The world without good causes is the world without progress. The richer any community is in good causes the wider the scope of advance. When art and science and religion appear as causes essential to the higher development of human life, when these causes become great forces in the service of men, they put a new face upon society and behind the face they create a new heart.

Our genuine causes are simply the interests of men lifted into the imagination and devotion of wise servants. Our needs are many and urgent; they reflect themselves in the thought of our time; they stir feeling and appeal to action. Thus there issues the world of human service in response to the world of human need. These interests and needs differ in intensity and value; they all are urgent, but some of them are indispensably important. The essential and the incidental stand apart; the great interests without which men cannot be men rise and shine like the stars in some mighty constellation like the blazing worlds that constitute Orion or the Bear. The sovereign interest is that which comprehends all the separate essential needs of human beings as space comprehends all worlds, as the force of gravity keeps all worlds to their appointed place and, task.

This cause that comprehends all other essen

tial causes, that orders all in the passion for perfection, is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. It is the ideal of perfected society, the vision of humanity adjusted to its environment, reconciled to itself, and under the dominion of the Eternal Love. The essential interests of society are the separate polished stones; as they are brought together and fitted wisely, stone to stone, something new emerges, a building of God, a habitation of the Eternal Spirit.

Here, then, is the vision of our sovereign cause. It is vast as the total need of our race; it is great and beautiful as the perfected life of society. It appeals to the moral imagination as the greater aspects of nature appeal to feeling. There looms our cause in the great mountain ranges looking through mist and cloud and fire. There goes our cause in the waves and tides of the mighty sea; there shines our cause in the multitudinousness and blazing unity of the starry sky; there spreads our cause in the all-comprehending beauty and mystery of space.

The kingdom of heaven is within you; there is the interior spirit answering to the cause. Here it must be said that men get their worth from their causes. Washington's strength and purity, Lincoln's patient tenderness, and Cromwell's greatness came from their respective causes. The whole capacity of the soul for worth

is called forth in this way. Paul says, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father"; Jesus says, "For this cause came I into the world." The cause is the reveillé that sounds the whole compass of the heart, that calls into action its total power. Jesus is the product of his cause; Paul is the issue of his Master's cause which he makes his own. All great characters have been born of great causes. The glorious company of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, the heroic succession of the prophets, the radiant band of devoted mothers, the splendid procession of great patriots, the clear-eyed and undiscouraged reformers, the deep-hearted, unwearied and unweariable friends of mankind, all have risen up in light and splendor from their causes. The capacity for worth is all that the idle and undevoted soul can possess; the actual worth of the whole world is drawn from the heart of the cause that is served. That men may come to their best, God has given them the kingdom to serve; that they may not fail of their reward, He gives them their utmost worth through their work for Him.

The deepest law of the spirit is that men become like what they love. The horror of perversity is here that men in their wantonness are being conformed to base ends; the tragedy of mistake is clearly seen when it appears that the soul in its mistaken love is approaching in char

acter the hideous idol that has deceived it; the glory of reasonable love shines in the swift process whereby the lover is assimilated to the loftier character of the beloved; the saving grace in the Christian faith is revealed by the manner in which the love of Christ exalts the whole human being; the divine nature of man is attested by his capacity to love the Eternal Worth; the divine life takes possession of man as he gives himself in love to the Infinite Loveliness. According to Plato the highest good is to become like God as far as that is possible for man; and the possible is made actual through love. The supreme end of existence according to our Lord is to be like God; "ye shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"; and the way to that ineffable goal is through love. All highest thought of man works out its good for man through man's love for the Eternal Loveliness. The state of the heart is the reflection of the heart's object; when the heart reflects Christ, its mood is worth and peace, as the lake is luminous and beautiful in whose depths the star shines.

3. The hope of the kingdom of heaven as cause and as mood is in the will of God. Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. The origin of the kingdom gives us the right to be optimists. Look at the operation of the kingdom of the ideal. Here

is a man who in his life defies the divine order of his being; the will of God continues to hold that order for him; upon sensualist, drunkard, self-seeker, that order is forever pushed further and further; he cannot eject it; it torments him by its divine beauty. Look at that home seeking happiness in wild egoism, in disregard of social man and social justice. Is that home happy? The divine order of home is in its heart; that order searches it, judges it, condemns it, holds it under perpetual punishment. There is trade when every man's hand is against every other man's. Does that condition of the industrial world issue in happiness, in content? There is another order proclaiming that man is needful to man, that man is the brother of man. Wherever you look you find that God's order will not vanish at the bidding of man's selfishness; that man cannot stand absolved in the process of egoism; that he cannot find happiness or the realization of his being in disregard of the divine purpose that lives in him, the veritable, indwelling God.

This order that cannot be overthrown, that pushes on to ever greater authority through the sins and follies of man, gives us hope that it will prevail. You cannot drive God out of human life. You cannot undo his deity; his sovereignty lies deep and permanent in man's being; and He will torment man - individual, domestic, social,