the power of Thought will go on steadily and surely, and the mind will
become constantly more and more clarified from all folly and silliness.

When a person brings everything habitually to the standard of right and
wrong, he gradually learns to judge wisely of whatever subject he may
hold under consideration, provided he does not seek for that standard in
his own mind, but in the mind of the Lord, as he has given it to us in
the Word of eternal life. When this standard is sought only in the human
mind, nothing is fixed or permanent, and discord abounds in society much
as it would if the length and breadth of the fingers of each individual
were to be substituted for the standard inch and foot of the nation; but
if the Bible be honestly and humbly received as the standard by which to
judge of right and wrong, mankind would ever abide in brotherly love and
harmonious union. The element of discord is not in God's work, but in
the mind of man; and man becomes truly wise and capable of concord only
so far as, forgetting the devices of his own understanding, he becomes a
recipient of the truth that descends to him from on high.

It may be objected that the Bible has been the fruitful source of
contention and war; and some may suppose it cannot therefore be a
standard of union to the world; but it should be remembered that, when
it has become a cause of dissension, it has been by the perversion of
man, who has separated doctrine from life,--has put asunder that
which God joined. No contention has ever risen in the world regarding
religious life, but many and terrible ones regarding religious doctrine
separated from life; and it is perfectly apparent, that, had those who
were engaged in them, looked to religious life with the same earnestness
they did toward doctrine, all these dissensions must have ceased.
Christian life is, as it were, a building, of which faith is the
foundation. The foundation is subservient to the superstructure, and