for them. Now there are several places, all the way down from the palatial quarters to the very lowest where we may begin this work of elevation by means of thought. But suppose we are going to begin with the lowest? How much do we want to do for them? The work of humanity is really to

bring out the best there is. There is a type for humanity and the work for humanity is to bring out that type, to develop the highest. For human beings as well as for all nature everywhere life means development. Development of the ideal. It is the province of the rosebush to bring forth the most beautiful roses, so it is the duty of the human being to develop the highest in all. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to accept that and say you believe the highest in all should be developed? You must consider what this means. It means that humanity will not exist, should not really exist, in fixed layers each layer marked by successive lines of elevation. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to say that everybody, should be elevated to the utmost degree? You know that is going to destroy boundary lines in society. Are you ready that your coachman, or your washwoman, or those who do your drudgery shall be so elevated? That there shall be nobody down so low that their whole life will have to be spent in hand labor? If not, why not? If you are not ready for that, why not? If you and yours and those who live on your street should be refined and cultured then why should not everybody be just so? Is not that the Christ idea of the universal oneness, that the divine in all should be brought

out?

There is no use in spending so much money to spread what we call Christianity, nor of spending so much in sending it to the heathen, if we are not willing to apply the first principle of Christianity ourselves. The Christ idea, the Christ type means to recognize the divine in all and to bring it out in all. Now we must start with that or else we must give up calling ourselves Christians. You see what this will bring us to. The workers will have to do more of the thinking and the thinkers

will have to do more of the work, and the stigma will be taken off of labor. The person who has worked half a day will think the rest of the day. Hands are just as divine as heads. There is no degradation in any kind of work.

Now, if we are going to make the world better we shall begin at the lowest, down where we find all this drunkenness and crime. The first thing I think we should do in the cities would be to go down into the worst quarters and establish Homes and places where there should be simple entertainment, innocent amusements and libraries. People should go right down into these places and mingle with these people and endeavor to enlighten them. I know at one of these places in Boston there was a free reading room and a library for taking out books right down in the very worst streets and the number of books taken out was incredible, and almost all the books taken out were books of good reading, histories and travels, not trashy kinds. There was a centre of enlightenment. It was just as if you put a candle in a dark room. You want these centres of enlightenment upon what are classed as the worst streets, and the shortsightedness of municipal authorities is that they do not adopt this idea as an economic measure; that instead of allowing all these people in these worst streets to grow up ignorant and to become criminals and progenitors of more criminals, they do not see the economy of a measure of this kind. It would be cheaper to take a boy or girl now growing up in one of these streets and give him or her a finished education, no matter how expensive, than for the city to allow that boy or girl to grow up and become a criminal and the progenitor of a race of criminals. What I would suggest to tax payers is that they should look at it in that way, and I think that when woman shall participate in municipal government and when she shall superintend the spending of municipal money, the measure will then be in the direction of prevention rather than in the direction of punishment. Here comes in the point that was brought up yesterday afternoon about giving. I think that people give money because that

is the easiest thing to do. It takes all the burden off of them. But the real thing for these people who are so willing to give to do is to give their time and thought to the work of humanity. It is very easy for people who have money to give twenty or a hundred dollars. That is very little to do. That is no sacrifice. They save themselves trouble by that.

Emerson says "Man owes to man, man.” You want to give of yourselves, and a great many think that in obtaining culture or being good one has done all that can be expected, but we must not be wealthy for ourselves alone, nor learned for ourselves alone, nor cultured for ourselves alone, nor good for ourselves alone, but, as I suggested, we must just give it out to everybody. Get all you can and then give all you can. You know, when there is too much accumulation in any one place in the physical body they call it congestion. They say that the circulation is bad. That is what is the matter with the community, there is too much congestion. The money is congested in one place, as is the culture and learning, and that is what is the matter with us. We want more circulation in the community. Circulation is the order of nature. The tree gathers in to make itself a tree, but gives out for the good of all, and so the whole thing is perpetually up and down, the rain coming down and then going up. There is no standing still. But to humanity that Divine order is reversed. Everybody is collecting to keep. You will see it in the different families. All we want to get is for ourselves and our wives and our sons and our daughters and our grandchildren. Generally speaking, when anything is to be given away it is looked at all over by us to see if it will do for any of the family before it is allowed to go, and we do not comprehend that we are all one family. In that respect you will see as much degradation among the well-to-do as among the degraded. So that self-hood is degradation, and the first thing in our work for humanity is to get rid of self-hood and to begin to realize the Christ idea of oneness, which means kindred with all, and a family feeling for all and a reaching out to all. I say for

every human being life means development. The rich woman or the rich man who goes through seventy-five or eighty years and calls it life and has not developed the highest within has not really lived. What do we find among the upper classes? Let us see if there is not some work to be done there for humanity. We find among the upper classes men who have failed in order to become rich and whose opera ticket and fast horses are bought with stolen money. We find liquor dealers growing rich by the sale of liquors which help to make the drunkenness and repulsiveness of what we call the worst streets. We find women devoted to frivolities, caring only to live up to a certain style for their own gratification, and having no high purpose in life. We find seducers and keepers of mistresses and those who support the brothels. These are all among the upper classes because those who are poor have not the money for that. We find cruel mothers deserting their children, giving them over to the care of aliens who may teach those children anything but what is good, teaching them lying, contempt of labor and snobbishness in a great many ways. We find the improvidence of the rich father and mother who bring up their daughters to know no employment, so that these daughters look on marriage as the only resort by which they can be supported. This practice breeds false marriages. Marriages formed on that basis are necessarily low and the children of those marriages necessarily inharmonious. You often hear girls in fashionable life disclaim again and again the idea of doing anything to earn money, They would repudiate the whole thing. It would be a disgraceful thing for them to have been known as ever having done anything to earn money. Now suppose a girl has lived her life in this way and has no high purpose. The best of her is undeveloped. She is only alive in the lower stories of herself, so to speak. She has not lived in the high. She must be married because she cannot work. So she marries a man who may want to be married, so that they together may support an establishment. Now, this man may be a reformed rake. He may be low in

mind. He may be sensual. He may be diseased. But the marriage takes place. The children of this marriage have a birthright of lowness. There is nothing high in father or mother for these children to be born into, and all the conditions of their home are such as fixes these conditions upon them. These children, grown to maturity, being of an influential class and having the means of working mischief do work mischief. Nothing must come between them and their pleasures. They have been indulged by parents, and in order to get along smoothly they have been subjected to no restraint, and they become vicious and full of power to work mischief. All this comes from the upper classes. And where you find badness among the upper classes it is much more dangerous than among the lower classes. So I should look for the most dangerous classes, among the rich, among the well-to-do classes.

Now, what is the cause of these conditions we have just glanced at? How must we work now to reform the world?

We must not work at results. The farmer would not go over his field and cut off the heads of the weeds and pile them up and say "What a day's work I have done; I have pulled off all those weeds." If you do that you have done nothing at all. Now, that cutting off heads is just what the world has been doing to make itself better. It works in the way of palliating, that is, by hospitals, and by orphan homes and homes for illegimate children and homes for this and homes for that. The world aims at the effects rather than at the causes. Bad conduct is of itself only the appearance of what is beneath, just as the head of the weed is what comes forth from the root, and it does not do any good to cut off the head. Bad conduct is simply the coming forth of what is behind, so that in punishing bad conduct you are cutting off the head. What you want to do is to strike below if you want to accomplish anything. See what is the cause or what are the causes of all this degeneration, badness, dishonesty, sensuality, drunkenness and everything we have hinted at. I think one great