for the "glory of God." The deed of Grace Darling,
when she took a boat in the storm to rescue drowning men and women, was
not good if it was only compassion that nerved her arm and impelled her
to brave death for the chance of saving others; it was only good if she
asked herself--Will this redound to the glory of God? The man who
endures tortures rather than betray a trust, the man who spends years in
toil in order to discharge an obligation from which the law declares him
free, must be animated not by the spirit of fidelity to his fellow-man,
but by a desire to make "the name of God more known." The sweet
charities of domestic life--the ready hand and the soothing word in
sickness, the forbearance toward frailties, the prompt helpfulness in all
efforts and sympathy in all joys, are simply evil if they result from a
"constitutional tendency," or from dispositions disciplined by the
experience of suffering and the perception of moral loveliness. A wife
is not to devote herself to her husband out of love to him and a sense of
the duties implied by a close relation--she is to be a faithful wife for
the glory of God; if she feels her natural affections welling up too
strongly, she is to repress them; it will not do to act from natural
affection--she must think of the glory of God. A man is to guide his
affairs with energy and discretion, not from an honest desire to fulfil
his responsibilities as a member of society and a father, but--that
"God's praise may be sung." Dr. Cumming's Christian pays his debts for
the glory of God; were it not for the coercion of that supreme motive, it
would be evil to pay them. A man is not to be just from a feeling of
justice; he is not to help his fellow-men out of good-will to his
fellow-men; he is not to be a tender husband and father out of affection:
all these natural muscles and fibres are to be torn away and replaced by
a patent steel-spring--anxiety for the "glory of God."

Happily, the constitution of human nature forbids the complete prevalence
of such a theory. Fatally powerful as religious systems have been, human
nature is stronger and wider than religious systems, and though dogmas
may hamper, they cannot absolutely repress its growth: build walls round
the living tree as you will, the bricks and mortar have by and by to give
way before the slow and sure operation of the sap. But next to the
hatred of the enemies of God which is the principle of persecution, there
perh