e way of the highest life is clear and certain. Its first and last
precept is fidelity to the best we know. Its constant process is that
fidelity wins moral growth and spiritual vision.

All attempts to demonstrate the nature and attributes of God, all
effort to prove by argument that the universe is administered by
righteousness and benevolence, are aside from the main road. The real
task for man is to order his own life, as an individual and in society.
To do that, he needs to understand his own life as a practical matter;
he needs to study the procedure of the world in which he stands; he
needs to rally every force of knowledge, resolution, sympathy,
reverence, aspiration, upon this high business of personal and social
living. As he achieves such life, there develop in him the faculties
which read sublime meanings in the universe of which he is a part. As
he becomes divine, he finds divinity everywhere.

The heart of religion is joy, peace, energy, support under suffering,
inward harmony, true relation with fellow creatures, grateful sense of
the past, full fruition of the present, glad out-reach to a beckoning
future. The way to that life is wholly independent of doubtful
argumentation. It lies simply in a whole-hearted conformity to what
are known beyond all question as the worthy aims, the just
requirements, the righteous laws.

Let us consider somewhat at large the unfolding of this philosophy of
life. Let us seek to sympathetically interpret the deepest, most
significant working of the human spirit in our time.

Is it not the distinctive note of the thoughtful and honest mind of
to-day, as compared with a like mind some centuries ago, that it
contemplates more directly the actual procedure of the universe, is
less concerned with supernatural personages and transactions, and more
attentive to what has happened and is happening in this mundane sphere?
The piety of our ancestors contemplated the justice and mercy of God as
manifested in the counsels of eternity,--his righteous condemnation of
the wicked, and the love-inspired sacrifice of Christ. The philosophy
of our ancestors was largely an attempt to map out a world-scheme from
man's inner consciousness. The modern thinker, whether he calls
himself Christian or not, is inclined to make his essay toward the
Supreme Power by way of the observed workings of the universe. And
certain general impressions which he thus receives we may distinguish.

Tha