208 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF HAN 



sence. That community will and must survive in 

 which the largest proportion of members make the 

 accumulation of character their chief and first aim. 

 And to this community every rival must in time yield 

 its place and power, and all its acquisitions. And in 

 every advancing community the position of any class 

 or profession will in time be determined by its moral 

 wealth. 



But this moral wealth is intangible. The rewards 

 and penalties of moral law easily escape notice in our 

 hasty and superficial study of life. The God imma- 

 nent in our environment often seems to hide himself. 

 The altar of Jehovah is fallen down, and Baal's tem- 

 ples are crowded with loud-mouthed worshippers. The 

 bribes of present enjoyment and of immediate success 

 loom up before us, and we doubt if any other success 

 is possible. 



But the law of progress, even now so dimly dis- 

 cernible in environment, is written in our minds in 

 letters of fire. For we have already seen that environ- 

 ment can be understood only by tracing its effects in 

 the development of life. What is best and highest in 

 us is the record of the working of what is best and 

 highest in environment. And the personal God so 

 dimly seen in environment is revealed in man's soul. 

 Man must study himself, if he is to know what en- 

 vironment requires of him. And if the knowledge of 

 himself and of the laws of his being is the highest 

 knowledge, is not the vision of, and struggle toward, 

 higher attainments, not yet realized and hence neces- 

 sarily foreseen, the only mode of farther progress? 

 And what is this pursuit of, and devotion to, ideals 

 not yet realized and but dimly foreseen, if it is not 



