You look forward to a closer union, a more complete brotherhood of man, an increased sacredness of the human relation. Some things point that way; some things point the other way. Brotherhood has hardly a definite meaning without a father; sacredness can hardly be predicated without anything which consecrates. We can point to an eminent writer who tells you that he detests the idea of brotherly love altogether; that there are many of his kind whom, so far from loving, he hates, and that he would like to write his hatred with a lash upon their backs. Look again at the severe Prussianism which betrays itself in the New Creed of Strauss. Look at the oligarchy of enlightenment and enjoyment which Renan, in his _Moral Reform of France_, proposes to institute for the benefit of a select circle, with sublime indifference to the lot of the vulgar, who, he says, "must subsist on the glory and happiness of others." This does not look much like a nearer approach to a brotherhood of man than is made by the Gospel. We are speaking, of course, merely of the comparative moral efficiency of religion and the proposed substitutes for it, apart from the influence exercised over individual conduct by the material needs and other non-theological forces of society. For the immortality of the individual soul, with the influences of that belief, we are asked to substitute the immortality of the race. But here, in addition to the difficulty of proving the union and intercommunion of all the members, we are met by the objection that unless we live in God, the race, in all probability, is not immortal. That our planet and all it contains will come to an end appears to be the decided opinion of science. This "holy" being, our relation to which is to take the place of our relation to an Eternal Father, by the adoration of which we are to be sustained and controlled, if it exist at all, is as ephemeral compared with eternity as a fly. We shall be told that we ought to be content with an immortality extending through tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of years. To the _argumentum ad verecundiam_ there is no reply. But will this banish the thought of ultimate annihilation? Will it prevent a man, when he is called upon to make some great sacrifice for the race, from saying to himself, that, whether he makes the sacrifice or not, one day all will end in nothing?