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Spencer in the summary of Christianity (as he represents it) 

 which forms, as it were, the text of this paper, so as to make 

 it appear that the only motive to do what is right is a love of 

 self, and this love of self he characterizes by a term of re- 

 proach entirely inapplicable and undeserved, namely, other- 

 worldliness. 



Upwards of three years ago a controversy appeared in the 

 Nineteenth Century, on a subject very much akin to that which 

 is now before us, namely, the question whether atheism 

 destroys the foundations of morality. The advocate of atheism 

 was Miss Bevington, who maintained that morality, so far 

 from suffering any loss, would be rather a gainer by the 

 rejection of a belief in God. Her opponent was Mr. Mallock, 

 the author of " Is Life Worth Living ? " and of other works, 

 who maintained, on the other hand, that the rejection of a 

 belief in God necessarily involved the abolition of moral dis- 

 tinctions. To me it appears that both of these gifted writers 

 were mistaken, believing, as I do, in opposition to Miss 

 Bevington, that morality would lose very substantially if a 

 belief in God should perish from the world, and, in opposition 

 to Mr. Mallock, that morality has its root in the nature of 

 things, and need not absolutely perish if a belief in God were 

 rejected. There is, indeed, reason to fear that, practically, 

 great moral laxity would follow the extinction of theism; but 

 I believe that there would still remain the distinction between 

 virtue and vice, although the obligation to follow the one and 

 avoid the other would have a much looser hold on the gene- 

 rality of human beings. When I speak of belief in God, I of 

 course mean the acknowledgment that there is not only a 

 god of some kind or other (such, perhaps, as the Persistence 

 of Force), but a Deity conscious, intelligent, powerful, and 

 who has a regard to the conduct of His creatures. Nothing 

 short of this would be a belief that could influence human 

 conduct. 



To consider, one by one, the arguments used by Mr. Mallock 

 and Miss Bevington respectively, would both occupy too much 

 time, and would be beyond the scope of this paper. But I 

 may perhaps be permitted to bring forward one or two 

 considerations of a general nature in connexion with the 

 subject. 



It seems evident at once that a belief in the God whom 

 Christians acknowledge not only supplies additional motives for 

 morality, but also enlarges its domain. The motives to which 

 I refer are the love and fear of God, and the enlargement of 

 the domain of morality consists in the addition of a distinct 

 class of duties, comprised under the head of Duty to God. 



