come down to him from the lips of God, that is nobler, that is more
far-reaching than that--to be my best not simply for my own sake, but
for the sake of the world into which, setting my best, I shall make that
world more complete, I shall do my little part to renew and to recreate
it in the image of God? That is the law of my existence. And the man
that makes that the law of his existence neither neglects himself nor
his fellow-men, neither becomes the self-absorbed student and cultivator
of his own life upon the one hand, nor does he become, abandoning
himself, simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren upon the other.
You can help your fellow-men: you must help your fellow-men; but the
only way you can help them is by being the noblest and the best man that
it is possible for you to be. I watch the workman build upon the
building which by and by is to soar into the skies, to toss its
pinnacles up to the heaven, and I see him looking up and wondering where
those pinnacles are to be, thinking how high they are to be, measuring
the feet, wondering how they are to be built, and all the time he is
cramming a rotten stone into the building just where he has set to work.
Let him forget the pinnacles, if he will, or hold only the floating
image of them in his imagination for his inspiration; but the thing that
he must do is to put a brave, strong soul, an honest and substantial
life into the building just where he is now at work.

It seems to me that that comes home to us all. Men are questioning now
as they never have questioned before whether Christianity is indeed the
true religion which is to be the salvation of the world. They are
feeling how the world needs salvation, how it needs regeneration, how it
is wrong and bad all through and through, mixed with the good that is in
it everywhere. Everywhere there is the good and the bad, and the great
question that is on men's minds to-day, as I believe it has never been
upon men's minds before, is this: Is this Christian religion, with its