You cannot fail to discover in this, one of the effects of that striking divergence between our civilization and yours, due to widely different interpretations of the divine will. We look upon our planet with all its appurtenances as a bequest which has been delivered into our keeping for that assistance in progression so plainly the best and most exalted business of our lives, and so unmistakably pleasing to the Supreme Author that every degree of its accomplishment is rewarded by signs of his favor. From our better demonstrated spiritual belief, we derive the inspiration to increase and bestow upon each other the best things of life; while you, under religious promptings from the same high source, condemn yourselves to abstinence and austerity. You so misconceive the true relations between spiritual and material forces, that instead of regarding each as the nursery and builder-up of the other, you have devised a theory which brings them into antagonism as diverse influences; the exercise of material concerns, as you assume, tending to lead you away from the divinity. The effect of this mistaken view of life is plainly to be seen in your society and surroundings. Your material progression, deprived of the religious impulse and enthusiasm, and depending wholly upon the lower faculty of self-gain, advances by slow degrees, frequently retrogresses, and is not secure of a total relapse under so mercenary a moving power. Your forward movement, instead of being compact and co-operative like ours, drags along fitfully and laboriously, marshaled alone by a struggling influence here and there, under the dead weight of an indifferent and self absorbed multitude, and in open conflict with a host of disturbed traditions. Your doctrine of the absolute divorce of spiritual and material interests, by wasting your best parts in the service of the world-condemning deity of your imagination, and surrendering your temporal affairs to the sole exercise of your lower sentiments and feelings, has spread its dire effects, and may be traced in every phase of your society. Out of it comes that singular disregard for each other in all things except the spiritual, and that perverted estimate of goodness, which has consigned your science and learning with their influences, together with your whole world of industry, to places where unassisted and unencouraged they must work out their own doubtfully admitted and tardy rewards; while your best enthusiasm and most active morality is led to waste among your many unreasoning schemes of salvation.