builds a magnificent dwelling; fills it with paintings and statuary. But who is he? What has he done? He got rich. How?

Build manhood. What is the true measure of manhood? Character. And what is the mountain-top of character? Achievement. In what line? In benefits. To whom? Others. How tall was Lincoln, Washington, Samuel Adams, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Anthony, John Brown, Whittier, Dickens, Hugo, Milton, Thoreau? Yea, how tall is any one? As tall as the benefits he or she bestows. But no greater benefits can be bestowed on the world than the mother bestows-or father or teacher or priest or preacher or author or the man on the street or behind the plane or plow or counter, when exemplary morally.

"Little drops of water, little grains of sand

Make the mighty ocean and the beautious land."

Very simple truth with a world of meaning.

So our individual conduct, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second, and above all, the divine inspiration behind our conduct, that leads to virtuous and altruistic actions, make life beautiful. Disinterested love is the all of good character-the all of religion, of statesmanship, of human life- the all of God; for "God is love."

YE 37TH LESSON.

A Perfect Social Mechanism.

We find the greatest intellects designing a social structure that shall be perfect-a perfect mechanism of society. The founders of Christianity had that in view. The Pentecostal society was the result -"God's Kingdom;" "all things common"-no rich, no poor; no vice, no crime. It is the belief of the best minds that a commonwealth may be instituted that will preserve a perfect balance between all its units and preserve the equality that is natural. The cause of wrong-doing is social and not individual. To improve the quality of the individual units we must improve the environment.

Definitely speaking, it means that life shall be made easy to all, and it be made good for children to be born-all children alikeand none above others with a gold spoon in his mouth. There will then be no difficulty in making a living-now a hinderance to marriage -no motive to place the poisoned cup to a neighbor's lips, no necessity for resorting to questionable means of subsistence-no need that a woman put her virtue on the market for bread for her and her children's hungry mouths-no motive to steal, cheat or rob-no motive for graft-none for gaining great wealth individually, all being well to do. And it will be then a disgrace to be better off than another, to live in a better house than another, to wear better clothes than another.

That day is coming and is near. The sensible multitude look now with disgust on the shoddy rich riding in the parks in automobiles costing great sums-cars valued as high as twelve thousand dollars apiece a sum that would place a poor family, yea, several poor fam'ilies, on their feet and make life worth living to them and a source of God-like satisfaction to him who helps them, that riding in an auto bears no comparison with. "But would you deprive the wealthy of every pleasure?" it is asked. By no means. No enlightened person

can take pleasure where there is misery that he can relieve, except in relieving it. Seeing happy faces made so by our act is a pleasure shared by God himself. All the inhabitants of heaven are made glad by the Christ-like deeds of one man or woman.

Jesus was typical of civilized man in his life and character. Το reach the "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" is to become civilized. Toward this the world is moving rapidly. And the commonwealth set up by his immediate disciples is typical of the universal commonwealth near at hand, of which The Hague will be the capital and the "United States of the World" the name. No man then will drive in a vehicle by a poor wayfarer, white or black, on foot without inviting him to ride on the seat by his side. Then every man will say, "What I possess is common. I have naught I call my own.

I have never sued a man for debt and have never dunned a man after once presenting my account." We need so little that we ought not fret about gathering beyond our needs.

And this last thought is vital to progress today. No man has a just right to anything beyond his natural needs. No man can, according to nature, "lay up for the future;" for all things essential to the preservation of life are perishable. They cannot be kept any great while and must be renewed year by year. And artificial wealth supplies not natural wants. "Money (and its representatives-stocks, bonds, mortgages, etc.) is the root of all evil." The new era of civilization will be free from this curse. The reformer that does away with money and its artificial representatives from all the face of the earth will be immortalized as the emancipator of the human race. There would be no international wars today but for this evil of money and bonds-no exploiting of the weak by the strong-no commercialism and no imperialism-no rich and no very poor; but all well to do. Who profit by the money borrowed by Russia and Japan?-by the bonded obligations of the nations? The public? No; not even the producers of the creditor nations-only an oligarchy of speculators habitus of the gold-room and the stocks and bond markets-"petty tyrants-money lords' the blight of the human race!

YE 38TH LESSON.

"Great Is Diana."

Under our present system of social organization, the breaking down of effete institutions produces loss and suffering to many whose property interests are bound up with them. Before martyrs are slain somebody believes himself to be grievously wronged in some way. Nobody longer cares for "opinions" and "beliefs" abstractly considered. Ideas are intangible and opinions are not going to beget persecution today until they are seen to endanger somebody's craft.

We hear an uproar and a tumultous shout: "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" and Haddock of Sioux City, Iowa, and Logan of Des Moines are assaulted and murdered-martyrs to the holy cause of progress, or the Muscatine horror is enacted. If property losses were I would be left standing in the highway to obstruct the wheels of the in some way eliminated-if "craft" was in no way endangered, what car of progress and reform? Nothing!

