No Religion Can Long Continue To Maintain

For More Than Three Thousand Years Men Have Quarreled Concerning The Formulas Of Their Faith. The Earth Has Been Drenched With Blood Shed In This Cause, The Face Of Day Darkened With The Blackness Of The Crimes Perpetrated In Its Name.

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.

It Is The Moral Element Contained In It That Alone Gives Value And Dignity To A Religion, And Only In So Far As Its Teachings Serve To Stimulate And Purify Our Moral Aspirations Does It Deserve To Retain Its Ascendency Over Mankind.

We Cannot Adopt The Way Of Living That Was Satisfactory A Hundred Years Ago. The World In Which We Live Has Changed, And We Must Change With It.

Ethical Religion Affirms The Continuity Of Progress Toward Moral Perfection. It Affirms That The Spiritual Development Of The Human Race Cannot Be Prematurely Cut Off, Either Gradually Or Suddenly; That Every Stone Of Offence Against Which We Stumble Is A Stepping-stone To Some Greater Good; That, At The End Of Days, If We Choose To Put It So, Or, Rather, In Some Sphere Beyond The World Of Space And Time, All The Rays Of Progress Will Be Summed And Centred In A Transcendent Focus.