bursts is seen
Only a driving wreck,
And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck
With anguished face and flying hair,
Grasping the rudder hard,
Still bent to make some port he knows not where,
Still standing for some false impossible shore,
And sterner comes the roar
Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom,
Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom."

But, before I quit this head of my discourse, let me say that in order
to be accepted as the great Help of Life, Religion must in some way be
_presented_ as a reality. It must not be held forth as a mere
abstraction--it must be precipitated into its concrete relations.
Parting with none of its sanctity, it must be stripped of its vagueness
and technicality, and be spoken in the fresh language of the time. I
feel sure that amidst prevalent irreligion, nothing is so much needed as
a definite statement of _what_ religion is; and that men should learn to
recognize its vascular connection with every department of action. It
must be understood that "being religious" is not a work apart by itself,
but a spirit of faith and righteousness, flowing out from the centre of
a regenerated heart into all the employments and intercourse of the
world. Not merely the preacher in the pulpit, and the saint on his
knees, may do the work of religion, but the mechanic who smites with the
hammer and drives the wheel; the artist seeking to realize his pure
ideal of the beautiful; the mother in the gentle offices of home; the
statesman in the forlorn hope of liberty and justice; and the
philosopher whose thought treads reverently among the splendid mysteries
of the universe. I know that some will deem this a secularization of
religion--a desecration of its holy essence by worldly alliances. But
they are mistaken. It is a _consecration_ of pursuits and spheres that
have been cut off from all sacredness, and devoted to secondary ends.
Are not the just, the useful, the beautiful, from God, as well as the
good and the holy? And, therefore, is not any practice which serves
these, a service of God? It is needed that men should feel that every
lawful pursuit _is_ sacred and not profane; that every position in life
is close to the steps of the divine throne; and that the most beaten and
familiar paths lie under the awful shadow of the Infinite; then they
will go about their daily pursuits, and fill their common relationships,
with hearts of worship and pu