of public questions; exhortations to social service. When sermons do
deal with ultimate sanctions they can hardly be called Christian. They
are often stoical; self-control is exalted as an heroic achievement,
as being self-authenticating, carrying its own reward. Or they are
utilitarian, giving a sentimentalized or frankly shrewd doctrine of
expediencies, the appeal to an exaggerated self-respect, enlightened
self-interest, social responsibility. These are typical humanistic
values; they are real and potent and legitimate. But they are not
religious and they do not touch religious motives. The very difference
between the humanist and the Christian lies here. To obey a principle
is moral and admirable; to do good and be good because it pays is
sensible; but to act from love of a person is a joyous ecstasy, a
liberation of power; it alone transforms life with an ultimate and
enduring goodness. Genuine Christian preaching makes its final appeal,
not to fear, not to hope, not to future rewards and punishments, not
to reason or prudence or benevolence. It makes its appeal to love,
and that means that it calls men to devotion to a living Being, a
Transcendence beyond and without us. For you cannot love a principle,
or relinquish yourself to an idea. You must love another living
Being. Which amounts to saying that humanism just because it is
self-contained is self-condemned. It minimizes or ignores the living
God, in His world, but not to be identified with it; beyond it and
above it; loving it because it needs to be loved; blessing it because
saving it. In so doing, it lays the axe at the very root of the tree
of religion. Francis Xavier, in his greatest of all hymns, has stated
once for all the essence of the Christian motive and the religious
attitude:

"O Deus, ego amo te
Nec amo te ut salves me