heir code of conduct. But where they went far beyond us was
in the special application of religious feeling to every field of
life. They had no ritual, no little set of performances called "divine
service," save those religious pageants I have spoken of, and those were
as much educational as religious, and as much social as either. But they
had a clear established connection between everything they did--and
God. Their cleanliness, their health, their exquisite order, the rich
peaceful beauty of the whole land, the happiness of the children, and
above all the constant progress they made--all this was their religion.

They applied their minds to the thought of God, and worked out the
theory that such an inner power demanded outward expression. They lived
as if God was real and at work within them.

As for those little temples everywhere--some of the women were more
skilled, more temperamentally inclined, in this direction, than others.
These, whatever their work might be, gave certain hours to the Temple
Service, which meant being there with all their love and wisdom and
trained thought, to smooth out rough places for anyone who needed it.
Sometimes it was a real grief, very rarely a quarrel, most often a
perplexity; even in Herland the human soul had its hours of darkness.
But all through the country their best and wisest were ready to give
help.

If the difficulty was unusually profound, the applicant was directed to
someone more specially experienced in that line of thought.

Here was a religion which gave to the searching mind a rational basis
in life, the concept of an immense Loving Power working steadily out
through them, toward good. It gave to the "soul" that sense of contact
with the inmost force, of perception of the uttermost purpose, which we
always crave. It gave to the "heart" the blessed feeling of being loved,
loved and UNDERSTOOD. It gave clear, simple, rational directions as
to how we should live--and why. And for ritual it gave first those
triumphant group demonstrations, when with a union of all the arts,
the revivifying combination of great multitudes moved rhythmically with
march and dance, song and music, among their own noblest products
and the open beauty of their groves and hills. Second, it gave these
numerous little centers of wisdom where the least wise could go to the
most wise and be helped.

"It is beautiful!" I cried enthusiastically. "It is the most practical,
comforting, progressiv