Counsels of Imperfection
It is all very well for mischievous writers to maintain that we
cannot serve God and Mammon. Granted that it is not easy, but
nothing that is worth doing ever is easy. Easy or difficult,
possible or impossible, not only has the thing got to be done, but it
is exactly in doing it that the whole duty of man consists. And when
the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness that he hath
committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite
right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what
he has lost in holiness.
If there are two worlds at all (and that there are I have no doubt)
it stands to reason that we ought to make the best of both of them,
and more particularly of the one with which we are most immediately
concerned. It is as immoral to be too good as to be too anything
else. The Christian morality is just as immoral as any other. It is
at once very moral and very immoral. How often do we not see
children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their
parents? Truly he visiteth the virtues of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation. The most that can be
said for virtue is that there is a considerable balance in its
favour, and that it is a good deal better to be for it than against
it; but it lets people in very badly sometimes.
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