Asa, then, began upon a good foundation; he established himself upon a great principle. That is what all, young people especially, should take to heart right seriously. Do not make an accident of your lives--a thing without center, purpose, certitude or holiness. Be right in your great foundation lines, and you will build up a superstructure strong, after the nature and quality of the foundation upon which you build. Do not snatch at life. Do not take out an odd motto here and there and say: “This will do for the occasion.” Life should be deeply laid in its bases, strongly cemented together in its principles, noble in its convictions; then it can be charitable in its concessions and recognitions. “And Asa took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord.” Let us not trifle with the occasion by suggesting that we have no idolatries to uproot, no heathen groves to examine, to purify or to destroy. That would indeed be making light of history and ignoring the broadest and saddest facts of our present circumstances. The world is full of little gods, man-made idols, groves planted by human hands, oppositions and antagonisms to the tried Theism of the universe. We are apt to think that the idols are a long way off--far beyond seas; or that they existed long centuries ago and spoke languages now obsolete or forgotten. Nothing of the kind. They live here; they build today. Our gods are a million strong. We do not call them gods, but we worship them none the less. Luck, Accident, Fortune, Fashion, Popularity, Self-Indulgence--these are the base progeny of idols that did once represent some ideal thought and even some transcendental religion. Idolatry has retrograded; polytheism has gone quickly backward. Asa said, in effect: “We must be right about our gods before we can be right with one another.” That is true teaching. With a wrong theology we never can have a thoroughly sound and healthy economic system. This was the corner-stone upon which Asa built his great and gracious policy. What was the effect of it upon other people? We find that the effect then was what it must always be: “They fell to him out of Israel in abundance when they saw that the Lord, his God, was with him.” Such is the influence of a great leadership. If Asa had been halting, the people would have halted, too. Asa was positive; and positiveness, sustained by such beneficence, begets courage in other people. “They fell to him out of Israel in abundance”--that is, they came over to him and were on his side. They ranked themselves with Asa; they looked for his banner and called it theirs, “when they saw that the Lord, his God, was with him.”