definite goal, had we set our ideals clearly before us and carefully
thought out the steps to be taken one by one towards their realisation!

The recognition of these conditions is needed now, and will in the
coming changes be needed more and more. Enthusiasm and sanity must be
united to carry us safely forward. Tradition and custom will count for
less either in maintaining or in preventing what is evil. Many old modes
of thought, many old habits which checked us in the downward as well as
hindered us in the upward path, will have been destroyed by the fire
through which we have been passing. We need a conscious plan more than
ever for rebuilding and good workmanship in execution detail by detail.

Image the whole, then execute the parts.
Fancy the fabric
Quite ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick.

Then take the trowel and see that brick by brick each course is truly
laid.

But we are not building a new city on unoccupied ground; there are some
foundations truly laid which have withstood the fire and storm and which
cannot be disturbed without both risk and useless toil. There are still
edifices standing to which time has given a beauty and tradition a
sanctity which newer creations cannot possess. They cannot be removed
without irreparable loss. Like any other metaphor, that of rebuilding a
city as compared with the action of a state, of a nation, after a time
of change and trouble, is misleading if pressed too far. Progress for a
nation must rather be the growth and development of a living organism
adapting itself to new conditions or altered environment. We should "lop