PIETY

(by Gardiner Spring)

By piety, we mean:

1. the religion of principle, in distinction
    from the religion of impulse;

2. a spiritual religion, in distinction
    from a religion of forms;

3. a religion of which the Spirit of God, and not
    the wisdom or the will of man, is the author;

4. a self denying and not a
    self indulgent religion;

5. a religion that has a heavenward
    tendency, and not an earthly tendency;

6. a practical religion, in opposition
    to the abstractions of theory;

7. a religion that is so full of Christ, that the
crucified One is at the basis of its duties and
hopes; its center, its living head, and its glory.