Some people have insisted that this life is a kind of school for the production of self-denying men and women--that is, for the production of character. The statistics show that a large majority die under five years of age. What would we think of a schoolmaster who killed the most of his pupils the first day? If this doctrine is true, and if manhood cannot be produced in heaven, those who die in childhood are infinitely unfortunate. I admit that, although I do not understand the subject, still, all pain, all misery may be for the best. I do not know. If there is an infinitely wise Being, who is also infinitely powerful, then everything that happens must be for the best. That philosophy of special providence, going to the extreme, is infinitely better than most of the Christian creeds. There seems to be no half-way house between special providence and atheism. You know some of the Buddhists say that when a man commits murder, that is the best thing he could have done, and that to be murdered was the best thing that could have happened to the killed. They insist that every step taken is the necessary step and the best step; that crimes are as necessary as virtues, and that the fruit of crime and virtue is finally the same. But whatever theories we have, we have at last to be governed by the facts. We are in a world where vice, deformity, weakness, and disease are hereditary. In the presence of this immense and solemn truth rises the religion of the body. Every man should refuse to increase the misery of this world. And it may be that the time will come when man will be great enough and grand enough utterly to refrain from the propagation of disease and deformity, and when only the healthy will be fathers and mothers. We do know that the misery in this world can be lessened; consequently I believe in the religion of this world. And whether there is a heaven or hell here, or hereafter, every good man has enough to do to make this world a little better than it is. Millions of lives are wasted in the vain effort to find the origin of things, and the destiny of man. This world has been neglected. We have been taught that life should be merely a preparation for death. To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain. _Question_. State with what words you can comfort those who have, by their own fault, or by the fault of others, found this life not worth living?