, unsubstantial shadow.
Only when the two are united, only when we bring to the particular
duties of ethics the infinite aspiration and inspiration of religion,
and give to the universal forms of religion the concrete contents of
human and temporal relationships, do we gain a spiritual life which is
at the same time clear and strong, elevated and practical, ideal and
real.
THE VIRTUE.
+Just as God includes all objects in his thought, all duties in his
will, all virtues in his ideal; so the man who communes with him, and
surrenders his will to him in obedience and trust and love, partakes of
this same wholeness and holiness.+--Loving God, he is led to love all
that God loves, to love all good. And holiness is the love of all that
is good and the hatred of all that is evil.
Complete holiness is not wrought out in its concrete relations all at
once, nor ever in this earthly life, by the religious, any more than by
the moral man. Temptations are frequent all along the way, and the falls
many and grievous to the last. But from all deliberately cherished
identification of his inmost heart and will with evil, the truly
religious man is forevermore set free. From the moment one's will is
entirely surrendered to God, and the divine ideal of life and conduct is
accepted, a new and holy life begins.
Old temptations may surprise him into unrighteous deeds; old habits may
still assert themselves, old lusts may drift back on the returning tides
of past associations; old vices may continue to crop out.
In reality, however, they are already dead. They are like the leaves
that continue to look green upon the branches of a tree that has been
cut down; or the momentum of a train after the steam is shut off and the
brakes are on.
God, who is all-wise, sees that in such a man sin is in principle dead;
and he judges him accordingly. If penitence for past sins and present
falls be genuine; if the desire to do his will be earnest; He takes the
will for the deed, penitence for performance, aspiration for attainment.
Such judgment is not merely merciful. It is just. Or rather, it is the
blending of mercy and justice in love. It is judgment according to the
deeper, internal aspect of a man, instead of judgment according to the
superficial, outward aspect. For the will is the center and core of
personality. What a man desires and strives for with all his heart,
that he is. What he repents of and repudiates with the whole strength of
his frail and imperfect nature, that he has ceased to be.
Thus religion, or whole-souled devotion to God, gives a sense of
completeness, and attainment, and security, and peace, which mere
ethics, or adjustment to the separate fragmentary objects which
constitute our environment, can never give. The moral life is from its
very nature partial, fragmentary, and finite. The religious life by
penitence and faith and hope and love, rises above the finite with its
limitations, and the temporal with its sins and failings, and lays hold
on the infinite ideal and the eternal goodness, with its boundless
horizon and its perfect peace. The religious life, like the moral, is
progressive. But, as Principal Caird remarks, "It is progress, not
towards, but within, the infinite." Union with God in sincere devotion
to his holy will, is the "promise and potency" of harmonious relations
with that whole ethical and spiritual universe which his thought and
will includes.
THE REWARD.
+The reward of communion with God and comprehensive righteousness of
conduct is spiritual life.+--The righteous man, the man who walks with
God, is in principle and purpose identified with every just cause, with
every step of human progress, with every sphere of man's well-being. To
him property is a sacred trust, time a golden opportunity, truth a
divine revelation, Nature the visible garment of God, humanity a holy
brotherhood, the family, society, and the state are God-ordained
institutions, with God-given laws. Through the one fundamental devotion
of his heart and will to God, the religious man is made a partaker in
all these spheres of life in which the creative will of God is
progressively revealed. All that is God's belong to the religious man.
For he is God's child. And all these things are his inheritance.
To the religious man, therefore, there is open a boundless career for
service, sacrifice, devotion and appropriation. Every power, every
affection, every aspiration within him has its counterpart in the
outward universe. The universe is his Father's house; and therefore his
own home. All that it contains are so many opportunities for the
development and realization of his God-given nature.
To dwell in active, friendly, loving relation to all that is without; to
be
wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion,
to be heirs with God of the spiritual riches it contains: this is life
indeed. "The gift of God is eternal life."
+Religion is the crown and consummation of ethics.+--Religion gathers up
into their unity the scattered fragments of duty and virtue which it has
been the aim of our ethical studies to discern apart. Religion presents
as the will of the all-wise, all-loving Father, those duties and virtues
which ethics presents as the conditions of our own self-realization.
Religion is the perfect circle of which the moral virtues are the
constituent arcs. Fullness of life is the reward of righteousness, the
gift of God, the one comprehensive good, of which the several rewards
which follow the practice of particular duties and virtues are the
constituent elements.
THE TEMPTATION.
