As man develops in himself a love of his fellow-man irrespective of exterior relation, but as a child of God, as possessing in his bosom the germ of immortality, and as endowed with a facility of eternal unfolding in the eternal future, he comes into the sphere of true charity; and when his work is faithfully done here, he will enter upon that reward which he has been laying up in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break through and steal.
There is between the first and second spheres, speaking of them in the affectional sense, another sphere, called the intellectual sphere. Man as an intellectual being has loves or delights. The quality of the intellect, you are aware, is to investigate, to think. Intellect of itself has no affection, no sympathy. It can be allied with vice or virtue. It can attend the missionary in his labor or the pirate in his murderous work. It has of itself no conscience, no moral quality. Hence you will find that men may be highly intellectual and vicious or virtuous. Intellect can join upon vice or crime, and upon charity and virtue, and that, too, without experiencing antagonism from such union. Man may be developed intellectually without affecting particularly his moral character. Intellect’s particular mission is to investigate that which addresses the perception. It can join upon the sphere of lust or the sphere of charity. Were it not for this, the selfish and charitable natures could not unite in man, and there would be such an antagonism in the individual, he could not be possibly developed from the plane of his lustful nature to the plane of his moral nature. Intellect is a sort of John Baptist that goes between the Moses and the Christ of man’s nature. It does not partake of the lust of Moses nor of the love of Christ. Its delights are sometimes mistaken for love, or the joys of love. People often say of things which are beautiful that they love them. They say that they _love_ the study of mathematics. That expression seems to me to be improper. The heat of love is never known to the cold intellect. The intellect can discourse eloquently respecting justice and right; but, so far as the heart is concerned, it may trample upon all justice. You will see men who, so far as theory is concerned, will discourse eloquently concerning human justice and morality, yet they utterly disregard and ignore all moral restraints in their private character and practices. These men are babes in their moral natures—they are less than babes. Intellect has to do with the relations of things—pertains to dead matter. The difference between intellect and morals is the difference between the essence and spirit of matter and the essences or spirit of the soul. While science, which belongs to the province of intellect, may harmoniously journey with the moral affections, it may also journey with the sensuous affections. I make these remarks so that you may not suppose that a man belongs to the second sphere because of his having an intellectual character.