I am forced to this conclusion--that it is this question of all others that is absolutely dependent on the grace of God. We must have the true spirit of Christianity in our kitchens and in our drawing-rooms,--that spirit whose gracious teaching is never ambiguous or difficult to understand; in a word, there is nothing but the Sermon on the Mount will do us any good. Of human preaching, teaching, and writing we have enough and to spare--it does not appear to go home, or to bear any practical fruit. We can only pray that He, whose great heart is open now as it was then to every human need, will help us to realise our responsibility to each other, will give us new lessons in the law of love, and show us that service is the highest form of praise, and that nothing is really small or mean or despicable, except sin and the littleness of human aims. All work is honourable, nay, it is the highest calling on earth. It can only be dishonoured in the doing. If each one, master and man, mistress and maid, could adopt this attitude towards their daily duty to the world and to each other, there would be found the solution of the problem vexing the souls of so many at the present day. [Illustration] XIV. _RELIGION IN THE HOME._ Perhaps this chapter might more appropriately have been placed at the beginning of the book than at the end, seeing we have in it the root of the whole matter, the key to all happiness, fitness, comfort, and peace. Religion is a word much misunderstood, yet it is given to us in the Epistle of St. James in the clearest, most intelligible language,--"Pure religion and undefiled is to visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."