a conscious Thought: therefore whatsoever thou art, whether it is consciously or unconsciously existent in thee, is known to the all-seeing Universal Conscious

ness.

ence.

But commonplace as this seems to the philosopher, is it not more than a mere commonplace to thee, if thou lovest genuine righteousness? For is it not something to feel that thy life is, all of it, in God and for God? No one else knows thee. Alone thou wanderest in a dead world, save for this PresThese other men, how can they know thee? They love thee or scorn thee or hate thee, but none of them love or scorn or hate thee for what thou art. Whatever they hold of thee, it is an accident. If they knew more of thee, doubtless they would think otherwise of thee. Do they love thee? Then they know thee not well enough, nor do they see thy meanness and thy vileness, thy selfishness and thy jealousy and thy malice. If they saw these, surely they would hate thee. But do they hate thee? Then thou callest them unjust. Doubtless they are

SO.

Some chance word of thine, a careless look or gesture, an accident of fortune, a trifling fault, these they have remembered; and therefore do they hate thee. If they knew better things of thee, perhaps they would love thee.

Thus contradictory is thy life with them. And yet thou must labor that the good may triumph near thee by thy effort. Now in all this work who shall be thy true friend? Whose approval shall encour- age thee? Thy neighbor's? Nay, but it is thy duty always to suspect thy neighbor's opinion of thee. He is a corrupt judge, or at best an ignorant judge.

He sees not thy heart. He is a respecter of persons. He is too often a bundle of whims. If he also professes to be trying to serve righteousness, it is thy duty to have ready faith in his good intent, if that be possible for thee; but by all means doubt his wisdom about thee, and thine about him. If he praises thee for thy righteousness, listen not willingly to his praise. It will deceive thee. He will most praise thee when thou inwardly art not righteous. If he blames thee for evil, let it warn thee; for if he is not right now, he doubtless soon will be. But take it not too much to heart. He is ignorant of thee. He talks of thee as he might talk of the other side of the moon, unless indeed he talks of thee just as man in general, and not as to thy particular acts. Trust him not in all these things. Realize his needs as thou canst, strive to aid him in being righteous, use him as an instrument for the extension of goodness; but trust not his judgment of thee. Who then is, as the true judge of thy worth, thy only perfect friend?

The Divine Thought. There is the opinion of thee to which thou canst look up. To be sure it is revealed to thee only in thy consciousness of what righteousness is and of what truth is. Nowhere else hast thou a guide that can do more for thee than to help to quicken thy insight. But, then, thy religious comfort is to be, not that the moral law is thundered down from mountain-tops as if some vast town-crier were talking, but that when thou seekest to do right, the Infinite all-seeing One knows and approves thee. If thou lovest righteousness for its own sake, then this will comfort thee. If not, if thou seekest sugar-plums, seek them not in the home of the Infinite. Go among thy fellow-men and be a successful hypocrite and charlatan, and thou shalt have gaping and wonderment and sugar- plums enough.

Herein then lies the invitation of the Infinite to us, that it is, and that it knows us. No deeper sanction is there for true righteousness than this knowledge that one is serving the Eternal. Yet when we say all this, are we simply doing that which we spoke of in the opening chapter of this work? Are we but offering snow to appease the religious hunger? Is this doctrine too cold, too abstract, too far-off? Cold and abstract and far-off is indeed the proof of it. But that was philosophy. That was not the religious aspect of our doctrine, but only the preparation for showing the religious aspect of philosophy. Is the doctrine itself, however, once gained, so remote from the natural religious emotion? What does a man want when he looks to the world for re ligious support? Does he want such applause as blind crowds give men, such flattery as designing people shower upon them, such sympathy as even the cherished but prejudiced love of one's nearest friends pours out for him? Nay, if he seeks merely this, is he quite unselfishly righteous? Can he not get all that if he wants it, wholly apart from religion? And if he looks for reward, can he not get that also otherwise? But what his true devotion to the moral law ardently desires is not to be alone. Approval for what really deserves approval he needs, approval from one who truly knows him. Well, our doctrine says that he gets it. Just as deep, as full, as rich, as true approval as expresses the full worth of hist act, - this he has for all eternity from the Infinite. To feed upon that truth is to eat something better than snow, but as pure as the driven snow. To love that truth is to love God.

We spoke in the former book of the boundless magnitude of human life as it impresses itself upon one who first gains the moral insight. To many this first devotion to human life seems itself enough for a religion. But then one goes beyond this point, and says that human life has, after all, very much that is base and petty in it. Here is not the ideal. "Would that there were a higher life! To that we would devote ourselves. We will serve humanity, but how can we worship it?" Such is the thought of many an ardent soul that seeks no personal rewards in serving the good, but that does seek some great Reality that shall surely be worthy of service. To such, our religious insight points out this higher reality. You that have been willing to devote yourselves to humanity, here is a Life greater in infinite degree than humanity. And now is it not a help to know that truly to serve humanity is just the same as to serve this Infinite? For whatever had seemed disheartening in the baseness and weakness of man loses its discouraging darkness now that all is transfigured in this Infinite light.

Let us then be encouraged in our work by this great Truth. But let us not spend too much time in merely contemplating this Truth. We, whose

lives are to be lived in toil, it is not good that we should brood over even an infinite Thought. For in our finite minds it will soon become petty, unless we realize it chiefly through our acts. Let us then go about our business. For every man has business and desire, such as they are.

As we turn away then for the time from our contemplation, we have one last word yet as to these practical consequences of our view. If the reader follows us at all in our argument, we want him also to follow us into the practical application of it to life. To work for the extension of the moral insight is, we have said, the chief present duty of man in society. All else is preparation for this work, or else is an anticipation of the higher stage when, if we ever grow up to that level, we shall have our further work to do in the light of the insight itself. But this chief present work of ours, this extension of the moral insight, is best furthered by devotion to our individual vocations, coupled with strict loyalty to the relations upon which society is founded. The work thus set before us demands the sacrifice of many ideal emotional experiences to the service of the Highest. Our comfort however in it all must be that the Highest is there above us, forget it as we may. If the reader accepts all this, then with us he has the assurance that, whatever becomes of the old creeds in the present religious crisis, the foundations of genuinely religious faith are sure.

Whenever we must pause again in our work for religious support, and whenever we are worn out with the jargon of the schools, we can rest once