ion, this man will be called conservative, and that man progressive, for you expect every man to wear one or the other of the two titles. So one finds everywhere this tendency toward an arrangement of people into two groups, and to name these two would be a sufficient suggestion of all.

We may expect to find the same thing true of religion, or of the attitude of men toward religion. It is generally agreed that all men ought to take some attitude toward religion. Man may be called a religious animal as truly as he is a thinking, or working, or political animal. One of the universal human instincts remains unsatisfied until it finds some sort of religious satisfaction; that is to say, all men have some sort of religious need, but what sort of need is it? Well, if you try to answer that question for the people about you, you are apt to find them once more settling into just two groups, and groups so very different that one might think there must be two religions to serve for these two sorts of people. I have taken two texts to match these two sorts of people.

A representative of one of them speaks to us in the person of the young ruler. "What lack I yet?" he says. It was a young man of honorable position, large wealth, amiable and admirable character; a man who had done much, but still wanted to do more. A consciousness of past achievement

and of present unused power speaks through his lips. He had kept the commandments, or thought he had, so far as he knew them, but he was not ready to stop with that. "What lack I yet?" he asks. He seemed aware of gifts not yet fully utilized, powers not yet fully put into action, so he asks: "What other good things remain for me to do? Where is some farther goal for me to aim at? some higher mountain to climb? some larger world to conquer? some fiercer enemy to fight? something more to do?" It is the voice of youthful hope, energy, enthusiasm, aspiration.

And that is always a pleasant voice to hear. The speaker is generally somewhat youthful, not always over-wise. Older friends shake their heads and smile at that easy self-confidence. To some of us his past achievements may not seem so complete as they had seemed to him. And if the young man had known himself better, and had known the commandments of the law better, he would not have said off-hand, "I have kept them all from my youth." There is a freshness in him which starts a smile, but not an unfriendly smile; such freshness is very refreshing, we should be sorry to have him lose it. That same hopeful enthusiasm of his will have to furnish a large part of the motivepower of human progress.

While he was a boy this impulse showed itself in

his sports; always he wanted something more to do, something harder to do. Whenever a boy comes to be content with any established athletic record, his own or any other's, it shows that the sporting instinct has begun to decay in him; there ought to be still hope of bettering the record. "What lack I yet? How can I get another fifth of a second off the time? how can I add another quarter of an inch to the jump? at what point can I force myself on a hair's-breadth farther toward ideal perfection?" That is what they are all asking; it is the consciousness of a power that has not yet been fully utilized. "What lack I yet?"

Strange forms this impulse takes sometimes as the boy grows older tragical forms sometimes; you have the young knight-errant of chivalry riding about the world, searching through all the tournaments for some stronger antagonist to kill, or be killed by. In our day the same man would be risking his own and his fellow's lives trying to get a mile or two nearer the Pole, or a thousand feet higher up the mountain. I heard of a famous Alpine climber who was riding out from Zermatt some years ago, having finished his work there for the summer, for he had risked his life on every mountain in the neighborhood and had conquered them all, and therefore had packed up and was now going home. But on his way down the valley

word reached him that, the day before, a rival climber had reached the top of the Weisshorn by a new and more perpendicular route, never before dreamed of. "Halt!" says the man, " off with my trunks!" He would not leave Zermatt till he had made that new ascent too, or else left his body at the bottom of it. "What lack I yet?" So soon as you show such a man anything that he lacks, any possibility along his chosen line which he has not yet attained, off he starts instantly.

But suppose the climber should put his foot on the highest point of the Himalayas; suppose the voyager should plant his flag at the very centre of the North Pole, will that satisfy him? No, no; still he comes back, asking, “ What other good thing shall I do?" He is still hungry for achievement; it is an infinite appetite. Tell him of some height still better worth climbing; some truth better worth learning; some enemy better worth fighting; some friend better worth loving. And so at last such a man turns directly toward God. He cannot stop short of God. Can the infinite Creator himself give this energetic creature of His something better worth doing than the creature has yet discovered for himself, something that would make his life thoroughly worth while? That is the impulse, I am sure, which turns many inquirers toward religion; certainly that was the impulse which sent

the rich young ruler running toward Jesus. "What is it that I lack?" he cried; "show me how to do the good thing that I have not yet done."

Now Christianity has its answer ready for that sort of inquirers; but before asking what its answer may be, I should like first to turn your thoughts toward the other group-the opposite group; for there is another, and it is very different. The first group were conscious of more power to be used; this second group are conscious of weakness; the first group bring a record of past achievements, this second a memory of past failures; the first are looking for harder tasks to utilize their strength, this second are looking for help in tasks that have already proven too hard for them. So the others wanted work, but these cry for rest; the others were hopeful, these are discouraged. "Where is someone worthy of my love?" asked the others. "Where is anyone who will love me?" ask these.

The first were young in years or in spirit, for anyone in the position of that rich young ruler is apt to grow old rather slowly. But this second class were never young; even if not many years have yet passed over their heads, they are prematurely aged. Walk through the streets of any great city, and you will see little creatures, not yet in their teens, whose faces show the ugly marks of decrepitude. The struggle and burden of life have