changes its foliage; changes in her results, as the tree,, from year to year, changes its fruits. Ever changing and yet ever the same. For religion is not an Egyptian mummy, but a living, active agent that becomes all things to all men to save all. Yet in her essential parts she is as unchangeable, in an ever-changing world, as that pyramid of the desert which for ages has watched the ever-changing Nile glide slowly at its feet. But would not civilization suffice, without religion to block her way? Civilization suffice! Alas! how small the connection between education and virtue is well attested in this most enlightened but most vicious age. Religion block the way of civilization! Why, when science, art, and literature, in the Middle Ages, were cast out like helpless babes doomed to destruction, religion took them to her breast, nursed them in. the cloister, and restored them to the world, as Pharao's daughter restored Moses to be the leader — the saviour of the nation. Religion is the life-giving sun in the world of souls; the moon lighting up the darkness of human existence; and that same religion that began with humanity shall end only with humanity, for God is with it all time and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Brethren, religion is an essential element of our inner nature. As the stag after the fountain of living water, so our minds thirst after truth — and God is truth. The human will, feeling its own weakness, looks up for some infallible rule of action — and God is the way. Both body and soul feel they are created
