d his perplexity
approaches dismay. At such a time, if his previous life has been
guided by purpose and consideration, he may perhaps help himself by
looking attentively back at the steps by which he has hitherto
advanced. He recalls other crises, he sees how they were met, and
light, it may be, breaks on the path before him, or at least he takes
fresh heart and hope.

Some such crisis confronts the thoughtful mind of the world to-day, in
the disappearance of the old sanctions of religion. When the idea of
an authoritative revelation of divine truth has been finally dislodged,
there are moments when moral chaos seems to impend. We are still
upheld by old habits and associations, we are borne along by forces
mightier than our creeds or negations, and the loyal spirit catches at
moments the "deeper voice across the storm," even though the voice be
inarticulate. But it is felt that we need to somehow define anew the
rule of life. By what road shall man attain his supreme desire,--how
can he be good, and how can he be happy?

As the individual seeks help in looking back over his course, so it may
help us if we look back a little over some of the significant passages
in the movement of mankind. History is to the race what memory is to
the individual. One's best treasure is the memory of his happy and
heroic hours. The best treasure of humanity is the story of its happy
and heroic souls. Let us call before us some of these, and see how
they answered the questions we ask.

Following this clew, we run back along the line of what may be called
"our spiritual ancestry." Turning naturally to our own next of kin, a
child of New England, going back from the teaching of his youth to his
fathers and to their fathers, soon finds before him the Puritan. When
we study the Puritan it appears that he was a most composite product,
and that just behind him, and essential to the understanding of him, is
the great mediaeval church. Studying the church, there is nothing for
it but to go back to its foundation, and ponder well the one from whose
person and teaching it grew. And to know at all the mind of Jesus we
must know something of the mind of Judaism, of which he was the child.
Indeed, the popular religion of to-day bases itself directly on the Old
and New Testaments; so that our lineage must clearly be traced from
this as one of its origins. Another ancient line attracts us, by a
history which blends with Judaism at the b