"Render, therefore," says St. Paul, "to all their dues: tribute to
whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear;
honour to whom honour. Owe no man anything, but to love one
another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law,"
Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from our entrance into it
until our exit from it--duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and
duty to equals--duty to man, and duty to God. Wherever there is
power to use or to direct, there is duty. For we are but as
stewards, appointed to employ the means entrusted to us for our
own and for others' good.
The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character. It is
the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it,
the individual totters and falls before the first puff of
adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest
becomes strong and full of courage. "Duty," says Mrs. Jameson,
"is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together;
without which, all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness,
love itself, can have no permanence; but all the fabric of
existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last
sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation."
Duty is based upon a sense of justice--justice inspired by love,
which is the most perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a
sentiment, but a principle pervading the life: and it exhibits
itself in conduct and in acts, which are mainly determined by
man's conscience and freewill.
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