"I go on then to say," continued the curate, "that a man may well be
strengthened and encouraged by the hope of being made a better and truer
man, and capable of greater self-forgetfulness and devotion. There is
nothing low in having respect to such a reward as that, is there?"

"It seems to me better," persisted the doctor, "to do right for the sake
of duty, than for the sake of any goodness even that will come thereby
to yourself."

"Assuredly, if self in the goodness, and not the goodness itself be the
object," assented Wingfold. "When a duty lies before one, self ought to
have no part in the gaze we fix upon it; but when thought reverts upon
himself, who would avoid the wish to be a better man? The man who will
not do a thing for duty, will never get so far as to derive any help
from the hope of goodness. But duty itself is only a stage toward
something better. It is but the impulse, God-given I believe, toward a
far more vital contact with the truth. We shall one day forget all about
duty, and do every thing from the love of the loveliness of it, the
satisfaction of the rightness of it. What would you say to a man who
ministered to the wants of his wife and family only from duty? Of course
you wish heartily that the man who neglects them would do it from any
cause, even were it fear of the whip; but the strongest and most
operative sense of duty would not satisfy you in such a relation. There
are depths within depths of righteousness. Duty is the only path to
freedom, but that freedom is the love that is beyond and prevents duty."

"But," said Faber, "I have heard you say that to take from you your
belief in a God would be to render you incapable of action. Now, the
man--I don't mean myself, but the sort of a man for whom I stand
up--does act, does his duty, without the strength of that belief: is he