Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/37

Rh believes fully in the doctrine of Christ will find there not only these five negative commandments, but also the positive doctrine of all truth.

Now, the doctrine of truth, as proclaimed by Jesus Christ, is found not in laws, not in commandments, but only in the sense by which we understand life.

It teaches that life and its welfare consist not in personal happiness, as many believe, but in serving God and our neighbor. And this is not a duty to be performed for recompense, it is not a mystical expression of hidden and incomprehensible meaning, but a revelation of the law of life hitherto ignored, a demonstration that life cannot be good if it is not given its highest phase.

So the doctrine of Christ and of truth is expressed in these words: Love God, and thy neighbor as thyself.

Christ's direct laws and commandments, and the Judaic and Buddhist precepts, indicate the ways in which the world's temptations turn men from the right way.

Thus, there may be many such laws and precepts, while it needs but one positive rule of life to teach us what to do.

The life of every man consists in following some one aim. Whatever it may be, he tends towards it, as he sees it more or less clearly. Christ has shown us the right way, and how we may be turned aside from it. For this there are many diverging paths, and the five