The priest knows, or says he does, where the departed has gone, what kind of a life he leads there, what will be his lot in eternity, and whether we shall meet again. He speaks of these things with the assurance of a schoolboy reciting a page which he has learned by heart. But he is only pretending to possess information which, as a matter of fact, no one possesses. He knows no more of a personal God, or of another life, than anybody else. If we cannot predict what will happen in the next hour, how can we talk with assurance of the secrets of the unending future? If we do not quite understand ourselves, or the world which we daily see, how can we boast of any certain knowledge of a Being who is said to be infinitely and absolutely and incomprehensibly different from us? Silence is more religious than the gossip one hears about such a Being. Modesty is more reverent than dogmatism, and the agnostic is more honest and more eloquent than the garrulous preacher. If men wish to know where the Eternal is, who he is, what he does, what his intentions are, how he should be praised, what humors or provokes him, how many manifestations or persons there are in his godhead, and when he first began his operations, etc., they must not come to a Rationalist for such information. To acquaint man with himself, to show him the way to develop and use his own resources, and in time of sorrow and bereavement, to depend upon the thoughts of the wise and the brave, which heal and sooth and bless, is the consolation Rationalism offers. It is modest, but it is real. Rationalists cannot count on the creeds for consolation. A doll may amuse a baby, but is a grown-up man miserable because he cannot play with a toy? The Rationalist is willing to see Nature in its true light. He prefers reality to illusions, and would rather be awake than dreaming the most seductive dreams which "poppy or mandragora, or all the drowsy syrups of the world" can medicine the mind into.