3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority. 4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings deliverance when peril comes. 5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the wheel. 6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort for personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those conditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it shall be "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim of Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which Christianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish. 7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth--penalties inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to the individual no farther than this life, they are without the terrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and inevitable--following the offender close as the shadow of the offence--are more deterrent than future punishment, which "faith" may evade without merit. The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of man. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection, and from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and was indifferent whether an error--which no longer harmed him--prevailed or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the _duty_ of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person--as we know in political as well as in questions of mental freedom--who cares for a right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think that a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the right. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. "He," says Buddha, "who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest, lights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud."