nding commercial civilization. There are two kinds of
materials,--those of the native earth and the idols of one's hands. The
latter are much in evidence in modern life, with the conquests of
engineering, mechanics, architecture, and all the rest. We visualize
them everywhere, and particularly in the great centres of population.
The tendency is to be removed farther and farther from the everlasting
backgrounds. Our religion is detached.

We come out of the earth and we have a right to the use of the
materials; and there is no danger of crass materialism if we recognize
the original materials as divine and if we understand our proper
relation to the creation, for then will gross selfishness in the use of
them be removed. This will necessarily mean a better conception of
property and of one's obligation in the use of it. We shall conceive of
the earth, which is the common habitation, as inviolable. One does not
act rightly toward one's fellows if one does not know how to act rightly
toward the earth.

Nor does this close regard for the mother earth imply any loss of
mysticism or of exaltation: quite the contrary. Science but increases
the mystery of the unknown and enlarges the boundaries of the spiritual
vision. To feel that one is a useful and co-operating part in nature is
to give one kinship, and to open the mind to the great resources and the
high enthusiasms. Here arise the fundamental common relations. Here
arise also the great emotions and conceptions of sublimity and grandeur,
of majesty and awe, the uplift of vast desires,--when one contemplates
the earth and the universe and desires to take them into the soul and to
express oneself in their terms; and here also the responsible practices
of life take root.

So much are we now involved in problems of human groups, so persistent
are the portrayals of our social afflictions, and so well do we magnify
our woes by insisting on them, so much in sheer weariness do we provide
antidotes to soothe our feelings and to cause us to forget by means of
many empty diversions, that we may neglect to express ourselves in
simple free personal joy and to separate the obligation of the
individual from the irresponsibilities of the mass.

_In the beginning_

It suits my purpose to quote the first sentence in the Hebrew Scripture:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This is a statement of tremendous reach, introducing the cosmos; for it
sets forth in