Moreover, they require to be provoked by a stronger stimulus than that of a book. They willingly hear a man talk if he has anything to say, when they would not care to look at what he said if it were printed. But to come more closely to the point. Our main object was to create in our hearers contentment with their lot; and even some joy in it. That was our religion; that was the central thought of all we said and did, giving shape and tendency to everything. We admitted nothing which did not help us in that direction, and everything which did help us. Our attempts, to any one who had not the key, may have seemed vague and desultory. We might by a stranger have been accused of feeble wandering, of idle dabbling, now in this subject and now in that, but after a while he would have found that though we were weak creatures, with no pretence to special knowledge in any subject, we at least knew what we meant, and tried to accomplish it. For my own part, I was happy when I had struck that path. I felt as if somehow, after many errors, I had once more gained a road, a religion in fact, and one which essentially was not new but old, the religion of the Reconciliation, the reconciliation of man with God; differing from the current creed in so far as I did not lay stress upon sin as the cause of estrangement, but yet agreeing with it in making it my duty of duties to suppress revolt, and to submit calmly and sometimes cheerfully to the Creator. This surely, under a thousand disguises, has been the meaning of all the forms of worship which we have seen in the world. Pain and death are nothing new, and men have been driven into perplexed scepticism, and even insurrection by them, ever since men came into being. Always, however, have the majority, the vast majority of the race, felt instinctively that in this scepticism and insurrection they could not abide, and they have struggled more or less blindly after explanation; determined not to desist till they had found it, and reaching a result embodied in a multitude of shapes irrational and absurd to the superficial scoffer, but of profound interest to the thoughtful. I may observe, in passing, that this is a reason why all great religions should be treated with respect, and in a certain sense preserved. It is nothing less than a wicked waste of accumulated human strivings to sneer them out of existence. They will be found, every one of them, to have incarnated certain vital doctrines which it has cost centuries of toil and devotion properly to appreciate. Especially is this true of the Catholic faith, and if it were worth while, it might be shown how it is nothing less than a divine casket of precious remedies, and if it is to be brutally broken, it will take ages to rediscover and restore them. Of one thing I am certain, that their rediscovery and restoration will be necessary. I cannot too earnestly insist upon the need of our holding,