l and brass, but although the ancient Romans
had both the metal and the alloy, they had no locomotives.

The vital thing about the house--the thing that differentiates it from
other masses of the same materials--is the idea--the plan--that was in the
architect's mind while wood and stone and iron were still in forest,
quarry and mine. The vital thing about the locomotive is the builder's
idea or plan, which he derived, in turn, from the inventor.

The reason why there were no locomotives in ancient Rome is that in those
days the locomotive had not yet been invented, and when we say this we
refer not to the materials, which the Romans had in abundance, but to the
idea or plan of the locomotive. So it is with the whole material world
about us. The things that result, not from man's activities, but from the
operations of nature, are no exceptions; for, if we are Christians, we
believe that the idea or plan of a man, or a horse, or a tree, was in the
mind of the great architect, the great machinist, before the world began,
and that this idea is the important thing about each.

A man, a house, an engine--these are ideas that lead to things that we can
feel, and see and hear. But there are other ideas that have nothing of the
kind to correspond to them--I mean such ideas as charity, manliness,
religion and patriotism--what sometimes are called abstract qualities.
These are real things and their ideas are even more important than the
others, but we cannot see nor feel them.

Now, man likes to use his senses, and it is for this reason that he is
fond of using for these abstract ideas, symbols that he can see and feel.
We of St. Louis should appreciate this to the full just now, for we have
just set before the world the greatest assemblage of symbolic images and
acts, portraying our pride in the past and our hope and confidence for the
future, that any city on this earth ever has been privileged to present or
to witness.[10] Whether we were actors or spectators; whether we camped
with the Indians, marched with De Soto or La Salle and felled the forests
of early St. Louis with Laclede and Chouteau, or whether we were part of
that great host on the hillside, we can say no longer that we do not
understand the importance of the idea, or the value and cogency of the
visible symbols that fix it in the memory and grip it to the heart.

[10] The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis, 1915.

The Church of Christ always has understood a