I have heard a good man, one of the best men I know, preaching on this subject, and saying: “Do you ask why should you love your neighbor? _Because you cannot help it!_” Now, as I listened to that genuine philanthropist’s utterance, my heart smote me, and I said to myself: “But I _could_ help it, and only too easily! It comes to him spontaneously, I have no doubt, to love his neighbors; but I have been trying to do it for many years, and have very imperfectly succeeded. Instead of _beginning_ with love, and going on to duty toward them as the result of love, I have had to begin with duty, and, only with many a self-reproach for hardness of spirit, learned at last to feel love--for some of them!” I do not think my experience is exceptional. I think the people who can and do love spontaneously that terribly large section of our race who are commonplace, narrow-minded, and small of heart, are the exceptions, and that, if we are to have no benevolence except from born philanthropists like the good man I have named, we shall see very little in future of the Enthusiasm of Humanity. No! It takes, for most of us, all the help to loving our brother which comes from believing that we have a common Father and a common home,--all the help which comes to the heart in answer to the prayer that God would melt its stoniness, and make it blossom into tenderness and sympathy,--to enable us to attain the love which is not the _spring_ of social duty, but its _climax_,--the “fulfilling of the law.” I honestly think that the process of making Atheists, _trained as such_, into philanthropists, will be but rarely achieved. And I venture to propound the question to those who point to admirable living examples of Atheistic or Comtist philanthropy,--How many of these have passed through the earlier stage of morality _as believers in God_, and with all the aid which prayer and faith and hope could give them? That they _remain_ actively benevolent, having advanced so far, is (as I have shown above) readily to be anticipated. But will their children stand where they stand now? We are yet obeying the great impetus of religion, and running along the rails laid down by our forefathers. Shall we continue in the same course when that impetus has stopped, and we have left the rails altogether? I fear me not. In brief, I think the outlook of Atheism, as a _moral educator_, as black as need be. Viewed with the utmost candor, and admitting all the excellence of many of its disciples, I think Atheism must deduct from morality the priceless training to reverence afforded by religion; the illuminating consciousness of an unseen Searcher of hearts; the invigorating confidence in an Almighty Helper; the vivifying influence of divine love; and, finally, the immeasurable, inestimable benefits derivable from that practice of prayer which is God’s own education of the soul.