Our idea of life is, that since it is all we are given to know from the first to the last stages of our consciousness, it is our duty and privilege to improve it, and enjoy it to the fullest innocent and rational extent; and that to this end there can be no separation of the moral and material interests; for it is but an honest acknowledgment to say, that constituted as we all are, the crown of contentment and happiness is only for him who successfully cultivates both. Under this belief, the general supervision of both moral and material affairs is placed in the hands of our government. Church and State are therefore one with us, and it is entirely due to the rationalistic character of our religion that the alliance has proved so conducive to our progress and happiness. There can be no such peaceable and continuous union with you at present, because from the nature of your religious doctrines there must be a conflict of authority; but you will come to it in time, as out of it, more than all else,--as I will endeavor to show,--will come the fullness of your destiny. Your efforts for the suppression of vice and crime, since the first stages of your history, are futile to a degree that must be appalling to you, and the cause of your failure is due to conditions plainly apparent to us. These conditions are that your governments, for all these centuries, have taken no official cognizance of virtue, and have failed to see that there existed in their patronage of good deeds that tangible reward which would place all ambition for honor and prominence among them on uncompromising terms with evil. You have only attempted to suppress crime by punishment, while the powerful stimulus to virtue which your governments afford of precept and example have been neglected. Although, in your undeveloped state of greed and selfishness, you find it unsafe to trust your material interests in the hands of irresponsible bodies which you call monopolies, yet you bestow the whole keeping and guidance of your morals upon societies and organizations of you fellow men, who are even less responsible to authority than they. Under this state of things, how can you expect anything better than your present chaotic state of religion, and the loose, unguided, unrewarded, and wholly spontaneous morality of your people.