I can remember when good Methodists and Congregationalists were "kicked out of the church" for daring to hope that all men would ultimately be saved, and I have heard preachers and doctors fulminating against Christian Science and everything else that did not conform exactly to what they believed, and seeking to work upon the fears of their congregations to prevent any investigation. This kind of fear is unworthy the human soul. Be in a daring, a receptive, an investigative state of mind. I would radiate a readiness and willingness to listen to anything that has proven, or seems to have proven, a truth to another. I want to welcome truth from wherever it comes, whether popular or unpopular, wanted or unwanted. I would broaden my horizon, heighten my aspirations and deepen my conceptions of truth and be glad to receive from any source. I well remember John Ruskin saying to me: "Never read that book or listen to that sermon which you know beforehand you will agree with. By so doing you deepen the ruts of your own mentality." I want no mental or spiritual ruts. Good roads are never "rutted." I wish to be a broad, wide, well-paved, solid road, over which all truth may run, welcome, free, untaxed, life-giving. In his _Memory and Rime_, Joaquin Miller in speaking of poets refers to them as "these men who have room and strength and the divine audacity to think for themselves." When a man strikes out for himself, in thought and action, he does have to be audacious, in the higher sense of the word. He has to dare his fellow men, dare their criticism, dare their disapproval, dare to shock them, dare to grieve them, perhaps. He has to dare himself, throw down the gauntlet to himself in his struggle to become completely what he believes to be highest and best. It takes a great deal of courage to do all that, a great deal of resolution--an initiative that may seem impudence, a fearlessness that may seem recklessness.