God  will  naturally  desire  that  the  offering
shall  be  as  good  as  he  can  make  it ;  and  he
will  know  that  his  worth  to  God  will  be
measured,  at  least  in  great  part,  perhaps
absolutely,  by  the  humble  aid  that  he  can
give  in  building  up  the  body  of  Christ.
If  there  is  any  practical  truth  in  the
allegation  so  continually  made  by  disciples
of  Comte,  that  Christians  in  accordance  with
their  creed  divert  their  attention  from  the
serving  of  their  fellow-men  to  the  worship  of
a  remote  God,  and  to  the  pursuit  of  solitary
happiness  in  a  future  life,  let  us  be  sure  that
it  is  not  the  fault  of  our  creed  that  we  are
liable  to  this  reproach.  We  may  appeal
against  this  distortion  of  our  creed  to  injunc
tions  of  their  own  master,  which  they  are  too
loyal  to  disobey.  He  bade  them  feed  their
spiritual  life  upon  the  Confessions  of  St.
Augustine  and  the  "  Imitatio  Christi,"  not  to
say  upon  the  New  Testament  itself.  What
can  induce  those  with  whom  the  rejection  of
theology  is  a  fundamental  principle  thus  to  im
merse  themselves  in  theological  meditations  ?
The  Positivists  explain  that  they  can  use  our
books  of  devotion  with  profit  by  drinking  in
their  religious  spirit  and  substituting  in  their


The  Aim  of  Christian  Morality.        61

own  minds  the  name  of  humanity  for  that  of
God  and  Christ.  We  also  foster  our  devotion
to  humanity  by  the  use  of  the  same  aids,  but
more  simply  and  straightforwardly,  because  to
us  humanity  is  included  in  Christ  and  in  God.
