WHY SHOULD I BE MORAL?

New Zealand Tablet, 23 September 1920, Page 19

WHY SHOULD I BE MORAL?

A correspondent of the Bombay Examiner asks the editor to answer in one or two sentences the question : “Why should I be moral?” Father Hull admits that the shortest answer which he has ever heard to that question was that of a laconic American, although some might accuse him of irreverence, put it crudely yet sincerely thus: “If I didn’t believe in the Boss upstairs, I should jest do as 1 darn please !” The American reply was equivalent to saying: “God is our Maker and our Master. He has the right to command, and we have the right to obey.” In academic form, the noted writer gives his correspondent the following answer, in which clearness is not sacrificed to brevity: “Morality consists in doing what is right as a duty; that is, because I ought. A ‘ duty ’ means something due to somebody, and that somebody is God. God, being our Maker and Master, has a right to command; and it is therefore our duty to obey. From God we receive all that we are and all that we can do; and therefore we owe it to Him. to be what He wills us to be, and to do what He wills us to do. And this is morality.” '