Missionary effort among the heathen will largely be barren so long as they are taught that there is an inseparable wall between them and their ancestral dead. Their views of the solidarity of interest between themselves and other generations, in many cases, are in advance of so-called Christian nations. A reasonable and practical spiritual religion, which would recognize the loving fellowship which binds them to their kindred who have gone before, would powerfully appeal to the "divine image" which is latent in every darkened heathen soul. ultimate economy in humanity is to bring it together, and its lines of reconciliation converge in Him. The comprehensive love which unifies divinity and humanity is the great law which includes all other laws. God's How to reconcile the frictions of society is a problem which is attracting the attention of the civilized world. In the past there has been a wider variation in the material conditions of the human family than to-day, but never before has there appeared such a general restlessness. There is a universal reaching out for improve ment. Blind and mistaken efforts to bring it about consist partially in organized antagonisms. Classes, trades, and sections solidify, in order to oppose other classes, trades, and sections, and believe that they are conserving their best interests. It is forgotten that society is an organism, and that all its members cannot perform the same kind of service. The perfect human body is a unit; but the office of each member is unlike that of every other, and therein is completeness. "When one member suffers all suffer.' Socialism is a term which is used with a great variety of meaning. To some it signifies - at least as an ultimate accomplishment - a forcible division of all material wealth by law and coercion. To others it mainly comprises an increased assumption of productive agencies, business operations, and wealth distribution by the State, including a steady enlargement of governmental functions in the future. But true socialism must begin from within, and have its basis in unselfish character. The spirit of love and altruism must be cultivated and awakened until it becomes prevailing, and as rapidly as this takes place its legitimate That fruits will be outwardly manifest. Any socialism which contains elements of jealousy, avarice, or coercion is a counterfeit. Any forcible interference with the natural laws of wealthdistribution would discourage thrift and industry, conduce to idleness, and stimulate avarice and anarchy. If through any ostensible legalized process men can get what they do not earn, production will be diminished and decay ensue. Many well-meaning philanthropists confine their attention almost entirely to material conditions, while the royal road to improvement is only through better moral conditions. sin, intemperance, and improvidence bring forth their inevitable fruit of poverty, misery, and suffering, is not the fault of our social system. Causation lies deeper. The most helpful help which can be given is to teach men, through character re-enforcement, how to help themselves. It is not a division of “silver and gold" that is needed; for even if that were practicable it would at once diminish production, raise the price of all necessities, and chill industry and progress. The ills of society are directly attributable to the lack of unselfish ness, love, and character education. The time is not distant when these will be regarded as of far greater value than material wealth. As a basis for happiness, money is the most disappointing thing in the world. Let a truer estimate prevail. Great wealth pursued as an end is a curse to any member of the human family. There is no such soul-dwarfing, hell-inciting, suicidal occupation on earth as the selfish piling-up of surplus wealth as the object of life. The possessor of millions who goes on adding to his store, as a gratification of his insane ambition to accumulate, and lives without a conscientious regard for his obligation to his fellow-men, is surely kindling within himself that torment which Dives experienced, because he is defying the supreme law of his nature. Beneath all the golden glamour, such an one, in the truest sense, is blind and naked and sick and in prison. It is not the fact of the millions, for money is useful, but that their selfish possession will eventuate in a self-made hell in the human soul. Heaven and hell are not places, but conditions of character. They are legitimate harvests that come from diverse kinds of seed-sowing. Better a free soul as a digger of ditches, than one which is enslaved by its wealth. Such an one is like a bee submerged in its own honey. Bion once said of a niggardly rich man, "That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him." The millennium will consist of the reign of love and unselfishness. Improved economic theory and legislation are powerless to bring it into manifestation. Education in the ordinary sense is also utterly unable to bring about moral reform. Only as human consciousness is lifted into the spiritual zone and the “image of God" uncovered, will that harmony and wholeness be realized which is able to transform the earth into a paradise. The manifestation of the intrinsic brotherhood is hindered and chilled by the conventionalities of our modern civilization. The deep fountains of human love and sympathy are sealed, and artificial barriers are built up between souls. A code of formal precedents, rules, and maxims becomes the unwritten, though inviolable law of society, which is based upon selfishness and worldly policy. Each soul |