evade labor, who think only of their summer vacation when they will no
longer be compelled to work, are apt to be sticklers for Sabbath-keeping
and church-going.

Gentlemen in business who give eleven for a dozen, and count thirty-four
inches a yard, who are quick to foreclose a mortgage, and who say
"business is business," generally are vestrymen, deacons and church
trustees. Look about you! Predaceous real estate dealers who set nets
for all the unwary, lawyers who lie in wait for their prey, merchant
princes who grind their clerks under the wheel, and oil magnates whose
history was never written, nor could be written, often make peace with
God, and find a gratification for their sense of sublimity by building
churches, founding colleges, giving libraries, and holding firmly to a
formalized religion. Look about you!

To recapitulate: if your life-work is doubtful, questionable or
distasteful, you will hold the balance true by going outside your
vocation for the gratification that is your due, but which your daily
work denies, and you find it in religion, I do not say this is always
so, but it is very often. Great sinners are apt to be very religious;
and conversely, the best men who have ever lived have been at war with
established religions. And further, the best men are never found
in churches.

Men deeply immersed in their work, whose lives are consecrated to doing
things, who are simple, honest and sincere, desire no formal religion,
need no priest nor pastor, and seek no gratification outside their daily
lives. All they ask is to be let alone--they wish only the privilege
to work.