If our Norse immigrant has a distinctive contribution to make to America, industrially, politically and socially, no less certainly has he an offering to make to the highest and most important department of life, that of religion. The Scandinavian is almost instinctively religious. You find among them comparatively few specimens of that sleek, beefy, selfcomplacent, godless animal-type, so frequently encountered today in other quarters. The immigrant had encountered too many of the realities of life; had been too often face to face with the ultimate facts of life and existence, to develop the shallow conceits of a mere beef animal whose main experience of life has been largely confined to a full stomach and the animal comforts. Not strange that this creature should speak great swelling words against the Church, the Christ and His followers, as well as against God Himself. The fool has always said in his heart (and with his stomach): "There is no God". Because of this deep religious devotion characteristic of the Norse immigrant, and evolved amid the majestic mountains, the thundering rivers and water falls, as well as the loudly resounding sea of his birthplace, he built altars to God and established his worship almost as soon as his feet touched the new soil. Partly because of his religious sincerity the expression of his religious life has sometimes showed a certain narrowness of outlook and an intolerance of different religious forms which has not been to his credit. It is because of this latter trait that so many of the Norse immigrants and their descendants have been driven from the church of their fathers and are found in almost every religious sect in the country. We have heard "infant damnation" in its rankest form preached within the last year, and other doctrines as well, which are remnants of Mediaeval barbarism and which most Lutherans today would repudiate. Yet we believe the God of Jesus Christ is becoming more clearly seen, and that the wider horizons of truth are appearing. However, this is my plea: May we cherish the religious devotion, the real piety characteristic of our forebears. This is a contribution greatly needed in an age of religious indifference, if not open hostility. And keeping alive in us and inculcating in our children this religious devotion, may we never be numbered among that class who religiously are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, only fit to be spewed out of the mouth of God and man. Let us be a salt in the religious life of our country, for without genuine religion there can be no morality worth talking about among the mass of mankind; and without morality we can never succeed in developing, or even keeping from destruction, our experiment in democracy. So may we put this, too, our supreme gift, on the altar of our country.