If for many lives it caters mainly to the lower nature, which lives to eat, drink, and be merry, or if it dreams its life away in metaphysical speculations upon nature and God, sedulously abstaining from all unnecessary action, it is gradually passed and left behind by the more active and progressive. Great companies of these idlers form what we know as “backward races”; while the active, alert, and wide-awake who improve a larger percentage of their opportunities, are the pioneers. Contrary to the commonly accepted idea, this applies also to those engaged in industrial work. Their money-getting is only an incident, an incentive, and entirely apart from this phase their work is as spiritual as or even more so than that of those who spend their time in prayer to the prejudice of useful work. From what has been said, it will be clear that the method of soul growth as accomplished by the process of evolution requires _action_ in the physical life, followed in the post-mortem state by a _ruminating process_, during which the lessons of life are extracted and thoroughly incorporated into the consciousness of the ego, though the experiences themselves are forgotten—as we forget our labor in learning the multiplication table, though the faculty of using it remains. This exceedingly slow and tedious process is perfectly suited to the needs of the masses; but there are some who habitually exhaust the experiences commonly given, thus requiring and meriting a larger scope for their energies. Difference of temperament is responsible for their division into two classes. One class, led by their devotion to Christ, simply follow the dictates of the heart in their work of love for their fellows—beautiful characters, beacon lights of love in a suffering world, never actuated by selfish motives, always ready to forego personal comfort to aid others. Such were the saints; they worked as they prayed; they never shirked in either direction. Nor are they dead today. The earth would be a barren wilderness in spite of all its civilization did not their beautiful feet circle it on errands of mercy, were not the lives of sufferers made brighter by the light of hope which radiates from their beautiful faces. Had they but the knowledge possessed by the other class they would indeed outdistance all in the race for the Kingdom.