It has commonly been thought that one needs to become religious in order to be good, but there is a most significant sense in which one must be good in order to become religious. Loyalty to ethical perception must precede spiritual apprehension. To the young man inquiring the way to "eternal life" Jesus said, "Keep the commandments;" and in the revelation to St. John "the Spirit" said, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door [and open the door], I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
The teaching is plain. Human alertness to the call of Truth, a practical responsiveness to the sense of right and good to which we have already attained, is an imperative prerequisite to further illumination, communion with God. This requirement demands much more than the mere desire to be happy or the willingness to profit by any good that may come our way. It demands that we shall stand by and honor our present moral sense, be concretely honest with ourselves and with others, deny pretense, be genuine; and all this every minute of the day. In the light of this understanding the profitlessness of much religious profession is easily accounted for. The flexibility of its moral standard has been apparent. It has had no backbone, and that the world should express astonishment and criticism, if not contempt, when the facts are disclosed, is entirely in keeping.
The meaning and importance of the emphasis which Christ Jesus lays upon the loving of our neighbor—our employes, our patrons, our city, our government— even as ourselves, and of dealing just as fairly, as considerately, as honestly, by one as by another,—this is understood when we come to know by the frequent and saddening compulsion of hard facts that many professed Christians, of prominence in philanthropies and politics, are found to be capable of taking advantage of opportunities for legal deception and dishonesty. The fundamental of all Christian faith and teaching is the declaration, "There is one God," and this can only mean that there is but one kind of truth or righteousness, one standard of morality and of obedience. And yet how often in these days is it found that men who are governed by a worthy standard of moral conduct in their business dealings with their neighbors and patrons, are governed by an utterly ignoble standard in their dealings with the municipality or the government,— the people as a whole. This course has become so familiar, sad to say, that to-day the public hardly expect any one to deal as honestly with them as he would with an individual; so that the power of temptation is in fact reinforced by the quasi approval of even those who are most grievously wronged.
