* Phillips Brooks, New Starts in Life, 323.
288 TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?
is not religion. The religious man says, " This is right, and I will do it because God wants me to and I love Him for the great love wherewith He has loved me." The prudent man says, " This is right, and I will do it because it will be best for me." The first is religious and the second is not religious, only prudent. '
^ If a man merely holds that on the whole it is better and wiser to abstain from the sins of the flesh, but that there is no Divine command against them, depend upon it, occasions will arise when passion will be so strong that the mere notion of what is better will not stand for an instant before its storm. If a man merely considers that it is on the whole wiser to speak the truth, but that no Divine message has ever declared that all liars shall have their portion in the banishment of the wicked from the presence of the Lord, depend upon it that occasions will come to him when concealment, evasion, and duplicity will be UTesistibly attractive. Where there is no belief in a Divine revelation, there can be no sense of sin.^
(2) There is another power which men attempt to substitute for religion as the ruler and inspirer of life. It is that feeling which is in the heart of almost every man, the sense of self- respect which makes him say, " It is beneath my dignity to do a mean or wicked action." Poor indeed is the man who does not know what that feeling is. You offer a man a temptation to steal. He turns away and will not steal because he is loyal to his master, God. That is religion. He draws back and will not steal because he knows that " Honour is the best policy." That is expediency. He turns indignantly upon you and says, " Do you take me for a thief ? " That is honour. What this great instinct of honour has done, it is hard to over-value. It has been the overruling power of whole sections ®f society, almost of whole periods of history. It has shone with splendid lustre in the eyes of many men, till it seemed to them all that humanity needed for its full consummation. It has had its martyrs who have given up their lives under its inspiration. It is romantic. It is the power of chivalry. There is hardly an age of history so dark that it may not be found burning there. It is a strong and, as it seems to many people, a sufficient power here to-day. There are many who would substitute the principle of honour for the principle of religion, many who think that the self-respect of the
» W. M. Sinclair, A Young Man's Life, 183.
ST. JOHN VI. 68 289
gentleman is enough without the loving consecration of the servant of God. But what is this honour that shines so splendidly? Is it conscience quickened and filled with pride? Its very principle of life is pride. It is a man's supreme consciousness of his own value, so strong that he recognizes the obligations which rest upon one so valuable as he is. His nobility obliges him. The deficiencies of it seem to be premised in this very definition, and they show out all through the history of its influence on men.
^ We believe that we have an immortal future, and are destined hereafter to an eternal weight of glory, not of enjoy- ment— for that is a mere libel — but of perfection and enlargement of all our noblest faculties. We believe that we can even here become partakers of the Divine nature. We believe that we have dwelling in us by faith and communion with the Most High, the very Spirit of God Himself, weaning us from the world, setting our affections on things above, purifying our thoughts, putting into our minds good desires, and daily bringing the same to true effect, strengthening our resolves, subduing our passions, and making us fit for the companionship of all that is best and most esteemed in humanity, in the pure and tranquil radiance of the regions of light, yes, and of the fellowship of God Himself the Father and the Son. Then I ask what moral scheme or persuasive ideal could be devised by the wit of man which would go anywhere near to produce in us such reason for that truest self-respect which is a humble and grateful union with God Himself?!
III.
* None but Christ can Satisfy.
1. Men have offered to us many phantoms of religion. Many societies, each with its theory to bind human creatures together in worship and love, have knocked at our door to tell us the truth of life. Materialism has sought our suffrages, and humani- tarianism. Ethics and science have offered us their dishes and said : " Eat and be satisfied." Vague optimisms and mud-rooted pessimisms ; a religion of humanity and a religion of unchristian theism have filled our ears with their cries ; but when we have found the more excellent, we are not likely to descend to the less. We wish them all good fortune so far as they minister to love.