APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1932, Page 1

APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

If mankind eannot he engaged in practices “lull of austerity and rigour’’, by tiie love, of righteousness and the fear of evil without seeking ior other compensation than that which flows from gratification of such love and consciousness of escape from debasement, they are in a bad case. For they will assuredly find that virtue presents no very close likeness to the sportive leader of the joyous hours in Hume’s rosy picture; but that she is an awful Goddess, whose ministers arc the Kuries, and whose highest reward is peace. * -X- -x- * Under its theological inspect, morality is obedience to the will of God : and the ground for such obedience is two-fold: either we ought to obey God because He will punish us if we disobey Him, which is an argument based on the utility of obedience; or our obedience ought to flow from our love towards God, which is an argument based on pure feeling and for which no reason can he given. For, if any man should say that lie takes no pleasure in the contempl ,tion of the ideal of perfect holiness, or, in other words, that he does not love God, the attempt to argue Inn into acquiring that pleasure would be as hopeless as the endeavour to peismule Peter Bell of the “witchery of the soft blue sky.”