Religion is the vital element in character, and to treat it as though it were but an incidental phase of man's life is to blunder in a matter of the highest and most serious import. Man is born to act, and thought is valuable mainly as a guide to action. Now, the chief inspiration to action, and above all to right action, is found in faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion, and not in knowledge, the virtue of the intellect. Knowledge, indeed, is effectual only when it is loved, believed in, and held to be a ground for hope. Man does not live on bread alone, and if he is brought up to look to material things, as to the chief good, his higher faculties will be stunted. If to do rightly rather than to think keenly is man's chief business here on earth, then the virtues of religion are more important than those of the intellect; for to think is to be unresolved, whereas to believe is to be impelled in the direction of one's faith. In epochs of doubt things fall to decay; in epochs of faith the powers which make for full and vigorous life, hold sway. The education which forms character is indispensable, that which trains the mind is desirable. The essential element in human life is conduct, and conduct springs from what we believe, cling to, love, and yearn for, vastly more than from what we know. The decadence and ruin of individuals and of societies come from lack of virtue, not from lack of knowledge. "The hard and valuable part of education," says Locke, "is virtue; this is the solid and substantial good, which the teacher should never cease to inculcate till the young man places his strength, his glory, and his pleasure in it." We may, of course, distinguish between morality and religion, between ethics and theology. As a matter of fact, however, moral laws have everywhere reposed upon the basis of religion, and their sanction has been sought in the principles of faith. As an immoral religion is false, so, if there is no God, a moral law is meaningless.