world, so called, consists nowadays, in the main, not of good and bad believers-of persons all or nearly all of whom are agreed to accept the Christian doctrines and theory of life, and differ only in the manner and degree to which their common belief influences and controls their lives-but that it contains an increasing number of more or less intelligent and well-intending people, who, silently or openly, repudiate this common belief, and deny or doubt the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul.

You cannot live in the world and remain ignorant of, or unaffected by, this doubt and unbelief which are sweeping through Christendom. You will encounter them at every step. In much that you will read, if you are to be intelligent men and women, and in the conversation of thoughtful as well as of frivolous people, but still more in the conduct and policy of a great multitude of the thoughtless, you will be forced to see, if you think on so important a matter at all, that the theory of life propounded by Jesus is either rejected, or, in much the greater number of cases, is held in a perfunctory manner, as a kind of vague Sunday faith which has little application to, or influence on, every-day life.

It is not easy to live in the world and not be af fected by its thoughts and customs. Man is a social

being; and you will find nothing in your life so difficult as to remain unmoved by the spirit of those among whom you live, or to resist the subtle influence of the habits and thoughts of those about you. You may see, every day, how even strong men have their notions of right and wrong warped by the general course of the society in which they are cast; how easily we drift with the general current; how, insensibly to themselves, men's lives are shaped, their conduct changed, their resolves weakened, by the force of social forms and habits. You need great powers of resistance to withstand such influences; and you need to help you, as I shall endeavor to make plain to you in what follows, the conservative force which we can get only from positive religious convictions so strongly held as to exert a constant. and mastering influence over our thoughts and aims.

It is proper and necessary to your real happiness, not only hereafter but in this life, that each one of you shall live his own life; that you shall establish a personal, individual existence as a man or woman; because otherwise you would become, as too many do, merely an insignificant fragment of a great mass, surging hither and thither on the motion of vague or blind general impulses, the sport of circumstances, or of stronger wills than your own.

It is not necessary that you should be rich, or powerful, or famous; these incidents are far more a hinderance than a help to a true life. There is no place in society, however low, in which a man or woman may not, with effort, live an individual life; and this I conceive to be the most important of all to us, because it is as individuals, as substantive personalities, if at all, that we are to live in the future life; not as undivided and undistinguishable fragments of some vast chaotic mass of life. Your bodies may be swept hither and thither on the uncontrollable waves of society and events; but it is your spiritual part, your souls, which have the only real importance.

Your soul-if you have one-that is you; and it was because he saw that the training toward higher things of this spiritual and immortal part was the one matter of supreme and overshadowing importance, that the great teacher Arnold of Rugby wrote that "the only thing of moment in life or in man is character."

The body is like the clothes you put on it. The soul is the man.

If we have this individuality of which I speak, if we have souls or spiritual parts capable of existence hereafter and beyond death, surely it is our most important labor here to preserve, to train, and improve this nobler and only substantial part of ourselves.

THE future

I.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH.

that which is to come-even in this

life, is to us dark and impenetrable; hence we speak We cannot foreknow; hence we speak

of "faith."

of "believing."

Nothing is more universally and absolutely true than that we "walk by faith." Even in the affairs of this life the doubter is weak; the successful, the powerful men are those who take much upon trust. They study the laws of trade, of nature, or of the human mind; and they make their ventures, or plan their course, not because they can. foresee details or certainly foretell results, not because they can grasp all the elements; but in the faith that, with proper effort on their parts, and working in accordance with the laws of nature and of human nature, success will follow.

No great worldly success even is gained without a large and inspiring faith in him who is to gain it. No man has conquered difficulties, or overcome serious obstacles, who has not known times in the

struggle when all the facts and all the force of events seemed to be against him, and when, but for his belief in the lawfulness of his cause, or in the care and skill with which his enterprise was planned, he would have given up. The weak, who falter and run away, are those who lack faith in this general sense. The commander who believes he is going to be beaten is beaten already; the merchant who expects failure is crippled in advance: it is the man who believes who does the impossible; and even in this merely worldly sense it is true that by faith men have removed mountains.

The immediate future in our lives is so impenetrable to all of us that we constantly need to “walk by faith" even in the commonest enterprises, and "Nothing venture nothing win" is a proverb.

A prudent man planning an enterprise begins by examining all its elements, all the obstacles in his way, all the details likely to make for or against his success; but if he is wise, he above all things takes care that what he proposes shall be in harmony with natural laws, and shall be helpful to the general interests and welfare of society-that is to say, of his fellow-men. He knows beforehand that he cannot hope entirely to control events; and he guards, so far as possible, against the inevitable uncertainties by founding him