Explore "Janet's Boys" by Annette Lyster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I WONDER if any of my readers are wondering what is the want in my first chapter? For there is a want, and I feel it myself. For all that I have said, so far, there might be no such thing as religion in the world. Self-interest is the only "motive-power" that I have mentioned. To be respectable, to be comfortable, to make or save money, to be happy in a quiet way-these are the motives I have spoken of, because, alas! They are the motives that governed the lives of those of whom I was writing.
Is it not sad to think that, in a Christian country, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, people can contentedly live as if they had never learned the truths that our Saviour taught? I do not mean that their lives would have been the same if Christianity did not exist in the country. For Christianity gives us all of civilization that is worth having, and civilization is actually necessary before a quiet life is possible. But do you not think it is very ungrateful to accept the blessings and to ignore or to forget Him Who "ascended up on high to give gifts to men"?