Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/18

The first thing to be considered, in the effort to arrive at correct ideas here, is man’s origin, and the fact of his having fallen from his original state. Man, in the order of his creation, did not love himself. His love flowed out and sought objects of affection. Supremely he loved God; and next to this love was the love of his fellow-man. That this was so, is plain from the statement made in the Bible, that man was created in the image and likeness of God. Now, God is love; not self-love, but a love of making others happy out of himself. Such being his nature, the beings created by his hand, in his image and likeness, must have been, in their original state, lovers of others more than themselves, and seekers of the happiness of others. How different is all now! Man not only loves himself supremely, but seeks his own good with an almost total disregard to the good of his neighbor. Nay, his love of self is so strong, that hatred to others too often takes possession of his mind. The fall of man, in which he lost the image and likeness of his Creator, consisted in his ceasing to love God and his neighbor, and becoming a lover of self and the world; and religion is nothing more nor less than the returning of man to this true order, and the restoration of the lost image and likeness of God in his