most of the woveliste almost completely that. ipnt of detective stories. haw readers being legion. This apart from his gifts for He'knows how to tell a ood story, which all Tt is a curious feature of our social and conversational life that the ox2 subject which is of supreme and vital importance to every human being is the least often diseussed—our thoughts and feelings concerning the hereafter and the shaping of our lives in accordance with our theories or convictions. It! seems indeed as though the whole world of men as well as women were afflicted with a curl ness when the subject of reli even indirectly alluded to.
In these days of bridge and mah Jonge, universal dancing and free" Intercourse between the sexes, the hhabitude of conversation between men at their clubs and other mectting places has naturally enough de-lined.
Yet there are always friends! and with friendship an exchange of views upon all the vital matters of life, These continue to rome extent, yet it ix a curious fact that if} the conversation between any little] company of intellectuals should wander from sport oF literature 0: art to the graver question of 1 po: sible hereafter, even the most Hiant talkers become tongue-tied, there are self-conscious gaps in the flow of speech and there is a universal air of relief when, as usually ens before long, the subject 13}
Jdetiberately elucidation and of the one agele, impenetrable mystery, bat among the middle-aged and y there exists almost concerning those Problems where science hax failed us and which faith in the mystic teachings of the spiritual leaders of} the world can alone solve, From the earliest dawn of intelligence ws walk through life, whether our way lice throug' the pleasure Jgatdens or across the rugged places, along the edge of a mysterious Jand yawning abyss into whea unfathomable depths we know that [some day or other we must commit ourselves, There are timer—times, as a rule, of solitary thought-—during which we strain our exer looking downwards, but for the most part} we accept our destiny with a curio lous mixture of and fatalism lostrichlike capacity for bury our heads in the affairs of the world moment. ope or fear of the hereafter we should logically become a world of lunatics, yet all those forms of faith and bel which from the earliest days of his tory have produced a countless pro cession of suints nnd heroes have grown fainter throughout the gen-rations until to-day it really scerne as though in future ages, not faz removed from our ovn, all estab. Hshed forms of worship would of sheer inanition.
It is the penalty which we are paying for a larger measure of intellectual comprehension, for greater inroads into the mysterious, world of science, that with all such primitive faith of men in God grows fainter and fainter. Centuries azo religion was an easy thing. Man believel what what he was, felt and Nations are rated on the scale of progress Jargely on the development of their transportation fa ties, and it has been truly said that the' first value of a city is its place on a great transportation system, and its fature importance is dependent upon the condition in which the transportation system is developed and maintained. world has destroyed to a large exe tent the earlier and sweeter forms of apprehension born of faith and sentiment, religion as expressed by any definite formulae is sinking fast into the background of our lives taking its place among the dead, beautiful things whose inspiration is past—the mythology of Greece, the pictured worship of the Exyptians.
It is scarcely our fault. It is a matier often, when one' contemplates the simple, joyous lives of past generations, for deep and ter regret that' the wholehearted, unquestioning faith with which they accepted the priest-expounded explanations of the problems of the universe has in a large measure bo-come impossible to the dwellers, in this bustling world of ours—impossible whatever effort of will for brain we devote towards its renascence, With it has passed without the shadow of a doubt much of the spirituality of our liver, our art hax become distorted and' uninspired, and even our national existence haw felt the need of that flame of ideale iam which gave it colour and force, The materialist today has come into hi Yet the greatest. sceptic has to admit that there is planted in us from some une known source, together with on other inherent proclivities, certain aspirations towards a world morality, the cultivation of which rings us a measure of content and happiness which we can jain by no other mean, religion la the religion of the man in the strect—an attitude of, I hope, reverent ignoraree as re: wards the great unsolved problems of life and death, but a desire as tone locky upward' in vain, to. pass through one's day by day life bes lieving that in one's own fellow creatures there must be a spark that divinity which—eleewhera cludes us, an inclination always ta accept the most charitable view of a fellow creature's misdoings, ta believe the best of every one with whom one is brought into contact, and to help so far as one can those who are confronted with graver problems of life than we ourselves re called upon to miects There seems to be no other relic sion left today for the thinking man but to worship the unknown God through his fellows, fulfilling thereby a tive and inherent instinct. We are few of us heroes, we all have our weaknesses, but it is always possible in yielding to them to sacrifice as little ay may be the happiness of others. The struggle to keep our place in life is forced upon us, but we for our own hand and st a measure of consideration for those whose interests clash with our own, We are fundamentally selfish by the logic of necessity, forced into an attitude of self-preservation by the laws of life. Still, at the cost of a little thought we can carry on the fight without undue hurt to others, with some blending indeed of alttuistie effort. If the shadows of the great abyss reveal to uy nothing of what may lay beneath thole terrifying embrace, the best preparation for the inevitable end, in the absence of that rare gift of absolute faith, would seem to be on, earned by continua!
that Ute happiness vf one's follow' creatures had been rather added to than marred Ly one's pa yge through life.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.