it for a part we shall raise it to a certain extent for the whole. Therefore, it means much, not merely to the immigrants, but to every good American, that there should be at Ellis Island the colporteurs of this society, and the representatives of other religious and philanthropic societies to try to care for the immigrant’s body, and above all to try to care for the immigrant’s soul. It is, of course, unnecessary to say that the things of the body must be cared for; that the first duty of any man, especially of the man who has others dependent upon him, is to take care of them, and to take care of himself. Nobody can help others if he begins by being a burden upon others. Each man must be able to pull his own weight, to carry his own weight; and, therefore, each man must show the capacity to earn for himself and his family enough to secure a certain amount of material well-being. That must be the foundation. But on that foundation he must build as a superstructure the spiritual life. One of the best things done by this society, and by kindred religious and benevolent societies, is supplying in our American life of to-day the proper ideals. It is a good thing to have had the extraordinary material prosperity which has followed so largely on the extraordinary scientific discoveries alluded to by Justice Brewer, if we use this material prosperity aright. It is not a good thing, it is a bad thing, if we treat it as the be-all and end-all of our life. If we make it the only ideal before this Nation, if we permit the people of this Republic to get before their minds the view that material well-being carried to an ever higher degree is the one and only thing to be striven for, we are laying up for ourselves not merely trouble but ruin. I, too, feel the faith and hope that have been expressed here to-day by the vice-president and the secretary of the society; but I so feel because I believe that we shall not permit mere material well-being to become the only ideal in this Nation, because I believe that more and more we shall accustom ourselves to looking at the great fortunes accumulated by certain men as being nothing in themselves, either to admire, to envy or to deplore, save as they are used well or ill. If the great fortune is used well, if the man who has accumulated it has the strength necessary to resist the temptations either to use it wrongfully, or what is nearly as bad, not to use it aright—for negation may be almost as harmful as positive wrongdoing—then he is entitled to the praise due to whoever employs great powers for the common good. If the man who accumulates that great fortune uses it ill or does not use it well, then so far from being an object of envy, still less an object of admiration, he should take his place among those whom we condemn and pity—for usually, if we have the root of the matter in us, we will pity those we condemn.