“But there are many Eudaimonists who will be ready to acknowledge that a prudent postponement of our happiness in this world cannot constitute virtue. But wherefore do they say we are to postpone it? Not for present pleasure or pain, that would be base; but for that anticipation of future pleasure or pain which we call Hope and Fear. And this, not for the Hope and Fear of this world, which are still admitted to be base motives; but for Hope and Fear extended one step beyond the tomb—the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell.”
After a general glance at the doctrine of Future Rewards and Punishments as held by Christians and heathens, I go on to argue:
“But in truth this doctrine of the Hope of Heaven being the true Motive of Virtue is (at least in theory) just as destructive of Virtue as that which makes the rewards of this life—health, wealth, or reputation—the motive of it. Well says brave Kingsley:
‘Is selfishness for time a sin,
Stretched out into eternity celestial prudence?’
“If to act for a small reward cannot be virtuous, to act for a large one can certainly merit no more. To be bribed by a guinea is surely no better than to be bribed by a penny. To be deterred from ruin by fear of transportation for life, is no more noble than to be deterred by fear of twenty-four hours in prison. There is no use multiplying illustrations. He who can think that Virtue is the doing right for pay, may think himself very judicious to leave his pay in the savings-bank now and come into a fortune all at once by and by; but he who thinks that Virtue is the doing right for Right’s own sake, cannot possibly draw a distinction between small bribes and large ones; a reward to be given to-day, and a reward to be given in eternity.
“Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the belief in immortal progress is of incalculable value. Such belief, and that in an ever-present God, may be called the two wings of human Virtue. I look on the advantages of a faith in immortality to be two-fold. First, it cuts the knot of the world, and gives to our apprehension a God whose providence need no longer perplex us, and whose immeasurable and never-ending goodness shines ever brighter before our contemplating souls. Secondly, it gives an importance to personal progress which we can hardly attribute to it so long as we deem it is to be arrested for ever by death. The man who does not believe in Immortality may be, and often actually is, more virtuous than his neighbour; and it is quite certain that his Virtue is of far purer character than that which bargains for Heaven as its pay. But his task is a very hard one, a task without a result; and his road a dreary one, unenlightened even by the distant dawn of
‘That great world of light which lies
Behind all human destinies.’
We can scarcely do him better service than by leading him to trust that intuition of Immortality which is written in the heart of the human race by that Hand which writes no falsehoods.