ey 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