The object of the slanderer generally is to protect his fellow-men from one another. Troubled with foolish suspicions, or smarting under the thought of injury, he warns men against each other, speaking only of their bad qualities, and, in his eagerness, distorting the truth. His intention is good, namely, to protect his neighbours; but his motive is bad, namely, hatred of those whom he slanders. Such a man?s good intention is frustrated by his bad action, and he at last only succeeds in separating himself from all truth-loving people.
The sore of a bad action is not cured by plastering it over with good intentions, nor is the cause of the defilement removed from the heart.
Men who are involved in bad actions cannot work from pure motives. An issue of foul water always proceeds from an impure source; and an issue of impure actions proceeds from a heart that is defiled.
It greatly simplifies life, and solves all complex problems of conduct, when certain actions are recognised as eternally bad, and others as eternally good, and the bad are for ever abandoned, and final refuge is taken in the good.
The wise and good perform good actions ; and motive, act, and intention being harmoniously adjusted, their lives are powerful for good, and free from disappointment, and the good fruit of their efforts appears in due season. They do not need to defend their actions by subtle and specious arguments, not to enter into interminable metaphysical speculations concerning motives; but are content to act and to leave their actions to bear their own fruit.
Let us not try to persuade ourselves that our good intentions will wipe out the results of our bad actions; but let us resort to the practice of good actions ; for only in this way can we acquire goodness; only thus can the life be established on fixed principles, and the mind be rendered capable of comprehending, and working from, pure motives.
5. Morality and religion
The wise man
By adding thought to thought and deed to deed
In ways of good, buildeth his character.
Little by little he accomplishes
His noble ends ; in quiet patience works
Diligently.
Daily he builds into his heart and mind
Pure thoughts, high aspirations, selfless deeds.
Until at last the edifice of Truth
Is finished, and behold ! there rises and appears
The Temple of Perfection.
There is no surer indication of confusion and decadence in spiritual matters than the severance of morality from religion. "He is a highly moral man, but he is not religious"; "He is exceptionally |ood and virtuous, but is not at all spiritual," are common expressions on the lips of large numbers of people who thus regard religion as something quite distinct from goodness, purity, and right-living.
If religion be regarded merely and only as worship combined with adherence to a particular form of faith, then it would be correct to say, "He is a very good man, but is not religious," in some instances, just as it would be equally correct to say, "He is an immoral man, but is very religious," in other instances, for murderers, thieves, and other evil-doers are sometimes devout worshippers and zealous adherents to a creed.
Such a narrowing down of religion, however, would? render much of the Sermon on the Mount superfluous, from a religious point of view, and would lead to the confounding of the means of religion with its end, the idolising of the letter of religion to the exclusion of the spirit; and this is what actually occurs when morality is severed from religion, and is regarded as something alien and distinct from it.
Religion, however, has a broader significance than this, and the most obscure creed embodies in its ritual some longing human cry for that goodness, that virtue, that morality, which many, with
thoughtless judgement, divorce from religion. And is not a life of moral excellence, of good and noble character, of pure-heartedness, the very end and object of religion ? Is it not the substance and spirit, of which worship and adherence to a form of faith are but the shadow and letter ?
In religion, as in other things, there are the means and the end, the methods and the attainment.
