What is religion? My own definition is that _it is the highest within myself reaching out to the highest I can see or conceive outside of myself_. In this "reaching out," this "following after," or "apprehending," as St. Paul calls it, I alone must determine that which I will seek for. Others may aid me in my search, others may point out to me and for me that which they have reached, or are striving to reach, and in that way they may aid and help me. But for another to say, "_This_ is that alone for which you should strive," or "That is the supreme end of all effort," and to refuse me any right of appeal to my own judgment is to stultify my own God-given powers and to make a mere puppet of me. Hence I stand, or fall, on the platform of individualism in religion. I affirm that it is a purely personal matter, that there can be no coercion, no forcing of any individual to adopt a _general_ plan which another individual asserts that all must follow to their eternal well-being, or disregard to their own damnation. The attitude I would radiate is this. For myself I know, or am learning, what I must believe, what I must strive for, what I must seek to become. So long as this belief, this striving, this aim, does not interfere with the exercise of the belief, the striving, the aim of others, and is not subversive of the public good, I demand my inherent right of individual belief, individual striving, individual aim. When one who differs from me offers me his "charity," or his "toleration," I regard his offer as an insolence and small-minded impertinence. I want no charity, I refuse all toleration, for I own as many inherent rights as the one who thus presumes to offer me his charity and his tolerance. He needs my charity and tolerance to cover his individualism as much as I need his. I have as much right to offer mine to him as he to offer his to me. Hence, boldly, fearlessly, restful in my God-given right, I believe, I strive, I aim to reach God as best I may. But in the very self-assertiveness of this right it is an essential condition of my perfect freedom that I absolutely accord it to all others, no matter how diverse from mine their beliefs, their strivings, their aims. There must be no mental reservations, no subterfuges, no playing with one's own intellect or conscience. The freedom to others must be as large and complete as the freedom I demand for myself, for, wherein I limit, even in my most secret mind and heart, the freedom of my neighbor, I am giving to him the right to limit me. "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again."