+The universal will of God, working in conformity with impartial law,
and seeking the equal good of all, often seems to be in sharp conflict
with the interests of the individual self.+--If his working is
irresistible we are tempted to repine and rebel. If his will is simply
declared, and left for us to carry out by the free obedience of our
wills, then we are tempted to sacrifice the universal good to which the
divine will points, and to assert instead some selfish interest of our
own. Self-will is, from the religious point of view, the form of all
temptation. The ends at which God aims when he bids us sacrifice our
immediate private interests are so remote that they seem to us unreal;
and often they are so vast that we fail to comprehend them at all. In
such crises faith alone can save us--faith to believe that God is wiser
than we are, faith to believe that his universal laws are better than
any private exceptions we can make in our own interest, faith to
believe that the universal good is of more consequence than our
individual gain. Such faith is hard to grasp and difficult to maintain;
and consequently the temptation of self-will is exceedingly seductive,
and is never far from any one of us.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
+Sin is short-coming, missing the mark of our true being, which is to be
found only in union with God.+--Sin is the attempt to live apart from
God, or as if there were no God. It is transgression of his laws. It is
the attempt to make a world of our own, from which in whole or in part
we try to exclude God, and escape the jurisdiction of his laws. All
wrong-doing, all vice, all neglect of duty, is in reality a violation of
the divine will. But not until the individual comes to recognize the
divine will, and in spite of this recognition that all duty is divine,
deliberately turns aside from God and duty together, does vice become
sin.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
+Devotion to God as distinct from or in opposition to devotion to those
concrete duties and human relationship wherein the divine will is
expressed, is hypocrisy.+--"If a man say I love God and hateth his
brother he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath
seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen."
Pure religion begins in faith and ends in works. It draws from God the
inspiration to serve in righteousness and love our fellow-men. If faith
stop short of God, and rest in church, or creed, or priest; if work stop
short of actual service of our fellow-men, and rest in splendor of
ritual or glow of pious feeling, or orthodoxy of belief; then our
religion becomes a vain and hollow thing, and we become Pharisees and
hypocrites.
THE PENALTY.
+The wages of sin is death.+--The penalty of each particular vice we
have seen to be the dwarfing, stunting, decay, and deadening of that
particular side of our nature that is effected by it. Intemperance
brings disease; wastefulness brings want; cruelty brings brutality;
ugliness brings coarseness; exclusiveness brings isolation; treason
brings anarchy. Just in so far as one cuts himself off from the moral
order which is the expression of God's will; just in so far as there is
sin, there is privation, deadening, and decay. As long as we live in
this world it is impossible to live an utterly vicious life; to cut
ourselves off completely from God and his order and his laws. To do that
would be instant death. The man who should embody all the vices and none
of the virtues, would be intolerable to others, unendurable even to
himself. The penalty of an all-round life of vice and sin would be
greater than man could endure and live. This fearful end is seldom
reached in this life. Some redeeming virtues save even the worst of men
from this full and final penalty of sin. The man, however, who
deliberately rejects God as his friend and guide to righteous living;
the man who deliberately makes self-will and sin the ruling principle of
his life, is started on a road, which, if followed to the end, leads
inevitably to death. He is excluding himself from that sphere of good,
that career of service and devotion, wherein alone true life is to be
found. He is banishing himself to that outer darkness which is our
figurative expression for the absence of all those rewards of virtue and
the presence of all those penalties of vice which our previous studies
have brought to our attention. "Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth
forth death." "The wages of sin is death."
THE END.
INDEX.
