A FORM of thought which has no certitude can command no intelligent trust. Unless capable of verification, no opinion can claim attention, nor retain attention, if it obtains it. If a sum in arithmetic be wrong, it can be discovered by a new way of working; if a medical recipe is wrong, the effect is manifest in the health; if a political law is wrong, it is sooner or later apparent in the mischief it produces; if a theorem in navigation is erroneous, delay or disaster warns the mariner of his mistake; if an insane moralist teaches that adherence to truth is wrong, men can try the effects of lying, when distrust and disgrace soon undeceive them. But if a theological belief is wrong, we must die to find it out. Secularism, therefore, is safer. It is best to follow the double lights of reason and experience than the dark lantern of faith. "In all but religion," exclaims a famous preacher,* "men know their true interests and use their own understanding. Nobody takes anything on trust at market, nor would anybody do so at church if there were but a hundredth part the care for truth which there is for money." * W. J. Fox. Mr. Rathbone Greg has shown, in a memorable passage, that "the lot of man--not perhaps altogether of the individual, but certainly of the race--is in his own hands, from his being surrounded by _fixed laws_, on knowledge of which, and conformity to which, his well-being depends. The study of these and obedience to them form, therefore, the great aim of public instruction. Men must be taught: "1. The physical laws on which health depends. "2. The moral laws on which happiness depends. "3. The intellectual laws on which knowledge depends. "4. The social and political laws on which national prosperity and advancement depend. "5. The economic laws on which wealth depends." Mr. Spurgeon had flashes of Secularistic inspiration, as when engaging a servant, who professed to have taken religion, he asked "whether she swept under the mats." It was judging piety by a material test. There is no trust surer than the conclusions of reason and science. What is incapable of proof is usually decided by desire, and is without the conditions of uniformity or certitude. Duty consists in doing the right because it is just to others, and because we must set the example of doing right to others, or we have no claim that others shall do right to us. Certitude is best obtained by the employment of material means, because we can better calculate them, and because they are less likely to evade us, or betray us, than any other means available to us.