of all this crossed the vision of this Jerusalem youth, his conception of a world soon to be smashed would have appeared to him as the infantile fancy of a--well, what shall I say?--I shall not say of a fanatic, I shall not say, of an illiterate,--let me say--of an enthusiast. The morality of Jesus not only lacked universality, but it was also framed to fit a world under sentence of immediate destruction. Jesus' doctrine of a passing world was born of his pessimism. The old, whether in years, or in spirit, as Shakespeare says, are always wishing "that the estate of the Sun were now undone." Weariness of life is a sign of exhaustion. The strong and the healthy love life. The young are not pessimists. Jesus had the disease of aged and effete Asia. He was not European in ardor or energy. He contemplated a passing panorama, a world crashing and tumbling into ruins all about him, with Oriental resignation. The groan of a dying world was music to him. He enjoyed the anticipation of calamity. The end of the world would put an end to effort and endeavor, both of which the Asiatic dislikes. To tell people that the world is coming to an end soon,--today, tomorrow, is not to kindle, but to extinguish hope; and without hope our world would be darker even than if the sun were to be blotted out of the sky. The objection against Christianity, as also against its parent, Judaism, is that it seeks to divert the attention of man from the work in hand to something visionary and distant. It was to direct men's thoughts to some other world that Jesus belittled this. What are you doing, asks the preacher. I am laboring for my daily bread. Indeed! Have you not heard that Jesus said: "Labor not for the meat that perisheth?" And what are _you_ doing? We are building a city. What! Do you not know that it is written in the Word of God that, "Here we have no abiding City?" And _you_-- I have married and have decided to share my life with the woman I love. And have you not read in St. Paul's Epistles, says the preacher again, that they who are married neglect the things of the Lord? And _you_? We are laboring to improve the world we live in--to make it a little cleaner and sweeter. But do you not know, asks the man of God, that the world will soon pass away,--that, as Jesus has foretold, the sun will turn black, the stars will fall, and the elements will be consumed in a general conflagration? The effect of the teaching of both Judaism and Christianity is to incapacitate man for earnest work now and here. And what do these religions offer in place of the home, the love, the world, which they take away from us? Let us ask the priest: Where then _is_ our home? Yonder!--and he points into space with his finger. Where? In the clouds? Higher. In the stars? Higher still. In the ether? No, higher yet, far, far away. You can not see it. You have to take my word for it.