And may not they, too, be
consecrated to the glory of God? We are to use the world while not
abusing it, for all things are ours if we are Christ's. Over every
department of life the law of Christ is sovereign, and the ultimate
principle applicable to all problems of duty is, 'Whatsoever ye do in
word or deed do all to the glory of God.'

3. _Rights and Duties_.--The foregoing question as to the scope of
duty leads naturally to the consideration of the relation of duties and
rights. It is usual to distinguish {203} between legal and moral
rights; but at bottom they are one. The rights which I legally claim
for myself I am morally bound to grant to others. A right is expressed
in the form of a permission; a duty, of an imperative. I may or may
not demand my legal rights; morally, I must perform my duties. But, on
the other hand, a right may be secured by legal compulsion; a duty, as
a moral obligation, can never be enforced by external power: it needs
our own assent.[5]

Strictly speaking rights and duties are correlative. Every right
carries with it an obligation; not merely in the objective sense that
when one man has a right other men are under the obligation to respect
it, but also in the subjective sense that when a man has a right he is
bound to use it for the general good. It is sometimes said, 'A man may
do what he likes with his own.' Legally that may be true, but morally
he is under obligation to employ it for the general good just as
strictly as if it were another's. A man's rights are not merely
decorations or ends in themselves. They are opportunities,
instruments, trusts. And when any man has them, it means that he is
placed on a vantage-ground from which, secure of oppression or
interference, he may begin to do his duty.[6] But this moral aspect of
right is often lost sight of. People are so enamoured of what they
call their rights that they forget that the real value of every right
depends upon the use to which they put it. A man's freedom does not
consist in having rights, but in fulfilling them. 'After all,' says
Mazzini, 'the greatest right a man can possess or recognise--the
greatest gift of all--is simply the privilege and obligation to do his
duty.'[7] This is the only Christian doctrine of rights. It underlies
our Lord's teaching in the parable of the Talents. We only have what
we use.

(1) Much has been written of the 'Natural rights of Man.'[8] This was
the claim of a s