Those who appeal to men to get religion in order that they may escape misery and secure happiness, appeal to their lusts, and so far as they influence them by their appeals to their hopes and fears, they stimulate them to lust. The individual who seeks religion for the purpose of saving his soul, is exercising the very impulse which most of all tends to defeat his salvation. Hence said Jesus upon this very point, “Whosoever seeketh to save his life shall lose it,” etc. The very impulse is as selfish and undivine as possible. It is for this very reason that the influence of the popular religions of the day is not redemptive in its character. To say to the world that when all should be converted to the religion of these fashionable churches, the millennium would come, would provoke in the highest degree their sense of the ludicrous. Their lustful seeking after self-gratification is so apparent and gross, that they can not even deceive themselves. It will not be considered a false declaration when I say, that there is no possible resemblance of character or practice between these modern fashionable Christians and Jesus of Nazareth. The redemptive principle of the religion of Jesus can not be found in their religion. The difference is, Jesus was seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, while they are seeking self-gratification. The impulse in Jesus was that of religious love; theirs is a religious lust. The impulse in Jesus led him to hunger and thirst after righteousness; theirs leads them to hunger and thirst after the things of sense. Jesus, in the things pertaining to the world, was the Lazarus; they are the Dives. Furthermore, I must be permitted to say that the popular religions of the day are manifestations of man’s lustful character, in the moral and religious plane; and that it is more difficult to reform a man in his moral and religious lusts than it is in his animal lusts. It was for this reason that Jesus pronounced his severest woes upon the Scribes and Pharisees, who thought they were righteous and who despised others. Hence he said to them, “Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against yourselves.” Also, “The publicans and harlots do pass into the kingdom of heaven before you.”