I make no great store of all this. The religious confidence in Humanity will not come about, I think, like the belief in the Gospel, or in the Church, or in any of the countless Protestant persuasions, by the formation of a small sect of believers, gradually inducing men to join some exclusive congregation. The trust in Humanity is an ineradicable part of modern civilisation: nay, it is the very motive power and saving quality of modern civilisation, and that even where it is encumbered by a conscious belief in God and Christ, in Gospel and salvation, or where it is disguised by an atheistical rejection of all religious reverence whatever. Positivists are not a sect. Positivism is not merely a new mode of worship. It is of small moment to us how numerous are the congregations who meet to-day to acknowledge Humanity in words. The best men and women of all creeds and all races acknowledge Humanity in their lives. For the full realisation of our hopes we must look to the improvement of civilisation; not to the extension of a sect. Let us shun all sects and everything belonging to them. I shall say but little, therefore, of the growth of Positivist congregations. Where they are perfectly spontaneous and natural; where they are doing a real work in education; where they give solid comfort and support to the lives of those who form them, they are useful and living things, giving hope and sign of something better. But I see evil in them if they are artificial and premature; if they spring out of the incurable tendency of our age toward sects; if they are mere imitations of Christian congregations; and, above all, if their members look upon them as adequate types of a regenerated society. The religion of Humanity, by its nature, is incapable of being narrowed down to the limits of a few hundreds of scattered believers and to casual gatherings of men and women divided in life and activity. And that for the same reason that civilisation or patriotism could not possibly be the privilege of a few scattered individuals. Where two or three are gathered together, there the Gospel may be duly presented, and God and Christ adequately worshipped. It is not so with Humanity. The service of Humanity needs Humanity. The only Church of Humanity is a healthy and cultured human society. It is the very business of Humanity to free us from all individualist religion, from all self-contained worship of the isolated believer. And though the idea of Humanity is able to strengthen the individual soul as profoundly as the idea of Christ, yet the idea of Humanity, the service of Humanity, the honoring of Humanity, are only fully realised in the living organism of a humane society of men.