But Secularism has a positive as well as a negative mission, and after removing the ruins of exploded idols, the champions of reform will begin the work of reconstruction. Temples dedicated to the religion of progress will rise from the ruins of superstition. Communities of reformants will intrust the work of education to chosen teachers, who will combine the functions of an instructor with those of an exhorter. In the languages of several European nations the word “rector” still bears that twofold significance. The ministers of Secularism will not sacrifice physical health to mental culture. They will be gymnasiarchs, like the Grecian pedagogues who superintended the athletic exercises of their pupils and accompanied them on foot journeys and hunting excursions. They will be teachers of hygiene, laboring to secure the foundations of mental energy by the preservation of physical vigor, and to banish diseases by the removal of their causes. They will seek to circumscribe the power of prejudice by the extension of knowledge. They will obviate the perils of poverty by lessons of industry and prudence. Their doctrines will dispense with miracles; they will make experience the test of truth, and justice the test of integrity; they will not suppress, but encourage, free inquiry; their war against error will employ no weapons but those of logic. The religion of reason will limit its proper sphere to the secular welfare of mankind, but will ask, as well as grant, the fullest freedom of metaphysical speculation. Why should the friends of light darken the sunshine of earth with fanatical wars for the suppression of private theories about the mystery of the unrevealed first cause? Why should they rage about the riddle of the veiled hereafter to please the ordainer of the eternal law that visits such inexorable penalties upon the neglect of the present world? Should the friends of common sense quarrel about guesses at the solution of unknowable secrets? We need not grudge our wonder-loving brother the luxury of meditating on the mysteries of the unseen or the possibilities of resurrection. Shall the soul of the dying patriarch live only in his children? Shall it wing its way to distant stars? Shall it linger on earth: “Sigh in the breeze, keep silence in the cave, And glide with airy foot o’er yonder sea?” Why should we wrangle about riddles which we cannot possibly solve? But we might certainly have honesty enough to admit that impossibility. Musing on the enigmas of the “land beyond the veil” may entertain us with the visions of a dreamy hour, but should not engross the time needed for the problems of the only world thus far revealed. Thus, founded on a basis of health-culture, reason, and justice, the office of priesthood will regain its ancient prestige, and the best and wisest of men will become ministers of Secularism by devoting their lives to the science of happiness on earth. NOTE