aps has been no perversion more obstructive of true moral development
than this substitution of a reference to the glory of God for the direct
promptings of the sympathetic feelings. Benevolence and justice are
strong only in proportion as they are directly and inevitably called into
activity by their proper objects; pity is strong only because we are
strongly impressed by suffering; and only in proportion as it is
compassion that speaks through the eyes when we soothe, and moves the arm
when we succor, is a deed strictly benevolent. If the soothing or the
succor be given because another being wishes or approves it, the deed
ceases to be one of benevolence, and becomes one of deference, of
obedience, of self-interest, or vanity. Accessory motives may aid in
producing an _action_, but they presuppose the weakness of the direct
motive; and conversely, when the direct motive is strong, the action of
accessory motives will be excluded. If, then, as Dr. Cumming inculcates,
the glory of God is to be "the absorbing and the influential aim" in our
thoughts and actions, this must tend to neutralize the human sympathies;
the stream of feeling will be diverted from its natural current in order
to feed an artificial canal. The idea of God is really moral in its
influence--it really cherishes all that is best and loveliest in
man--only when God is contemplated as sympathizing with the pure elements
of human feeling, as possessing infinitely all those attributes which we
recognize to be moral in humanity. In this light, the idea of God and
the sense of His presence intensify all noble feeling, and encourage all
noble effort, on the same principle that human sympathy is found a source
of strength: the brave man feels braver when he knows that another stout
heart is beating time with his; the devoted woman who is wearing out her
years in patient effort to alleviate suffering or save vice from the last
stages of degradation, finds aid in the pressure of a friendly hand which
tells her that there is one who understands her deeds, and in her place
would do the like. The idea of a God who not only sympathizes with all
we feel and endure for our fellow-men, but who will pour new life into
our too languid love, and give firmness to our vacillating purpose, is an
extension and multiplication of the effects produced by human sympathy;
and it has been intensified for the better spirits who have been under
the influence of orthodox Christian