tense
activity of the scientific world? these men that devote their lives to
some little fraction of the universe which they study through their
microscope, not for pay, to find one little fragment of the truth of
God; these critics that are rummaging the dust-heaps of the ages in
the hope that they may find one little, bright-glittering particle of
truth in the midst of the rubbish? There never was such a passion for
truth as there is here and now.

Are we going to lose the sense of righteousness which is the very heart
of religion? There never was a time since the world began when the
average man cared so much for righteousness, when he laid so much
emphasis on human conduct, on kindness, on help, on all those things
that make this life of ours desirable and sweet. The ideal of character
and behavior has risen step by step from the beginning, and is higher
to-day than it ever was before. Not because men fear a whipping, not
because they are threatened with hell in another world, not because a
God of vengeance is preached to them, because they have grown to see
the beauty of righteousness, because they know that obedience to the
laws of God means health, means sanity, means peace, means prosperity,
means well-being, means all high and good and noble things. This
righteousness is not driven into one by blows from outside: it blossoms
out from the intellect and the conscience and the heart, as the
recognized law of all fine and desirable and human living.

What are we losing, then, as the result of this growth of the world in
accordance with the law of evolution? Are we losing our hope of the
future? The form of that hope is passing away. We no longer believe in
an underground world of the dead, as the Hebrews did. We no longer
believe in a heaven just above the blue, as Christendom has believed
for so long. We no longer believe in a heaven where all struggle and
thought and study and growth are left out, where there is to be only a
monotonous enjoyment that would pall upon any living rational soul. The
form of it is passing away; but there never was a time when there was
such a great and inspiring hope, not simply for myself and my friends,
not simply for my neighbors, not simply for my particular church. There
never was a time when there was such a great hope, including humanity
for this world and for the next, as that which inspires us now.

Nothing, then, in religion that is of any worth has the world forgotten
or