re 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.+--Th