With the pursuit of pleasure dies the inclination for riches and honor, which are partly only means in that pursuit and not ends in themselves; and instead there springs up joy in work, the best salvation from all evil, that otherwise always surrounds and tempts a man in one way or another. For when the pursuit of pleasure disappears as a rule of life, then a man must work, or the world is too dreary. On the other hand, with the pursuit of pleasure as his innermost spring of action, a man will always look upon work as only a means, and a disagreeable one, to the attainment of pleasure. That one may, nevertheless, find an artless enjoyment in the beauty of nature, in the serene succession of the days and the years, in one’s family and in true friendship, in uplifting art and science, in the life and welfare of his nation, even in the inoffensive animal and plant worlds, and, above all, in all the great and good activities that are going on in the whole realm of humanity--all this is to be taken entirely for granted. Indeed, a keen sensitiveness to such things is a sure mark of an unspoiled temperament, and especially of years of youth purely spent, a youth that has not, by poisonous pleasures, prematurely deadened its feeling for the true and harmless joys of life. Furthermore, an excessive repression of the life of the body is certainly not advantageous for spiritual progress--still less is it a divine command, but it is rather, whenever it appears, merely a human device with no decisive value. On this point a thoughtful commentator of the oldest biblical records says, very truly, that men always have a tendency to heighten the commands of God, which are themselves properly meted and adapted to men’s capabilities; and that, in the Old Testament narrative of the first trial of obedience, God did not say that Adam and Eve should not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but only that they should not eat of its fruit; it was Eve herself who added the further prohibition, “neither shall ye touch it,” and by so doing placed the Tempter in the desired position of making an alleged divine command manifestly untrue on its face, because the mere touch of the tree did not cause death. (Genesis ii. 17, and iii. 3, 4.) Thus it is, indeed, with many exaggerated and unnecessary commands which parents lay upon their children or churches upon their adherents, the non-fulfilment of which they then with equal facility overlook. An exact and literal obedience to all the real divine commands, which are all practicable, and a thorough scorn and disregard for all the “commandments of men”--this is the only way by which our Christian confessions could now bring themselves new life.