No Religion Can Long Continue

No One Can Fail To See That The Power Of The Church Among Large Numbers In Many Communities Is Today Diminishing, Or Has Already Ceased.

Few Are There That Will Leave The Secure Seclusion Of The Scholar's Life, The Peaceful Walks Of Literature And Learning, To Stand Out A Target For The Criticism Of Unkind And Hostile Minds.

It Is The Nature Of The Noble And The Good And The Wise That They Impart To Us Of Their Nobility And Their Goodness And Their Wisdom While They Live, Making It Natural For Us To Breathe The Air They Breathe And Giving Us Confidence In Our Own Untested Powers. And The Same Influence In More Ethereal Fashion They Continue To Exert After They Are Gone.

It Is Our Hope, That Men In Proportion As They Grow More Enlightened, Will Learn To Hold Their Theories And Their Creeds More Loosely, And Will None The Less, Nay, Rather All The More Be Devoted To The Supreme End Of Practical Righteousness To Which All Theories And Creeds Must Be Kept Subservient.

Love Is The Expansion Of Two Natures In Such Fashion That Each Include The Other, Each Is Enriched By The Other. Love Is An Echo In The Feelings Of A Unity Subsisting Between Two Persons Which Is Founded Both On Likeness And On Complementary Differences. Without The Likeness There Would Be No Attraction; Without The Challenge Of The Complementary Differences There Could Not Be The Closer Interweaving And The Inextinguishable Mutual Interest Which Is The Characteristic Of All Deeper Relationships.