Abstinence, total, 14-16
Adulteration, 47
Affectation, 86, 87
Alcibiades, on personal appearance, 22
Ambition, true and false, 164
Amusement, 28;
seeking, 30
Animals, 98
Anxiety, 63
Aristotle, on friendship, 137;
on pleasure, 187
Arnold, M., on insincerity, 105;
on "quiet work," 39
Art, 89
Asceticism, 12
Bashfulness, 106
Beauty, 90, 92;
how to cultivate the love of, 91;
ideal of, 89
Benevolence, 118
Betrayal, 141
Betting, a form of gambling, 78
Brothers, duties of, 145
Browning, Mrs. E. B., on self-centered virtue, 192
Browning, Robert, on strength, 72;
on love, 115
Building and loan associations, 42
Caird, John, on morality and religion, 198
Carelessness, 68, 69
Carlyle, Thomas, on human fellowship, 156;
on work, 32
Character, 182, 184
Charity, 118
Cheating, 48
Childhood, 40
Children, duty of, to their parents, 145
Civilization rests on law, 161
Coleridge, S. T., on kindness to animals, 101
Confidence, 56
Conflict of duties, 191
Conscience, absolute authority of, 181
Conscientiousness, 180, 182
Constraint, 176
Co-operation, 170;
two kinds of, 171
Co-ordination, 60
Courage, 73, 75;
moral, 74
Cowardice, moral, 76;
the shame of, 79
Craik, Mrs. D. M., on marriage, 147
Cruelty, 102, 103
Cynicism regarding appearance, 21
Death, the wages of sin, 202
Debility, the penalty of neglected exercise, 31
Debt, 43
Devotion of husband and wife, 152
Discord, 64
Disease, 17, 18
Dishonesty, 49
Dissipation, 193
Dissoluteness, 193
Divorce, 148
Dress, 19, 20, 21
Drink, 9
Drunkenness, 13
Dude, the, 23
Duties, conflict of, 191
Duty, 2, 187
Economy, 42
Effusiveness, 142
Eliot, George, on sympathy, 110;
on happiness, 188
Emerson, R. W., on friendship, 140, 143
Energy, the value of superfluous, 26
Ennui, 30
Enjoyment, the only true, 86
Epicurus, on the duty of friends, 139
Equivalence in trade, 46
Ethics, 1
Ethics and religion, 196
Example, responsibility for, 15
Exchange, 46
Excitement, 27
Exclusiveness, 142
Exercise, necessity of, 25
Faith, 200
Falsehood, the forms of, 57
Family, the, 144
Fastidiousness, 23
Fellowship, 104
Food, 9
Foolhardiness, 77
Forgiveness, 130
Formalism, 190
Fortune, 70
Freedom is complete self-expression, 173
Friendship, 137
Gambling, 78
Games, value of, 26
Gluttony, 13
God, 194
Golden Rule, the, 107
Gossip, the mischievousness of, 57
Habit, 3
Harmony, 90
Hegel, on duty in personal relations, 2
Heredity, 51
Hill, Octavia, on benevolence, 120
Holiness, 196
Home, 149, 150
Honesty, 47
Hospitality, 105
Husband and wife, 149
Hypocrisy, 105, 201
Ideal of Beauty, 89
Idleness, 33
Independence, 150, 151, 152
Indorsing notes, 50
Indiscriminate charity, 125
Individualism, 150, 153, 154
Industry, 35
Isolation, 143
Janet, Paul, on dissipation, 193
Justice, 128
Kant, on humanity an end, 106;
on importance of social relations, 109;
on a lie, 59;
on universality as test of conduct, 169
Keats on beauty, 93
Kindness, 100
Knowledge, 53
Law, uniformity of, 70
Laziness, the slavery of, 37;
leads to poverty, 39
Lenity, 134, 135;
its effect on the offender, 135
Life insurance, 42
Loneliness, 156
Love, 106, 107, 108, 111
Lowell, J. R., on success, 173
Loyalty, 148
Luxury, the perversion of beauty, 93
Lying, 58, 59
Marriage, 146, 153
Marshall, J., on conformity to rule, 191
Martineau, on censoriousness, 58
Maudsley, on hereditary effects of dishonesty, 51
Meanness, 51, 174, 175, 177
Mill, John Stuart, on pleasure, 187;
unity with fellow-men, 108
Miserliness, 44, 45
Moral courage, 74
Moroseness, 29
Morris, William, on simplicity of life, 92
Nature, 81
Neatness, 20
Niggardliness, 124
Notes, indorsement of, 50
Obtuseness, 86, 87
Officiousness, 176
Old age, provision for, 40
Opium habit, 16
Orderliness, 66
Organization, the function of the state, 157
Overwork, the folly of, 38
Parents, duties of, to children, 145
Party, political, 160
Patriotism, 160
Peace, 198
Perfection, 90
Place for everything, 65
Plato, on virtue and vice, 6;
refutation of the Cynic, 22;
on obedience to laws, 159
Pleasure, 71, 186
Politeness, 172
Politician, and statesman, 161
Potter, Bishop, on giving, 119
Poverty, the causes of, 117
Pride, 142
Prigs, 182
Procrastination, 62
Profit-sharing, 170
Property, 40
Prudence, 61
Public spirit, 171
Punishment, the function of, 128;
good for the wrong-doer, 129
Quackery, 49
Raffling, a form of gambling, 78
Red-tape, 68
Reformation, 131
Reformer, 170
Religion, 195, 198
Religion and ethics, 196, 199
Reward of virtue, 4
Rich, the idle, 33
Rights, our own, 50;
