III. God and Man.

(a) Man being thus constituted, God must be so also; hence his government of the universe cannot be for any selfish exercise of his own power or will; nor can man render him any pleasure or service apart from man's own eternal interests and normal modes of action, God and man being together equally amenable to the same laws and principles, and both harmoniously at work in carrying out the same great aims and purposes.

(b) That all men and all parts of nature being parts of God, they cannot be arrayed against each other, but must all be actuated by the page 63 moral laws of goodness, justice, and truth, and the spiritual laws of desire for the sacred maintenance of instituted conditions, and aspirations toward holier states.

(c) Therefore the moral government of the universe is that of Development, not Punishment; all so-called sin and its consequences arising from inharmonious conditions and eccentricity of action, hut exciting the sufferer to efforts to procure a change of circumstances and a higher position in the scale of action; in short, to profit by experience, and thus ultimately carry out the full purpose of his creation.

(d) That true prayer is an aspiration of the mind towards its highest plane of action, and not an influence to alter the will of God, though it may attract the sympathy and cooperation of spirits; all selfish beggings being degrading to man and ungratefully oblivious of the blessings of a good providence that has placed all tilings within our reach, as we grow to attain them.