a goad in my side all my life, and its demands, I
think, heighten. It is evidently independent of religion,
because it is independent of the love of God
and of man. For instance, I form to myself an
idea of my reasonable amount of service in visiting
the poor. Have I fallen short of this amount, I am
uneasy, and feel myself burdened; the thing is before
me, I must do it: why? Because I feel the
love of God constraining me? Sometimes far otherwise.
Because I feel benevolence towards the poor?
No; for the thing itself is a task; but because it is
my duty; because I would justify myself; because
I would lighten my conscience. I have called this
feeling independent of religion; but perhaps it is
most intense when religion is faintest. This latter
supplies, evidently, the only true motive for benevolent
actions. Then they are a pleasure: then the
divergence of the impulse of duty from the impulse
of inclination is done away; and I believe the love of
God is the only thing, which, thus redeeming those
that were under the law, can place them under the law
of Christ. Though it is little I can do for the poor,
I ought to feel it both a duty and a pleasure to devote
some time to them most days. To see the aged,
whose poverty we have witnessed, whose declining
days we have tried to soothe, safely gathered home,
is a comfort and pleasure I would not forego; and,
though the real benefit we render to them must depend
on our own spiritual state, their cottages have
often been to me places of deep instruction.