Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/20

12 every-day, not to their Sunday life. Do they love God or self, the neighbor or the world, most? Look at their conduct in all that pertains to their business and social intercourse with the world, not at what they say, and you will soon be able to decide the question. The tree is easily known by its fruits, the quality of the fountain by the water it sends forth.

To be religious is not to be an ascetic, nor is it necessary to give up any of the pleasures or orderly enjoyments of life. The world, not the cloister, is the place where religion can alone find a permanent abiding-place—a real growth. What is called the religion of the cloister is no religion at all, but mere selfishness—a retiring from actual duty in the world, into an imaginary state of sanctimoniousness. It is only in life’s actualities, in the real every-day business and social contact of man with man, that there can be any genuine religious growth; for religion is love to the neighbor; and all love, to be genuine, must have an actual existence in deeds, as well as in words—must come into exercise in the every-day affairs of life. It is an easy matter for any one to sit in his closet and imagine that he feels a love for all mankind; but let him go into the world, and meet his fellow-man as he is, and feel the encroachments and rude contact of