*Bryant.
Part IV.
Welfare as Dependent on Religion.
But in all our attempts to educate self-love into harmony with Universal benevolence, we contend with the enemy, somewhat as Hercules wrestled with Antaeus:—
Und erstickst du ihn nicht in den Luften frei,
Stets wachst ihm die Kraft anf der Erde neu.*
[If thou strangle him not high lifted in air,
Fresh strength from the earth he continues to share.]
Thus we come to speak of present welfare, as dependent on the cultivation of the whole man—on a recognition of his immortality, his allegiance to his Maker, and his capacity for more disinterested sentiments, than self-love, however modified.
The influences thus accruing are a confirmation, from higher authority, of the conclusions approved by philosophy, ethics, the prudence which calculates how man should live with man, considered as but creatures of earth—a re-binding—a re-ligation to what was obligation before; and such precisely is the proper sense of the word religion.
That the promise of the life that now is attaches to godliness-the vivid recognition of a Father in heaven, with the union of reverence and love cherished by a dutiful child—and that naught else secures the possession, might be argued,—
1. First, as anticipated from the nature of the case. If man is formed to own allegiance to his Maker, and to spend this life as preparatory and introductory to a coming existence, then, till these conditions are fulfilled, he must be expected, not to fill worthily his place, as possessor of the present life; but must, in important points, compare disadvantageously with the beasts that perish. If, like the inferior races, ours attained to a life which should be the full flourish of its demonstrable capacities, while immortality entered not into account, then would fail one argument to prove us destined to an hereafter. If the philosopher, from the examination of the chick eaglet in the shell, knowing naught else of the animal, could make out for it, within its narrow walls, a life answering to the indications of its organization; he might fitly question, whether it were destined to burst its prison, and soar aloft. And such embryo eaglet is man, considered only as to what this life realizes.
2. Historically, we are in little danger of being confounded on this argument. The evidence from fact is very plain and positive, that men have never become wise for the life that now is, but as they have first become wise for the life that is to come; that self-love never becomes a just prudence, till informed by the faith, hope, and charity of Jesus; in a word, that in Him is life, and only through the light derived from him is life realized to men.