"The Confucian doctrine, 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,' reiterated by the man Jesus, contains the great and salutary rule of life, which if practiced with the holiest and most disinterested motives will inevitably work out a most glorious future reward for the spirit. The shepherd kings promulgated this rule in a finer sense and reduced it to the fine realm of mind. The Confucian rule related to the _actions_ of men, one to the other, but the other declares, 'Think of others as you would have others think of you.' If your thoughts and actions are governed by these rules you may conclude you are not far from the kingdom of heaven or angelic sphere. If you observe these because you love the right, you can not fail to love the Lord with all your heart and the neighbor as yourself, thus fulfilling the law of spiritual growth and development while in the temple of flesh, and insuring a condition of superlative happiness in the spiritual world. If in your present state of development you can not do this, you can, at least, make the honest and persevering effort to do it, and your reward shall be great." August 7, 1882: "Abstain from evil-doing from the conscientious conviction that it is wrong to do evil and right to abstain. Do not allow yourself, in choosing between right and wrong, to be governed by a fear of future punishment, or hope of future reward, for this is cowardly and pusillanimous and of no practical value to your future happiness. Do right for the sake of the right and not from the selfish motive of deriving a personal benefit. You have in your world two very injurious and reprehensible doctrines taught by learned men, namely: materialism and forgiveness of sins. They are both degrading and far reaching in their baleful consequences. Christians treat materialism with scornful derision, and yet it is just as true as that the misdeeds of life can be overcome and rendered harmless in their following consequences by death-bed repentance and the blood of atonement. One is as true as the other, and my presence here in spirit proves materialism to be groundless. Materialism is the doctrine of one world only, a mere passing moment of life, and suggests very naturally to make the most out of it. I do not mean to be understood as asserting that there are not good honest people who believe in this doctrine, but that they are good and honest in spite of their belief and not as a result of it. The theological heresy which proclaims the necessity of conversion, new birth, and regeneration (they are convertible terms) would be much more plausible if not supplemented by the more alarming and reprehensible doctrine of obtaining full pardon for repeated crimes and misdeeds just preceding or at the imminent moment of departing from the material body by so-called death. The first becomes bereft of its value, if indeed it has any, by the latter. It is tantamount to asking a man to liquidate an indebtedness now,