" Do you think the father would be
particularly pleased?
(VIOLET is silent.)
He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, "My boy,
though you had no father, you must not rob tills"? And nothing is
ever done so as really to please our Great Father, unless we would
also have done it, though we had had no Father to know of it.
VIOLET (after long pause). But, then, what continual threatenings,
and promises of reward there are!
L. And how vain both! with the Jews, and with all of us. But the
fact is, that the threat and promise are simply statements of the
Divine law, and of its consequences. The fact is truly told you,--
make what use you may of it: and as collateral warning, or
encouragement, or comfort, the knowledge of future consequences
may often be helpful to us; but helpful chiefly to the better
state when we can act without reference to them. And there's no
measuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future reward
on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the
monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and
ambition of good people (as the other half of it came of their
follies and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity
of pride, to begin with, in what is called "giving one's self to
God.
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