Is the world a happier, holier, better world because we are here in it, helping on God's good-will for men? If that be the grand, comprehensive purpose of our lives, honestly cherished, frankly avowed, systematically cultivated, then, no matter how far below perfection we may fall, that single purpose, in spite of failure, defeat, and repented sin, pulls us through. If we have this Spirit of Love in our hearts, and if with Christ's help we are trying to do something to make it real in our lives and effective in the world, our eternal salvation is assured. On the other hand, is there a single point on which we deliberately are working evil? Is the lot of any poor man harder, or the life of any unhappy woman more sad and bitter, for aught that we have done or left undone? Is any good institution the weaker, or any bad custom more prevalent, for aught that we are deliberately and persistently withholding of help or contributing of harm? If so, if in any one point we are consciously and unrepentingly arrayed against God's righteous purpose, and the human welfare which is dear to God; if there is a single point on which we are deliberately setting aside His righteous will, and doing intentional evil to the humblest of His children; then, notwithstanding our high rank on other matters, our lack of the right purpose, at even a single point, makes us guilty of the whole; we are unfit for His kingdom. Jesus' principle of Love, though for clearness and incisiveness often stated in terms of mere altruism, or regard for others, yet taken in its total context, in the light of His never absent reference to the Father's will and the Kingdom of Heaven, is much deeper and broader than that. It gives each man his place and function in the total beneficent system which is the coming Kingdom of God, and then treats him not merely as he may wish to be treated, or we may wish to treat him, but as his place and function in that system require. Mere altruism is often weakly kind, making others feebly dependent on our benefactions instead of sturdily self-supporting; making others unconsciously egotistic as the result of our superfluous ministrations or uncritical indulgence; and even fostering a subtle egotism in ourselves, as the result of the fatal habit of doing the easy, kind thing rather than the hard, severe thing that is needed to lift them to their highest attainment. A true mother is never half as sentimentally altruistic toward her child as a grandmother or an aunt; she does not hesitate to reprove and correct, when that is what the child needs to suppress the low and lazy, and rouse the higher and stronger self. The just administrator discharges the incompetent and exposes the dishonest employee, not merely because the good of the whole requires it; but because even for the person discharged or exposed, that is better than it would be to allow him to drag out an unprofitable and cumbersome life in tolerated uselessness or countenanced graft.