arded
as virtuous. But if in any one department of duty a person is consciously
false to his sense of right, even though in all other respects he conforms
to the right, he cannot be deemed virtuous, nor can there be any good
ground for assurance that he may not, with sufficient inducement, violate
the very obligations which he now holds in the most faithful regard. This
is what is meant by that saying of St. James, "Whosoever shall keep the
whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all,"--not that he who
commits a single offence through inadvertency or sudden temptation, is
thus guilty; but he who willingly and deliberately violates the right as
to matters in which he is the most strongly tempted to wrong and evil,
shows an indifference to the right which will lead him to observe it only
so long and so far as he finds it convenient and easy so to do.

Here we are naturally led to inquire whether there is any essential
*connection between virtue and piety*,--between the faithful discharge of
the common duties of life and loving loyalty toward the Supreme Being. On
this subject extreme opinions have been held, sceptics and unbelievers, on
the one side, Christians with a leaven of antinomianism on the other,
maintaining the entire independence of virtue on piety; while Christians
of the opposite tendency have represented them, in spite of ample evidence
to the contrary, as inseparable. We shall find, on examination, that they
are separable and independent, yet auxiliary each to the other. Virtue is
conduct in accordance with the right, and we have seen that right and
wrong, as moral distinctions, depend not on the Divine nature, will or
law,(8) but on the inherent, necessary conditions of being. The atheist
cannot escape or disown them. Whatever exists--no matter how it came into
being--must needs have its due place, affinities, adaptations, and uses. An
intelligent dweller among the things that are, cannot but know something
of their fitnesses and harmonies, and so far as he acts upon them cannot
but feel the obligation to recognize their fitnesses, and thus to create
or restore their harmonies. Even to the atheist, vice is a violation of
fitnesses which he knows or may know. It is opposed to his conscientious
judgment. He has with regard to it an inevitable sense of wrong. We can,
therefore, conceive of an atheist's being rigidly virtuous, and that on
principle. Though among the ancient Stoics there were some em