But, thirdly, self-love is made the rule and standard of charity:  “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”  One must then first love himself, in order to loving his neighbor.  Keeping this rule, there is no danger of loving thyself too well; rather, the more truly thou lovest thyself, the more truly thou lovest thy neighbor.

Suppose one to cherish the vulgar notion of life—­that it consists in the abundance of the things which one possesses, in the ability to live without exertion, amid plenty of good cheer.  Suppose him to love his neighbor as himself.  His charity must partake of the contraction and grossness of his self-love.  Suppose another to prize duly intellectual riches.  To him the discovery of a new principle in the physical, intellectual, or moral world, brings a joy unsurpassed by the merchant’s, on the return of his heavily laden ship from a successful voyage.  As the best legacy to his children, he would leave them a good education; and, knowing the natural influences and dependencies existing between young minds, he aims to have all the children in the neighborhood well educated, as the best security against failure in the attempt to educate his own.  If all is but a refined calculation, how best to benefit himself and household; it is far more estimable and amiable than the gross selfishness which grovels after vulgar goods, and in the success of a brother sees an obstacle to its own success.  But if he too loves his neighbor as himself, why how far his self-love is educated to find its satisfaction in nobler ends, by so much his charity is better than the other’s.

There is hope for the future in the consideration, that self-interest, the first, as well as love of approbation, the second, of the great powers which move the world, indeed all the indifferent motives, are getting still more into coincidence of action with justice and benevolence.

When Jesus enforced a duty by the consideration, “Then shalt thou have worship [respect, approval,] in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee,” he implied two things; first, that regard to the world’s respectful esteem is not a censurable motive; and, secondly, that the same operates to good, rather than to evil.  So it must have been even in that corrupt generation, so disposed to call evil good and good evil.  It must be much more so now, when public sentiment has so much improved.  Notwithstanding the danger of loving the praise of man more than the praise of God, and the mischiefs resulting from such preference, we should lose, on the whole, by eradicating the love of human praise.  Witness the accounts of the atrocious outbreaks of depravity at the gold diggings, while society was yet unformed.  Witness, wherever cease the common restraints of civilization.

Thus agents—­so often the authors of discord and confusion, so often the fire-brands to set the world in fumes—­philanthropy is more and more firing as her sure allies.