hem, because how do we know, if the vessels are
changed or taken away, that we may not lose the precious contents
themselves? This, I say, has been the feeling; and it has been a
perfectly natural feeling.

I wish then, this morning, for a little while to review with you some
of the steps in evolution that the world has taken, and let you see how
it has worked in different departments of human thought and human life,
so that you may become convinced if possible, as I am that evolution
has never thrown away, has never lost, anything precious in any
department of the world since human life began. If I believed it did, I
would fight against it. For instance, here is a devout Catholic
servant-girl. She believes in her saints. She counts her beads and
recites her Ave Marias. She goes to the cathedral on Sunday morning.
And this is her world of poetry and romance. Here is a source of
comfort. This throws a halo around the drudgery of the kitchen, the
service of the house in which she is an employee. Would I take away
this trust, this poetry, this romance, untrue as I believe it to be in
form, inadequate as I believe it to be? Would I take it away, and leave
her mind bare, her heart empty, leave her without the comfort, without
the inspiration? Not for one moment. I would take it away only if, in
the process, I could supply her with something just a little better, a
little more nearly true, something that would give her comfort,
something that would be an inspiration to her, something that would
buoy her up as a hope, something that would help her to be faithful and
true in the work of her daily life. This is what evolution means. It
means taking away the old, and, in the process, substituting therefore
something a little bit better. I would not take away the idol of the
lowest barbarian unless I could help him to take a step a little
higher, so that he should see the intellectual and spiritual thing that
the idol stood for, and so enable him to walk his pathway of life as
firmly, as faithfully, as hopefully, as he did before.

I have been watching the work that has been going on in our streets
during the last months. You, too, have seen how they will replace the
track on an entire line of railway without stopping the running of the
cars. They take away the old and worn and poorer, but constantly
substitute something better for it; and human life moves right on.
Everything is better; the change has come; but that change is; a