to-day. We are called upon to dislodge what is easily the most popular
god in the calendar, albeit the littlest; that fat fluttering small boy,
congenitally blind, with his haphazard archery playthings; that
undignified conception, type of folly change and irresponsible mischief,
which so amazingly usurps the name and place of love. Never was there a
more absurd misrepresentation.

Suppose we worshipped Fire, the great sun for our over-lord, all lesser
lights in varying majesty, each hearth-fire as the genius and guardian
of the home. So worshipping, suppose we chose, as ever present image of
the great idea, to be pictured and sculptured far and wide, to fill all
literature, to be accepted even by science as type and symbol of the
Fire Divine--a match-box!

So slight, so transient, so comparatively negligible in importance, is
the flickering chance-sown spark typified in this pretty chimera of
flying immaturity, compared with the majestic quenchless flame of life
and love we ought to worship.

We have taken the assistant for the principal, a tributary for the main
stream; we have exalted Eros, the god of man's desire, and paid no heed
to that great goddess of mother love to whom young Eros is but a running
footman.

We are right to worship love, in all its wide, diverging branches; the
love that is gratitude, love that is sympathy. love that is admiration,
love that is gift and service; even the love that is but hunger--mere
desire.

But when we talk of the Life Force, the strong stream of physical