The errors on both sides are great and dangerous. Religious creeds seek to solve the fundamental problems of our nature and individual destiny. That is their first and chief design, greater even in their eyes than the maintenance of order in society. For this reason, and for this reason especially, respect is due to them; they deal with that which is most inward, most powerful, and most noble in man. And the policy which does not discern these facts, or discerning does not respectfully bow before them, shows itself futile, ignorant of the nature of man, incapable of guiding him at moments of importance. {59} On the other hand, this earth is not a place of banishment where man lives an exile. Society is not a scene of perdition, which a man must go through with disgust and terror. The earth is man's first country; God has placed him here. Society is the natural condition of man; God has made it for him. This world and social life do not bound our destiny; but it is in this world and by this social life that our destiny is begun and developed. We owe to society our assistance, given affectionately and respectfully, whatever the form of its organisation and the difficulties of our task. These forms and difficulties change with places and times, but they possess only a secondary importance, and make no change in the general condition or fundamental duty of man. Religion, without being indifferent to what there is of true or false, good or bad, in the casual and variable part of the social world, attaches herself to what is essential and permanent, training men to go straight towards heaven beneath every sky and by every road.