Banish poverty and we banish therewith compulsion, coercion, war and crime, and we bring in the Kingdom of God.

Then will entice

ment alone influence the actions of human beings and the barbarism of the ages will be of the past. No longer force, but only reason and loving kindness will prevail.

If every one could choose freely his employment in a natural state of society, where no man might fear want-could follow the same footpath the child walks in, in its play-there would be no going astray. I am sure that our entire social system is out of accord with the harp notes of the sermon of Jesus on the mount, and antipodal to the ideal community outlined in the Acts of the Apostles. Let the competitive

system of production and distribution of products be wound up, cooperation inaugurated, capitalism done away, the true Christian commonwealth re-established, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" crystallized in institution-as in the primitive Apostollic Church it was crystallized -then will evil be overcome of good, and reforms that now coercive laws can hardly introduce, because of the noise of the craftsmen, will flow in as naturally as water runs down an incline. The money now spent in efforts to enforce a coercive code were ample to smooth the pathway of reform if devoted to opening up new employments honorable to human nature.

I

It is surely unbecoming to men who call themselves Christians to hold up their hands in holy horror when it is purposed to crystallize in law the gentle doctrines of Jesus and bring in the glorious epoch when evil shall be overcome of good. Did the craftsmen of old who cried "Great is Diana" understand that the preachers of the Gospel of Jesus meant to introduce them into a community of equals where "all that believed had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need?" think not. I believe that, if they had known that the only object of Christianity was to save men from want in this life and prepare them for the life to come-or, I would say, by saving them from want here to open the door for their salvation from sin, as Mr. Booth has outlined and the Salvation Army is marching gloriously forwad to accomplish the craftsmen of Ephesus would not have been so maddened against St. Paul and his co-workers in the vineyard of the Lord.

In accordance with the plan of the primitive Church of Jesus Christ I insist that, preliminary and introductory to any and all efforts for reform, the fear of hunger and nakedness, as well as hunger and nakedness themselves, must be got rid of. Poverty must be abolished. The slums must be transformed. Every human being on earth must have a home-a hearthstone that he may call his own. Let every man be assured that the reforms contemplated will not leave him impoverished-will not beggar his wife and little ones-will help rather than hurt him financially, as well as morally-that reformers are messengers of mercy and love, doing good to all and evil to none-then will the Army of Christ march forward over a highway paved with blessings. No frowning barricades will obstruct their progress; no maddened mobs will gather to oppose them; but their progress will be triumphal; soldiers of the cross, clad in the armor of love, wearing breast plates of righteousness, and their jubilant feet shod with the sandals of peace, will meet a glad welcome.

When once we come to believe-acting according to that beliefthat God is incarnate in the human soul, and we bow down and worship Him incarnate in humanity, our temples of worship being the happy homes that shelter the beloved wives and little ones of the toiling, and every human being a toiler, doing good, we will see that 'tis the duty of all to bear the burdens of each and of each to serve all. We do away with coercive laws when we do away with the barbarism that can be supported only by means of coercion. The people would do right. Coercive laws compel them to perpetuate wrong. To do away with wrong we must first do away with poverty and the fear of poverty. We must so establish conditions that to "prohibit" we will not touch the bread and butter of the craftsman to withdraw it from the mouths of their wives and little children.

YE 39TH LESSON.

The Higher Good.

The ancient Greek philosophers did not proceed, in their investigations for the discovery of truth, in the same manner as is pursued by modern scientists. They assumed a certain proposition to be true and then proceeded to answer all possible objections that might arise

THE HIGHER GOOD.

67

against it. If it could not be shown to be unreasonable, they took for granted that it must be set down as logically confirmed to be absolutely true. Now the modern seeker after truth assumes nothing; but he gathers together all the facts obtainable and derives from them his

conclusions.

Aristotle assumes that the chief incentive to human activity-"the good" the thing that all seek to obtain above all else is happiness. His whole system of ethics is founded on that proposition-an assumption. Now a modern philosopher, or, rather, scientist, before announcing what he conceives all aim at primarily would look along the whole line of sentient creation from monad to man and note what moved each individual to action. If he found a common motive, he would say that man is no different from other animals, inheriting the His concommon habit, or instinct, that all other animals possess. clusion would be that the end for which all seek primarily is not happiness but subsistence.

Nothing is done by man any more than by any other individual of the animal kingdom that is not grounded on instinct, the same as moves the bird to build her nest. Of course, with the lower animals no reasoning precedes action. Only instinct. So to a great extent with man; the habits of his progenitors, from the earliest geological age to the present, are impressed upon him, and, especially, the one of securing the means to live and support offspring.

