What every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long
as he imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems
himself the center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain
upon itself. Not in action itself, not in "pleasure," shall it find
its desires satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers
greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives
which satisfy it, in the zest and power of rectitude. Christianity
has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a
philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure
and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its
motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and
immortality. Christ came, not to save Himself, assuredly, but to
save the world. His motive, His example, are every man's key to his
own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught may no doubt be
matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other religions,
other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man born with a
conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he ought
to conform; but without the motive of Christianity, without love, he
may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as
Marcus Aurelius.

Christianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of
right living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for
the two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies
that secret in his own living has discovered not only the best and
only way to serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy
himself. Then, indeed, has he come to himself. Henceforth he knows
what his powers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors
of service clear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of
effort, put them at their best. After this fretfulness passes away,