As in dreams the impressions of childhood continue to recur, so in modern religions conceptions belonging to the childhood of the race are still urged upon us. * * * * * The dogmatists prefer to frame rules, rather than give reasons; because the latter will be judged on their merits, while the former are accepted on authority. * * * * * Half-true is harder to refute than wholly false. The defenders shield themselves behind the part that is true. Not the mud at the bottom, but the stain in the water, clouds the stream. This is why numerous sects continue to survive, perpetuating many errors by means of a few truths. * * * * * There is something comical in a man making a business of religion, levying a charge on this world for his services to the next. The Quakers must have had a vein of humor in their opposition to all sorts of paid priests. * * * * * The priests of the Church of the Future will be the spiritual leaders of their generation, those educators, poets, scientists, physicians, journalists, and others, who practice their avocations with a view to the interests of others as well as their own. * * * * * Eating your dinner is as sacred as saying your prayers, and making your living is as noble as dying for your faith. * * * * * I heard Walt Whitman once say that life without immortality would be like a railroad train made up entirely of engines. The forces of individuality seemed to him too mighty, to conceive as possible their limitation to this world. * * * * * The spirit of Christ’s teachings is too democratic to be in hearty sympathy with either science, philosophy, art, or the pursuit of pleasure. * * * * * Piety is sometimes merely the last passion; sometimes merely the last fashion. * * * * * The devout are the disappointed. * * * * * Prayer refreshes and relieves the mind by strengthening the confidence, by diverting the thoughts, and by admonishing the soul of higher themes. The Jew prays to Jehovah, most Christians to the Virgin or the Saints, the Buddhist to himself; all are consoled and benefitted; equally so is he who meditates on the laws, the life, the love, and the power, manifested in the universe of matter and mind around him. VII. _The Cultivation of Our Individuality._