ocks; quarry them. Men go into inanimate
nature and get the materials they need. Nor is it very different in
the great world of business and ambition. The giant takes one man for
the foundation and cuts him down and builds him into the walls; he
selects another man and uses him up, building his substance into the
structure; he looks upon his fellows as the shepherd upon his
flocks--so much wool to be sheared.

Nor is the work of conscience very different in the moral and
spiritual realm. Here is one man who is conscientious toward
yesterday. Ten years ago, he says, "while kneeling in the field light
broke through the clouds" and he obtained "a hope." And every Sunday
since that day he has not failed to recall that scene. He is not
conscientious about having a new, fresh, crisp, vital experience for
to-day, but he is conscientiously faithful in recalling that old
experience. It is all as foolish as if he should say that ten years
ago he had a bath, or ten years ago he drank at the bubbling spring,
or ten years ago he met a friend. What about to-day's purity, to-day's
loaf and to-day's friendships? The heart should count no manna good
that is not gathered fresh each morning. Others there are whose
conscience works largely toward doctrine and intellectual statements.
With them Christianity is a function of thought in the brain. These
are they who want every sermon to consist of linked arguments. The
good deacon sits in his pew and listens to the unfolding of proofs of
election or foreordination. When the arguments have been piled up to
sixteen or eighteen, the good man begins to chuckle with delight,
saying, "Verily, this is a high day in Israel; my soul feasts on fat
things." Other men want some flesh on their skeletons, but he is fed
on the dry bones of logic.

Sometimes conscience affects only the feelings. Fifty years ago there
was a type numbering hundreds of thousands of persons whose religion
was largely emotional. In great camp-meetings filled with a warm
atmosphere men showed at their best. The sunny spot of all the year
was the month of revival meetings. Then they experienced the luxury of
spiritual enjoyment. They lived on the top of some Mount of
Transfiguration, while the world below was thundering with wickedness
and tormented with passion. Men became drunk with emotions. Religion
was an exquisite form of spiritual selfishness. Afterward came an era
when men learned to transmute feelings into thoughts and f