The higher orders of sentient beings have social habits highly developed-bees and ants among insects-beavers especially among mammals below man; but man supremely so; yea, far above all others. He gathers inordinately and piles up beyond reason means of subsistence for himself and family merely by the promptings of instinct. A higher instinct the social-then, leads him to devote, of his accumulations far beyond his personal needs and his progeny's, a portion to the common good. And reason has a hand in so broadening human effort and bringing in beneficence. Thus are the promptings of instinct modified and man rises to the altruistic or Christian plane through reason.

But what is reason? It is the sense of fitness. All things considered, the result that ought to obtain is reasonable. By analogy it is the same as the sense of harmony. It is the sense that approves what accords with nature-the sense of symmetry, toward which is the paramount trend of nature's movements, producing globes, crystals and plant and animal forms, flowers, fruit-all symmetrical-in a word. beauty the sense of which, in the human soul, is the highest manifestation of the divine principle of man's superior being.

The time is near, I trust, when reason, which is the adorer of truth (God is Truth) will have obtained the throne and instinct in man have become nil. This will be when he shall have stepped upon the lofty height of true manhood and shall have arisen above the beastial plane. Then shall we comprehend the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount, which is as far above the comprehension of the childhood of ancient

bered,

Greek artists above our comprehension; for, be it rememthat the Athenians of the age of Pericles had ascended to a height of civilization the development of intellect and taste immeasurably above us. of that day were as far ahead of the most advanced race of the present day in enlightenment as we are in advance of the native blacks of Central Africa.

A noted English savant has said that the Athenians

Let us give up our self-seeking and become more like the typical "perfect man" set up for our example by the Alexandrian Greeks Jesus Christ an higher ideal of the God-man-a more finished outline than was conceived for the physical side of his nature by Phidias in his statues, Jupiter-Olympus, Athena and Apollo Belviderethe most perfect statues ever made that we have knowledge of.

YE 40TH LESSON.

A New Chapter.

Yes, there is a new chapter of human nature about to be read by all men. It is a grand chapter and is like a stratum of gold-bearing quartz, very rich and will bring a great profit to the delver for the riches its contains. It is the good side of man-the immortal part of his being the part farthest removed from the beastial. It is of both intellect and heart. Of intellect because it accords with reason; of

heart because it is the passion of the great. "Man is man and who is more?" is its motto. It is cosmopolitan and recognizes, yea, teaches that all men are brethren. The missionary spirit belongs to this chapter.

How can men see their fellowmen led into the way of drunkenness and not try to save the poor, deluded ones? How can one hold the cup to his neighbor's lips? It is amazing that any one will do this. It is strange that any sane man can enter a liquor hell. Does he not know that it is wrong to do so? And yet Plato says that "vice is ignorance and akin to madness." "No man," he says, "can know the good and not do it." What! Must we believe that the great multitudes that daily visit those hells are insane! It is surely impossible that any sane man will enter such a place. And how is it possible that any man will keep a whisky shop! It is unaccountable. I see the time near at hand when no man in America will do anything that does not bring moral, mental and physical health and happiness to all, and especially to himself. This belongs to the new chapter.

Then no man will befoul his mouth with tobacco-will do anything to defile the "temple of God" or disfigure its walls. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" This is sober truth. Why not, in this age, when the Pullman coach, yea, every public vehicle and hall and every dwelling house is made beautiful-everything of art and nature delightfully beautiful -why not each person come to harmonize with this condition of things so universal? Be himself delightfully finished, enlightened, admirable only "God's ministering spirits" more glorious. It will be so; it must be so. This is the new chapter.

What do I see? I see one mind in all, and not just fine automobiles, fine horses, fine houses and fine gardens, but fine men, fine women and fine children. All men and all women and all children harmonizing with all the other fine things. Soon the one and only end and purpose of all social organizations, of all combinations of persons, of all legislation, of all preaching and teaching and of all business shall be to protect the individual, and bring about harmonious relations in all things so that nothing that degrades will be left to stand-no wooden Indian be a sign on the street, no "Road to Hell" advertisement or sign-board pointing the way to the wine-room as had "Stormy" Jordan over his saloon in Ottumwa, Iowa. A fair warning! No, indeed; for public opinion will bring to an end all nuisances. Public opinion grounded on common sense is about to come in vogue about to assume a controlling station bringing all men to do what is right and fitting in this age-awakening in the individual, yea, in all individuals, self-respecting manliness, even where it had before appeared to be nil, and earnestness and goodness and patriotismvirtues latent in each, so that a general house-cleaning will result, the "temple of God" be refrescoed and regarnished with beautiful paintings, statuary and flowering plants; in short, put in order.

A change in methods of instruction of children and youth in school, from kindergarten to high school, college and university, will be brought about and the development of character will be made the main purpose of education-all else secondary; ethics above mathematics. Little boys in petticoats form positive opinions in regard to right and