The class of things which is certainly not persistent, but must indubitably be left behind us for ever, is the weird collection of treasures for which most of us work so hard: scorning delights and living laborious days for their acquisition. In this blind and mistaken struggle—a struggle which in the present condition of society seems so unavoidable, even so meritorious, but which in a reformed society will be looked back upon as at something akin to lunacy—we do not even make to ourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Its mottoes are “each for himself” and “væ victis.” Fortunately very few of the human race wholly succumb to this temptation; nearly all reserve great regions of their lives where kindness and friendliness and affection reign, and try to check the evil results of their worser or self-directed efforts by charitable doles. In a more ideal state of society there would be no need either of the poison or of its antidote. To bring about such an ideal state of society is the end and aim of Politics, and of all movements for social reform. Efforts in these directions are the most serious things in life, and may be the most fruitful in vital results: since few individuals are strong enough to withstand the pressure and tendency of their social surroundings. Only a few can rise superior to them, only a few sink far beneath them; the majority drift with the crowd and become—too many at present—irretrievably injured by the base and ugly conditions among which their lives are cast. At present, for the majority of Englishmen, life is liable to be damaging and deleterious: initial weakness of character, so far from being strengthened and helped by the combined force of society, is hindered and enfeebled thereby,—a disastrous and disquieting condition of things. But when the efforts of self-sacrificing and laborious statesmen, Ministers in the highest sense (Mark x. 43),—when these efforts at cultivation bear fruit,—then, notwithstanding individual lapses here and there, society at large will be indistinguishable from a human branch of the Communion of Saints. Then will feeble impulses towards virtue be fostered and encouraged; the bruised reed will no longer be broken and trampled in the mire. The Life Eternal in its fullest sense must be entered upon here and now. The emphasis is on the word _Life_, without reference to time. “I am come that ye might have Life.” Life of a far higher kind than any we yet know is attainable by the human race on this planet. It rests largely with ourselves. The outlook was never brighter than it is to-day; many workers and thinkers are making ready the way for a Second Advent,—a reincarnation of the Logos in the heart of all men; the heralds are already attuning their songs for a reign of brotherly love; already there are “signs of his coming and sounds of his feet”; and upon our terrestrial activity the date of this Advent depends.