farmers, lawyers, and doctors,
but to make noble and enlightened men. Hence the final thought in all
work is that we work not to have more, but to be more; not for higher
place, but for greater worth; not for fame, but for knowledge. In a
word, the final thought is that we labor to upbuild the being which we
are, and not merely to build round our real self with marble and gold
and precious stones. This is but the Christian teaching which has
transformed the world; which declares that it is the business of slaves
even, of beggars and outcasts, to work first of all for God and the
soul. The end is infinite, the aim must be the highest. Not to know
this, not to hear the heavenly invitation, is to be shut out from
communion with the best; is to be cut off from the source of growth; is
to be given over to modes of thought which fatally lead to mediocrity
and vulgarity of life.

To live for common ends is to be common.
The highest faith makes still the highest man;
For we grow like the things our souls believe,
And rise or sink as we aim high or low.
No mirror shows such likeness of the face
As faith we live by of the heart and mind.
We are in very truth that which we love;
And love, like noblest deeds, is born of faith.
The lover and the hero reason not,
But they believe in what they love and do.
All else is accident,--this is the soul
Of life, and lifts the whole man to itself,
Like a key-note, which, running through all sounds,
Upbears them all in perfect harmony.

We cannot set a limit to the knowledge and love of man, because they
spring from God, and move forever toward him who is without limit. That
we have been made capable of this ceaseless approach to an infinite
ideal is the radical fact in our nature. Through this we are human;
through this we are immortal; through this we are lifted above matter,
look through the rippling stream of time on the calm ocean of eternity,
and beyond the utmost bounds of space, see simple being,--life and
thought and love, deathless, imageless, absolute. This ideal creates the
law of duty, for it makes the distinction between right and wrong. Hence
the first duty of man is to make himself like God, through knowledge
ever-widening, through love ever-deepening, through life ever-growing.

So only can we serve God, so only can we love him. To be content with
ignorance is infidelity to his infinite truth. To rest in a lesser