THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 181 



which you have been reared, and are accustomed to, yet when 

 taken in conjunction with their surroundings, duties and obli- 

 gations, their crimes are less conflicting and less likely to 

 destroy the virtues that their social environments demand 

 than your own faults would be. And that the very virtues 

 you glory so much in would be of very much less value if you 

 were to rise or fall from your present social position to either 

 a higher or a lower one. Perfection lies in having the wisdom 

 and self-control to adapt your actions to the circumstances, 

 and company in which time and situation may place you. 



If you have not this perfection you cannot rise 

 without offence or fall without disgrace. To sum up, this 

 sermon, mind your own business in the best manner and least 

 offensive manner you can, so that you do not injure or offend 

 others, or act unjustly towards them. Leave others to mind 

 theirs, provided they do not offend, injure or intentionally 

 affront you. And then you will realise that God is only 

 carrying out exactly the same plan in the development of 

 your soul as He has carried out throughout the whole course 

 of creation. So also in the evolution of religion he has only 

 again followed out the same course of evolution when He 

 makes different religions the various machines of a like order, 

 that are to fertilize the various forms and classes of the various 

 kinds of human minds, which are as numerous as the various 

 races and the different surroundings that gave them birth. 



Thus He is in the same way preparing the mind of man- 

 kind for the evolution of his soul, in precisely the same 

 manner as in the past, when He enriched the world with the 

 past products of plant and animal life. He has enriched 

 your soul with the past lives of your departed ances- 

 tors and will permit your acts to enrich the souls and minds 

 of your children. He will in future, as He evolves your 

 soul, water it with even more copious rain of divine inspira- 

 tion as He permits further lights of revelation to shine 

 through the clouds of superstition, fanaticism and bigotry, as 

 He disperses these clouds by the increased light of science and 

 knowledge, safeguarded by a better knowledge and under- 

 standing of God and His Trinity, and its influence and con- 

 nection with evolution and creation. That this treatise may 

 do something to disperse these clouds of superstition and 

 bigotry, and stimulate mankind to make greater efforts to 



