RIGHT RELATION OF REASON TO RELIGION 257 



responsible author of all its acts, and in the sense 

 that its fund of ultimate resources is equal to ful- 

 filling its duty to love as God loves. 



It is this third tenet, the essential freedom of the 

 spirit, as implied in the conception of God as imper- 

 sonate Love, that in fact forms the touchstone of 

 Christ's new religion. It is in this, and in this only, 

 that the full and real meaning of love as the very 

 principle of the Divine life comes out. For just as 

 perfect love "casteth out fear," so it casts out not 

 only condescension and commiseration and mercy and 

 alms, as but poor substitutes for its riches, poor 

 lowly approaches to its height, but it makes away 

 also with that false benignancy which would smother 

 the spontaneous action of its object under the over- 

 whelming weight of its lavish gifts. The true love 

 wherewith God loves other spirits is not the out- 

 pouring upon them of graces which are the unearned 

 gift of his miraculous power; it is the love, on the 

 contrary, which holds the individuality, the personal 

 initiative, of its object sacred. As the true father 

 desires that the son who, after him, is to be the 

 head of the family shall have a method and policy 

 of hi= own, by which the honours of the line shall 

 be increased by new contributions, so he who is 

 the Father of Spirits will have his image brought 

 forth in every one of his offspring by the thought 

 and conviction of each soul itself. 

 s 



