Undisciplined minds become victims of the formulas they receive, and if what they have accepted as truth is shown to be false or incomplete, they grow discouraged and lose faith; but the wise know that the verbal vesture of truth is a symbol which has but a proximate and relative value. The spirit is alive, and ceaselessly outgrows or transmutes the body with which it is clothed. What we can do with anything,--with money, knowledge, wealth,--depends on what we are. Ruskin prefers holy work to holy worship; but the antithesis is mistaken, for if worship is holy it impels to work, if work is holy it impels to worship. God's most sacred visible temple is a human body, and its profanation is the worst sacrilege. All true belief, when we come to the last analysis, is belief in God, and the teacher of religion must keep this fact always in view. The law of the struggle for life applies to opinions, beliefs, hopes, aims, ideals, just as it applies to individuals and species. Whatever survives, survives through conflict, because it is fit to survive. It does not follow, however, that the best survives, though we must think that in the end this is so, since we believe in God. When serious minds grapple with problems so remote from vulgar opinion that they seem to be meaningless or insoluble, the multitude, ever ready, like a crowd of boys, to mock and jeer, break forth into insult. These men, they cry are wicked, or they are fools. In a society where it is assumed that all are equal, those who are really superior incur suspicion as though it were criminal to be different from the multitude; and hence they rarely win the favor of the crowd. The life-current of those who stir up a noise about them, runs shallow. The champion of the prize-ring or the race-course is hailed with shouts, for the crowd understand the achievement; but what can they know of the worth of a sage or a saint? The noblest struggles are of the mind and heart wrestling with unseen powers, with spirits, as St. Paul says, that they may compel them to give up the secret of truth and holiness. A glimpse of truth, a thrill of love, is better than the applause of a whole city. In striving steadfastly for thy own perfection and the happiness of others thou walkest and workest with God. Thy progress will help others to labor for their own, and the happiness thou givest will return to thee and become thine; and what is the will of God, if it is not the perfection and happiness of his children? To have merely enough strength to bear life's burden, to do the daily task, to face the cares which return with the sun and follow us into the night, is to be weak, is to lack the strong spirit for which work is light as play, and whose secret is heard in whispers by the hero and the saint. To be able to give joy and help to others we must have more life, wisdom, virtue, and happiness than we need for ourselves; and it is in giving joy and help to others that we ourselves