of others, 158
Royce, J., on regarding others as persons, 107, 169
Rules, 183, 191
Ruskin, John, on the home, 150;
on truth, 54
Saving, systematic, 41, 43
Savings-banks, 42
Scandal, the mischievousness of, 57
Scott, Sir Walter, on deceit, 56
Selfishness, 112;
the penalty of, 115
Self-indulgence, 192
Self-interest, 174
Self-obliteration for the sake of family, 154, 155
Self-realization, 179
Self-righteousness, 192
Self-will, 200
Sentimentality, 113, 114
Severity, 133, 135;
effect of, on the offender, 135
Shakespeare, on music, 95
Simplicity of life, 92
Sin, 201
Sisters, duties of, 145
Slavery, 178
Slovenliness, 22, 23
Social ideal, 170
Society, 167
Social responsibility, 15
Socrates, on obedience to law, 159
Soft places, to be avoided, 36
Space, 65
Speculation, a form of gambling, 79
Spencer, Herbert, on abundant energy, 27;
on deficient energy, 29
Spendthrift, the, 45
Spinoza, on the difficulty of excellence, 97
Spiritual life, the reward of righteousness, 198
"Spoils system," 162
Sports, value of, 26
Stagnation, 87
State, developed out of the family, 157
Statesman and politician, 161
Stealing, 48
Stoicism, 71, 110
Strength, the secret of, 72
Strife, the penalty of selfishness, 115
Success, 173
Superiority to fortune, the secret of, 71
Sympathy, 123
System, 66, 67
Temperance, 10-15
Temptation, 5
Terence, oneness of individual with humanity, 106
Time, 60
Tobacco, 16, 17
Trade, importance of learning a, 34
----, equivalence in, 46
Tranquillity, 39
Treason, 163
Truth, 53, 54
Ugliness, 94
Unscrupulousness, 189
Vengeance, 131, 132
Veracity, 55
Vice, 5
Virtue, 3
Vulgarity, akin to laziness, 96
Wastefulness, 44, 45
Wealth, 36
Well-being, the conditions of, 118
Whitman, Walt, on the feelings of animals, 99
Whittier, J. G., on acting contrary to convictions, 79
Wife, and husband, 149
Woman's sphere, 34
Wordsworth, on books, 53;
on courage, 75;
on the influence of Nature, 82, 83, 84;
on neglecting Nature, 85;
on cruelty to animals, 102
Work, 32, 35
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
The following words appear with and without hyphens. They have been left
as in the original.
life-long lifelong
Profit-sharing profit sharing
Red-tape red tape
short-coming shortcoming
wrong-doer wrongdoer
wrong-doers wrongdoers
wrong-doing wrongdoing
The following corrections were made to the text:
page 13: Alcoholic[original has Alchoholic] drink produces
page 15: moderate use of alcoholic[original has alchoholic]
drinks
page 28: form of recreation becomes indispensable[original has
indispensaable]
page 55: that we withhold[original has withold] the truth
page 58: the worst pest that infests[original has invests]
page 62: for to-morrow we die.[original has comma]
page 70: by invariable laws.[original has comma] Every event
page 101: give it the reasonable[original has resonable]
attention
page 106: letters, or philanthropy[original has philanthrophy]
or social problems
page 113: on hand wherever[original has whereever] there is a
chance
page 122: THE REWARD.[original has comma]
page 133: the offender which metes[original has meets] out to
him
page 148: demonstrate the utter impossibility[original has
impossibilty]
page 177: with which he identifies[original has indentifies]
himself
page 191: we may withhold[original has withold] facts in
violation
page 197: falls many and grievous[original has grevious] to
the last
page 198: in principle and purpose identified[original has
indentified] with
page 206: index entry for Gluttony was put in alphabetic
order[original has it listed after Gossip]
page 206: Hypocrisy, 105, 201[original has 105-201]
page 206: Marriage, 146, 156[original has viii and ix listed
as well--page viii is blank and page ix does not exist]
page 207: Obscenity, viii[entry removed because page viii is
blank]
page 207: Parents, duties of, to children, 145[reference to
page vi removed--page vi is part of the outline]
page 207: Purity, viii[entry removed because page viii is
blank]
page 207: index entries for Reformer and Religion separated
and semi-colon removed[original has Reformer, 170; Religion,
195, 198]
page 207: Sensuality, ix[entry removed because there is no
page ix]
page 207: Sexual passions, vii[entry removed--page vii is part
of the outline]
In the index, there is an entry for "Craik, Mrs. D. M." Her name is not
mentioned in the book, but she is the author of "John Halifax,
Gentleman" which is referenced on page 147.