The proposition reduced to its simplest form is this: True religion can not dwell with lust. “Ye can not serve God and mammon.” But the religion of the Pharisee of every age is lust in its highest and most impregnable plane. Hence the more of such proposed religion they have, the farther are they from true religion. Jesus was condemning lust in the moral or charitable plane when he directed that alms should be done in secret. The impulse to charitable deeds which looks to self-gain or self-gratification, brings no reward to the soul of the giver. If he is prompted by a desire after fame, or from a hope of inward satisfaction, he does not act from the true impulse. He who sounds the trumpet in the world or in his soul, to call attention to his charities, can have no reward of his Father in heaven. He who acts from the true divine impulse acts spontaneously, acts as it were involuntarily; that is, he is not aware that he wills. His left hand knows not what his right hand doeth. He meets with a case of need. He stops not to argue the question and determine probabilities and uses. The steel and the flint are in contact, and the spark, comes forth. In the domestic relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, there is much of this moral lust which is mistaken for love. Many professing to be husbands, and really thinking themselves to be so, love the _use_ of their wives better than the wife, just as the lustful in religion love the _use_ of God better than God.