The missionary, like any other practical man, requires to know what science can teach him about the material on which he has to work. So far as is possible, he should know what materials are sound and can be used with safety in his constructive work, and what must be thrown aside, what must be destroyed, if his work is to escape dry-rot and to stand as a permanent edifice. He should be able to feel confidence, for instance, not merely that magic and fetichism are the negation of religion, but that in teaching that fact he has to support him the evidence collected by the science of religion; and he should have that evidence placed at his disposal for effective use, if need be. It may be also that amongst much unsound material he will find some that is sound, that may be used, and that he cannot afford to cast away. He has to work upon our common humanity, upon the humanity common to him and his hearers. He has to remember that no man and no community of {35} men ever is or has been or ever can be excluded from the search after God. And his duty, his chosen duty, is to help them in that search, and as far as may be to make the way clear for them, and to guide their feet in the right path. He will find that they have attempted to make paths for themselves; and it is not impossible that he will find that some of those paths for some distance do go in the right direction; that some of their beliefs have in them an element of truth, or a groping after truth which, rightly understood, may be made to lead to Christianity. It is with one of those beliefs--the belief in immortality--that I shall deal in this lecture.