herself for anxiety and sleeplessness,--then love will teach
you that _life comes first_. And never from this day on will
I seek God or God's will in any form of words, in any sacrament,
or in any book or any place, as if He were first and foremost to
be found there; no, life is first and foremost--life as we win
it from the depths of despair, in the victory of the light, in
the grace of self-devotion, in our intercourse with living
human kind. God's supreme word to us is life, our highest
worship of Him is love for the living. This lesson, self-evident
as it is, was needed by me more than by most others. This it
is that in various ways and upon many grounds I have hitherto
rejected,--and of late most of all. But never more shall
words be the highest for me, nor symbols, but the eternal
revelation of life. Never more will I freeze fast in doctrine,
but let the warmth of life melt my will. Never will I condemn
men by the dogmas of old time justice, unless they fit with our
own time's gospel of love. Never, for God's sake! And this
because I believe in Him, the God of Life, and His never
ending revelation in life itself."

Here is a gospel, indeed, one that needs no church for its
promulgation, and no ceremonial for the enhancement of its
impressiveness. It is a gospel, moreover, that is based upon no
foundation of precarious logic, but finds its premises in the
healthy instincts of the natural man. It is no small thing to
have thus found the way, and to have helped others likewise to
find the way, out of the mists of superstition, through the
valleys of doubt and despondency, athwart the thickets of
prejudice and bigotry with all their furtive foemen, up to
these sunlit heights of serenity.