Many people take their religion as some lazy boys--found in every high school--take their education. These boys have a very light regard for college requirements. John is certain that he is as good a student as Charles or a half dozen other fellows. He emphasizes the fact that a "grind" like James is the most unpopular fellow in school. All suggestions of future trouble fall on deaf ears. Every year train loads of these fellows go to take their entrance "exams." Yes, they arrive at heaven, or college, and may chance to see the lord of the institution. But some one calls them in to test their Latin eyesight, and another to determine their mathematical vision, and if their power of penetration is not sufficient for college subjects, back they go. This is a tragic experience for the lads, to be sure, yet they must learn that promotion means fitness. I have known of young men entering the academy of the college town because they were ashamed to go back home. They were good fellows, but they lacked college fitness. Think of a good sensible fellow who has never studied arithmetic going to college! And then think of a good sort of person going to heaven who has never acquired the spiritual insight to know God! A man in college who is mathematically blind, and a man in heaven who is God blind! If one thinks of God as a visible Ghost in heaven, he will overlook many of the essentials until the pitiful disillusionment comes. And if he thinks of the future home as a doll's heaven, he will make no thorough preparation for entrance. When a young girl was once lured to a very superstitious church, a friend said to me: "Well, what difference does it make--we are all going to the same place." But when I asked her if she would be willing to send her daughter to a poor day school or to some wretched music teacher, she had never thought but what that was different. Everything but religion must be properly taught; how that is taught does not matter, "because we all are going to the same place." On that basis, if all were going to live in New York City, I suppose it would make no difference what kind of superstition they were taught. The expectation of joining a higher and holier society after this life cuts as deeply into my present life plans and purposes as did the expectation of going to college when I was a frontier lad. No matter how upright and industrious one is in the ordinary affairs of life, take away the hope of college or the hope of a future life, and it makes a difference at a thousand vital points.