traditional rules, doing this or that because, as you may be told,
everybody does it; accepting standards of conduct and rules of practice,
because, as you understand, or, as some one undertakes to persuade you,
they have always been so accepted, why, then, you are growing up to be
one of that never-ending succession of men who are the Pharisees, the
opponents of the Christ, in every generation, who live with tame
conscience in any sort of company, and perpetuate the bad traditions of
the world.

But if you listen to the call of Christ, and have truly learned to feel
that the only real man's life is that which you live with the light of
God's law shining upon it, then, as a matter of course, you will rise
superior to the influence of any tradition or custom, no matter what its
authority may seem to be.

And it will indeed be a happy thing for you if you grow up with that God-
given strength of character and purpose which can treat all traditions,
and all usages, or fashions, or customs as things that should be
subordinated, and should not rule us, as things to be used by us if they
help us to a better life, but to be flung aside and rejected, if they
contradict the voice of God in our hearts.




V. VAIN HOPES.


"And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the
dead, they will repent. But he said, If they hear not Moses and the