The Sinfulness and Selfishness [pp. 22-41]

THE SINFULNESS OF SELFISHNESS.
sinful than when making and obeying laws for its greater happiness.
Selfishness ucheckeed wvill desolate the moral universe.-Selfishness augments in intensity by repeated indulgences, anmd if its
power increase proportioned to the growing intensity of desire
for gratification, it must in the end make a complete developmlent of its essential nature, and thus its consummiated process
must ultimately disclose its inherent character. Following out
its unchecked development is thus a legitimate method for testing its iniquity in its persistent tendency.
We will thus suppose a human soul begins its activity inll our
sight, and its power to get its gratifications grows as its wants
multiply and its desires intensify, and the issue must at last
disclose just what from the first has been in it and all along
gradually coming out of it. A. new-born child of fallen human
parents will be innocent of all overt transgressioni, though in its
condition there be the certainty that its opening agency will be
with a selfish disposing toward happiness, and away from worthiness to be happy. This child awakes to the consciousness
of craving appetites and desires, and with the first exhibitions
of conscious activity we find it intent on indulgence and impatient of restraint. To already gratified desires new wants
succeed, and we now suppose it to have an unhindered progress
in growing wishes and their quick fulfillment. We merely train
and guide this child of immortality so prudently as to prevent
a self-destruction of its sentient susceptibilities, and secure that
there shall be no destitution of objects subservient to enjoyment,
and then let the development proceed according to inner constitutional impulses. He grows up under parental nurture and the
culture of daily intercourse with brothers and sisters and family
inmates, and the selfishness of his disposition soon crops out in
manifest efforts to get his gratification whether others get theirs
or not, and whether he ought to have his or not. The individuals of the household give way or are forced out of his way,
and all must be ordered in ministration to his wishes. Parental
authority must be exercised for his happiness and wholly in his
interest. His wants are expressed in clamorous cries, then in
importunate asking, soon in sturdy demanding, and at length
openly and violently contending for what he wants; and the
.early disposing is now the fixed persistent purpose to have his
1874.]
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