with faith and understanding of law, on the other, do we judge of the
status of the individual, the community, and the race; and the advances
made upon this line mark the progress of what we term civilization on
this planet.

There is no time so trying, so full of agony to the soul, as is that
hour when it first begins to doubt the absolute, unquestionable truth
of the creeds it has hitherto blindly accepted, and in which it has
fully believed. Creeds are the swaddling clothes of the soul, and must
inevitably be outgrown and laid aside as the mind of man grows more and
more capable of comprehending the truth which is to set it free from
the trammels of mere blind belief.

It is so comfortable to have our spiritual faith ready made for us, our
paths all mapped out, and our final destiny made plain and sure,
provided only that we remain faithful in our adherence to them as they
are set forth by our parents and spiritual guardians, that when the
great, ever-surging, resistless tidal wave of progress first reaches
the soul, it can only stand in dumb agony, like one upon the seashore
watching its last hope go down beneath the waste of mighty waters.
Torn from its anchorage of inherited beliefs, it is sure to be
tempest-tossed, rent and torn, buffeted by conflicting tendencies, cast
upon many a desert island of unfaith, and haunted by miserable doubts
and black despair, ere it hears and heeds the pilot of truth, the only
guide to the peaceful haven of eternal life. Happy, indeed, are they
who tarry not upon the weary way; but who have within them that
aspiration, that endless cry for light, which shall always, in God's
providence, compel the needed response and guidance; for many honest,
earnest men and women, lacking this attribute of the soul, fail all
through life to reach this only true solution of the riddle of human