Chapter 3

Chapter 3 The adaptation of piety to all the soul’s desires

Man may be said to possess four classes of desires: comprehended under the terms physical, social, intellectual, and moral. The physical desires, he has, in common with the brute creation. These may be satisfied independent of Piety; but they are to be under her control, or they become inordinate, and therefore sinful. Indulged beyond the boundaries which she has fixed, they are the occasion of guilt and misery. Hence piety is all-important to restrain and guide these passions, so that they may not consume their victim by the intensity of their flame. The social desires can be gratified without piety; but never, as it appears to the writer, can they, without its influence, be the source of all that happiness which they were designed to afford. There is much to mar the communion, even of kindred minds, where true piety is not the cementing bond. How often does envy prove the cause of coldness and alienation; and how small a circumstance will at times embitter and interrupt the communion which had been commenced under high anticipations of permanent friendship! Piety is a check to these intervening barriers; and is ever ready, not only to sweeten the fellowship of kindred minds, but to counteract the causes of dissatisfaction and alienation. In her train comes Charity, foremost of the graces, who has a smile for every heart, and a tear for every fault, and a look of generous forgiveness, even when her laws have been violated. Besides, piety furnishes those pure, ennobling topics, which awaken kindred feelings, and which become additional bonds to unite in closest affinity the souls of the pious. The pleasures also of the intellect may be enjoyed without piety. In the varied field of investigation which God has spread out to man, every taste may be indulged, and every faculty of the mind employed and strengthened. Philosophy, we know, has walked abroad over this scene of wonders, and culled a thousand gems to adorn and to dignify the mind of man. Poetry has explored every valley, ascended every mountain-height, winged her flight to the visible heavens, plunged into ocean’s bed, penetrated nature’s solitudes, left no spot unvisited, in order to string her lyre with sweet chords that should thrill on the soul’s deep feelings. But who does not see, that if piety be excluded from all connection with such pleasures and pursuits, they must lose much of the relish which they would otherwise possess? The intellect is too closely related to the moral powers to operate with its full force, and to communicate by its exercise the highest good, while that relation is unacknowledged. If, as Dr. Young observes, "an undevout astronomer is mad," surely an atheist poet, or one whose muse never lifts her eye beyond earth’s narrow bounds, is no less so! But Piety has spread wide her treasures for the inquisitive mind; and he who refuses to examine them, must lose a rich harvest of intellectual pleasure.

There is a fourth class of desires which we call moral, or perhaps they may more properly be termed immortal desires. Now we ask what provision is made for their gratification? The world has nourishment for the physical desires; all nature is ransacked to administer to their indulgence. Even the laws of God are trampled upon in order to "sow to the flesh." The pampered appetite, like a spoiled child, is asked what new variety can now be furnished to suit its capricious longings. The world has also cultivated the social affections, and made a liberal provision for their gratification. What ceaseless rounds of amusement! What crowded assemblies! What exciting collision of wit and repartee! How has the human invention been tasked to produce new forms of social communion, by which men of varying tastes may mingle with some hope of reciprocal pleasure! Nor have men been neglectful of the intellect. In every department of taste and of learning, multitudes are found whose pleasures rise above those just named; for we hold that, next to the moral affections, the improvement of the intellect is the purest source of human felicity. But one class of desires still remains—the moral or immortal desires; and we again ask, Has the world made any provision for them? No man but an atheist will deny to us the possession of such desires; nor can any with reason deny, that they are the most important, if not the most importunate of our desires. The highest glory of man is not that he is an animal; and therefore his highest pleasure cannot lie in the gratification of the senses. Nor is it his highest dignity that he is a social being—even the brute creation are, in a sense, assimilated to him in this respect; nor even that he has an intellect capable of enjoying the pursuits of science. No! his highest dignity and glory consists in his moral nature; and his most important needs are those which respect immortality. And yet it is a melancholy fact, that no provision is made by the world for this class of desires; but, on the contrary, every expedient is adopted to thwart and to suppress them.

Here is certainly a great deficiency. One part of our nature, and that confessedly the most important, is, in the general provision of the world for human happiness, entirely overlooked and neglected. No wonder man is not happy in the indulgence of his passions, that even social bliss meets not his large desires; and intellectual pursuits still leave him craving after something else! It is the voice of Nature, complaining that her noblest aspirations are unheeded, and taking retribution for the neglect, by withholding that satisfaction which the sinner is striving in vain to secure.

You men of the world, you devotees of vain pleasure, look at this deficiency in your arrangements, and know that until it is supplied, you cannot be at peace! Now the Christian has this advantage over you, that while Piety permits him to enjoy all the pleasures of sense which are lawful, and social felicity, and intellectual pursuits, and enhances even these sources of good to man, she also gives him the bread of life for the soul. The immortal desires, more than all others, she meets with the requisite nourishment. Is this no advantage? and are these joys of the spirit no increase in the general average of human felicity? Ah, in the language of Cowper, Christians can say—

"From You is all that soothes the life of man His high endeavor, and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But O, you bounteous Giver of all good, You are of all your gifts yourself the crown! Give what you can, without you we are poor; And with you rich, take what you will away."