devoutly and love man more truly and
consecrate yourselves more unreservedly to the highest and noblest
ends, when you can think thoughts of God that kindle aspiration and
worship, and thoughts of men as children of God that make it grandly
worth your while to live and die for them.

Do you think there is going to be a poorer religion than there has been
in the past? I look to the time when we shall have a church as wide as
the horizon, domed by the blue, lighted by the sun, the Sun of
Righteousness, the Eternal Truth of the Father; a church in which all
men shall be recognized as brothers, of whatever sect or whatever
religion, in which all shall kneel and chant or lisp their worship
according as they are able, the worship of the one Father, cheered and
inspired by the one universal and eternal hope for man.

Do not be afraid of the truth, then, for fear something precious is
going to be lost out of human life. Evolution never gives up anything
of the past that is worth keeping. It simply carries it on, and moulds
it into ever higher and finer shapes for the service of man.

I intimated a moment ago? I wish to touch on this briefly for the sake
of clearness that man, according to this new theory, does not need to
be saved, in the theological sense, of course, I mean, because he is
not lost. He has never been far away from the Father, never been beyond
the reach of his hand, never been beyond the touch of his love and
care. What does he need? He needs to be trained, he needs to be
educated, he needs to be developed for man is just as naturally
religious as he is musical or artistic, as he is interested in problems
of government or economics, or any of the great problems that touch the
welfare of the world.

Man needs churches, then, or societies of those interested in the
higher life of the time, needs services, needs all these things that
kindle and train and develop and lift him up out of the animal into the
spiritual and divine nature which is in every one of us. So that none
of the worships, none of the religious forms of the world that are of
any value, are ever going to be cast aside or left behind.

But there is one very important point that I must deal with for just a
little while. I will be as brief as I can.

I have been very much surprised to note certain things that have come
out in the recent religious discussions. The editor of the Brooklyn
Eagle, for example, has deprecated all talk in regard to ma