ious enthusiast, is a necessary incident of an existence whose
higher exercise lies in spiritual emotion reaching toward a future
Paradise. But toil, to modern eyes, is the root which binds man to his
native earth, and transmits all the sap which creates flowers and fruit.
Intelligent, arduous, thrifty toil is the mother of greatness. "Do the
next thing,--do the nearest duty,--labor rather than question,"--is the
most articulate note in Carlyle's stormy message. The old charity was to
give bread to the hungry; the new charity is to help the hungry to work
for their bread. A generation ago it seemed to American reformers that
the nation's problem would be solved if once the slaves were freed. They
were set free, and then it was seen that the whole question of their
future destiny was still to be met. Practical necessity, religious zeal,
political schemes, all played their part; but the best answer came
through the apostle Armstrong, "Character, wrought out through education
and labor." The inherited devotion of Christian missionaries caught the
light of personal experience and observation, and a man in whom heroic
temper blent with shrewdest wisdom laid the foundation of an education
transcending in its aims and results the whole traditional system of
school and university. It is an object-lesson of supreme significance.
That way lies the future education of our children,--character its aim,
nature its chief book, exercise of all the bodily and spiritual powers
its method.

Here, then, are the results of our century as they bear on man's higher
life. A religion through special revelation has been displaced by a
religion which faces all the facts of existence and bases itself on them.
Man has found new clews to read the story of his past, and new ways to
mould his present and future. The old ethical ideals have been
reaffirmed, broadened, purified. The task of building personal life and
of ordering society has been set before man in fresh clearness, under
heavy penalties for failure and heart-filling rewards for success. It is
seen that the humble path of moral obedience issues in celestial heights
of spiritual vision. Out of the noblest use of the Here and Now springs
the assurance of a Hereafter and the sense of a present eternity. The
way to the Highest is open, inviting, commanding. The simplest may
enter, and the strongest must give his full strength to the quest.

II

THE IDEAL OF TO-DAY

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