order that he should do what he likes, but in order that he should do what he ought, and do it quite willingly of his own free will.
All creation fulfils the purpose of its existence; the sun, the moon, and the stars revolve in their appointed orbits, not voluntarily, hut in unswerving obedience to the laws of nature, with such mathematical regularity that astronomers can calculate their movements with perfect precision. The animal world likewise, compelled by the law of instinct, fails not to fulfil the object for which it was created. Man, on the other hand, is so constituted that he ought to serve, honor, and worship God deliberately and of his own free will.
3. This consciousness, this conviction that he is bound to honor and worship God, is deeply and ineradicably implanted in the heart of every human being. Hence we find that in ancient times no nation was without its own religion. It is impossible that the universal conviction of mankind can be a deception or a lie; it is, on the contrary, a plain proof that, to quote the words of a Christian writer of the early Church, "the soul is of its very nature religious."
And indeed the most ancient books of Holy Scripture teach us that not only did Abraham and his descendants worship the true God, but that all nations with whom they came in contact had, and adored, their own deities.
