Let us religiously set apart times and seasons in which to gather up the fruits of action and to experience the reactions which should follow on action. The most valuable of these fruits is just the intensified appreciation of the disparity existing between our achievements and the goal, the clearer vision of the goal, the sublimer and truer conception of it. In order to join vigorously in the moral work of the world I must believe that somehow the best I can accomplish will endure, will leave its trace on things, will aid the final consummation. What is needed above all else, is to find a more secure basis for morality, now that the theological basis has slipped away; to rekindle the belief in the ideal, to bring into new prominence the unchanging truths, and to discover the new truths which men need for their moral guidance. It is said that we live in order to make the world better, but this phrase is ambiguous. Often it is used as referring merely to an increase of the sum of human pleasure. And this would be an aim by no means comparable in grandeur and sublimity to that which Religion in the past has set up. We live to unfold the unmanifested potentialities of the universe, so far as they are latent in man, who, as far as we know, is the highest product of the universe. We live to enhance mentality and morality in the world. A developed mentality and morality will of itself cure the evils of poverty, and ignorance and sin. It may bring pleasure in its train, or may not bring it--it matters not. Not the fool’s paradise of ease and enjoyment, but the heightened mentality and morality is the aim. The moral ideal in its simplicity is all-sufficient. Its native charm can derive no added splendour from the drapery of creeds. Its severe beauty needs no factitious embellishment of myth and legend. The conviction that this is so has long been cherished by solitary thinkers. We should endeavour to spread it among the people. The hope of a perfect society is entertained vaguely. We should seek to lift it into the clear light of consciousness as the one commanding end of human endeavour, the supreme object of reverence and devotion. Day by day there are triumphs to be won over the passion that stirs in our breasts; over the rising anger that sears our lips; over the turpitudes that defile our hearts; over the spirit of impatience and mutiny that threatens the authority of our reason. By such triumphs we are raised above our baser selves, and the fire which consumes our grosser natures, like the flaming chariot of Elijah, bears us living into a higher world.