If god only "helps those who help themselves," he might as well leave the helping alone, because even as we find the world to-day, the whole of life seems to be based on the principle that, "unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have in abundance, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." The man who has a strong constitution may struggle successfully in the world; the man with great affluence may win an easy victory over his fellows; the man who has plenty of "influential friends" has good prospects; but the poor, the weakly, the ignorant, what hope have they--they have to suffer and toil, and toil and suffer from the cradle to the tomb. How is it, then, you may ask, if man has received no assistance from without, either from Nature or the gods, that he has achieved such splendid results in the world? The answer is simple enough. The great struggle for life--the desire to get food, clothing, habitation, comfort--these have been the motives which have urged men on. The desire to get food caused men to till the soil, and, as the demand increased, the methods of cultivation improved; with improved taste came improved raiment and dwellings for the rich; plain dress and decent habitation for the poor. Men having given up the worship of Nature, began to study her; they found that by diligent investigation, and the application of their augmented knowledge, they were able to beautify the world, and render their lives happy. Then we began to have great scientific discoveries. Navigation, steam-power, telegraphy, electricity; by a knowledge of the use of these powers man has been able to conquer the destructive character of many natural forces, and to transfer a world of misery into a home of comparative comfort. And I say that the world is indebted far more to those who built houses, made clothes, navigated ships, made machinery, wrote books, than to all the gods and their clerical representatives the world has ever known. Belief in god never helped a man to supersede the sailing vessel by the steamship, the old coach by the railroad, the scythe by the reaping machine, nor the fastest locomotion by the telegraph wires. Man's necessities allured him on to all these achievements. One Stephenson is worth a thousand priests--one Edison of more value to the world than all the gods ever pictured by the imagination. And we must not forget the men who freed the human intellect from the fetters of a degrading superstition. We must not forget what the world owes to our Brunos, our Spinozas, our Voltaires, our Paines, our Priestleys; for these, by teaching men to rely on their reason, have opened out channels of thought that were previously closed, and mines of intellectual and material wealth that have since yielded great results. And so it must now be said that man is master of Nature, and he finds that she is just as good as a servant as she was bad as a master.