Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without limit.
Admitting the force of these contentions, nevertheless, the custom of meeting together in public assembly for the consideration of the most serious, the most exalted topics of human interest is too vitally precious to be lost.
The office of the public teacher is an unenviable and thankless one.
No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.
Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.
Every dogma, every philosophic or theological creed, was at its inception a statement in terms of the intellect of a certain inner experience.