And what is the verdict of history on this question? Does the belief in God and immortality make for morality? How then shall we explain the dark ages which were ages of faith, and why are not the Moslems, whose faith in Allah and in a future life is very much stronger than ours, a more moral people than the Europeans or Americans? Why was King Leopold, the Christian, a moral leper to the hour of his death, while Socrates, the pagan, who was uncertain about the future, has perfumed the centuries with his virtues? Has the belief in the supernatural prevented the criminal waste of human life, protected the child from the sweat-shop and the factory, or even robbed religion of its sting--the sting whose bite is mortal to tolerance, brotherhood and intellectual honesty? There are excellent people who believe in the supernatural and equally excellent people who ignore the supernatural, from which it would follow that excellence of character is independent of one's speculations about either the eternal past, or the eternal future. It is not true then that we have to prove to man that he has always existed, or that he shall always exist before we can make him see that the sunset is beautiful, or that the sea is vast, or that love is the greatest thing in the world. A man will be careful of his health whether he expects to live again or not. He will avoid headaches, fevers, colds, anaemia, nervous prostrations and diseases of every kind which rack the body and make life a misery, irrespective of his attitude to the question of survival after death. The question of health, then, which is a very important one, is independent of any supernatural belief. It would not affect our health a particle were the heavens empty or full of gods. In the same way, men will continue the culture of the mind irrespective of theological beliefs. Will a man neglect the pleasures of the mind, despise knowledge and remain content in his ignorance, if he cannot be sure that he is going to live forever? But if neither the culture of the body nor that of the mind is in danger of being neglected, is there any reason to fear that the culture of the affections and the conscience will suffer without a belief in an unseen world? We have only to look into the motives which govern human actions to recover our confidence in the essential soundness of human nature, and in the ability of morality to take care of itself without the help of ghosts and gods. You love your country and you are willing to defend its institutions, if need be, with your life, but is it because your country is immortal? Is America going to live forever? Is it going to have a future existence? And yet Washington and his soldiers loved it dearly and risked their lives for it. Were the ancient Greeks and Romans, to whom patriotism was a religion, and who loved and fought for their country--fools, because they did not first make sure that their country was going to live