RELIGION AND MORALITY
‘I AM the Lord thy God’—the pronouncement that forms the introduction to the Decalogue—is rightly regarded as the indispensable basis for all the Commandments, upon whose conscientious fulfilment the well-being of humanity depends. The identification of moral laws with religious precepts, which has been so fully accomplished for the first time in the Law of Moses, gives to the Bible its exceptional importance as a regulator of the conduct of men and of nations. Those who are convinced that by wronging their fellow-men, or transgressing any of the established laws, they violate a command that comes from God, and defy the will of their Maker as expressed in His law, are much less liable to wrongdoing than those who create their own ethical theories and set up their own standards of right and wrong, relying upon their conscience and sense of honour as infallible guides. To some it seems a kind of humiliation if a super-human authority is pointed to as the indispensable guide of human conduct. But man ought never to have assumed such pride as to feel humiliated by the idea of his imperfection and his need of guidance and restraint. History does not justify this pride.
SALIS DAICHES, 1910.