O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the _duty’s_ sake, but for their _own _sake—primarily. The _duty_ was _just the same_, and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw recruits, but they wouldn’t perform it for that. As clerks and mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied it. They _had_ to; it is the law. _Training _is potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher ideals is worth any man’s thought and labor and diligence. Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to the stake rather than be recreant to it. O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament, will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit that is in him—he cannot help it. He could not perform that duty for duty’s _sake_, for that would not content his spirit, and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to _first_. It takes precedence of all other duties. Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own party’s ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket. O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public morals; he has no private ones, where his party’s prosperity is at stake. He will always be true to his make and training. IV Training Young Man. You keep using that word—training. By it do you particularly mean— Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of it—but not a large part. I mean _all _the outside influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands _association_. It is his human environment which influences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on his road and keeps him in it. If he leave[s] that road he will find himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none of these things for himself. He _thinks _he does, but that is because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen Presbyterians? Y.M. Many.