Kant: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an _end_, and never as a _means_ only.” If there is a divine element in every man, then we have no right to _use_ a human being merely for our own pleasure or profit. In receiving him we receive Christ, and in receiving Christ we receive him who sent Christ (_Mat. 10:40_). Christ is the vine and all men are his natural branches, cutting themselves off only when they refuse to bear fruit, and condemning themselves to the burning only because they destroy, so far as they can destroy, God’s image in them, all that makes them worth preserving (_John 15:1-6_). Cicero: “Homo mortalis deus.” This possession of natural likeness to God, or personality, involves boundless possibilities of good or ill, and it constitutes the natural foundation of the love for man which is required of us by the law. Indeed it constitutes the reason why Christ should die. Man was worth redeeming. The woman whose ring slipped from her finger and fell into the heap of mud in the gutter, bared her white arm and thrust her hand into the slimy mass until she found her ring; but she would not have done this if the ring had not contained a costly diamond. The lost piece of money, the lost sheep, the lost son, were worth effort to seek and to save (_Luke 15_). But, on the other hand, it is folly when man, made in the image of God, “blinds himself with clay.” The man on shipboard, who playfully tossed up the diamond ring which contained his whole fortune, at last to his distress tossed it overboard. There is a “_merchandise of souls_” (_Rev. 18:13_) and we must not juggle with them.