"
*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.
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