earth, in the hope of getting a great deal in heaven? Is not
religion a good investment? Is it not, considering how short and
uncertain life is, the best of all life-insurances?

My friends, we who have to earn our bread and to take honest money
for honest work, know well enough what trouble we have to keep out of
our daily life that mean, base spirit of self-interest, rather than
of duty, which never asks of anything, 'Is it right?' but only 'Will
it pay me?'--which, instead of thinking, How can I do this work as
well as possible? is perpetually thinking, How can I get most money
for the least work? We have to fight against that spirit in worldly
matters. For we know, that if we yield to it,--if we sacrifice our
duty to our pleasure or our gain,--it is certain to make us do
something mean, covetous, even fraudulent, in the eyes of God and
man.

But if we carry that spirit into religion, and our spiritual and
heavenly duties; if we forget that that is the spirit of the world;
if we forget that we renounced the world at our baptism, and that we
therefore promised not to shape our lives by ITS rules and maxims; if
our thought is, not of whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, of good report, whatsoever
brings us true honour and deserved praise from God and from man; if
we think only that intensely selfish and worldly thought, How much
will God take for saving my soul?--which is the secret thought (alas
that it should be so!) of too many of all denominations,--then we
shall be in a fair way of killing our souls; so that if they be
saved, they will not at all events be saved alive. For we shall kill
in our souls just those instincts of purity, justice, generosity,
mercy, love, in one word, of unselfishness and unworldliness, which