Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/496

Rh own sake, then this will comfort thee. If not, if thou seekest sugar-plums, seek them not in the home of the Infinite. Go among thy fellow-men and be a successful hypocrite and charlatan, and thou shalt have gaping and wonderment and sugar-plums enough.

Herein then lies the invitation of the Infinite to us, that it is, and that it knows us. No deeper sanction is there for true righteousness than this knowledge that one is serving the Eternal. Yet when we say all this, are we simply doing that which we spoke of in the opening chapter of this work? Are we but offering snow to appease the religious hunger? Is this doctrine too cold, too abstract, too far-off? Cold and abstract and far-off is indeed the proof of it. But that was philosophy. That was not the religious aspect of our doctrine, but only the preparation for showing the religious aspect of philosophy. Is the doctrine itself, however, once gained, so remote from the natural religious emotion? What does a man want when he looks to the world for religious support? Does he want such applause as blind crowds give men, such flattery as designing people shower upon them, such sympathy as even the cherished but prejudiced love of one’s nearest friends pours out for him? Nay, if he seeks merely this, is he quite unselfishly righteous? Can he not get all that if he wants it, wholly apart from religion? And if he looks for reward, can he not get that also otherwise? But what his true devotion to the moral law ardently desires is not to be alone. Approval for what really deserves approval he needs, approval