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return to the undistinguised dust from which they sprang; but man possesses that over which death has no power, and the extinction of one life is but the dawn of another of greater power and beauty. Some there are who doubt this: to such this argument will have no weight; but to those who believe in the soul's future, and to others who, like myself, know that we continue to live hereafter, the reasonableness of this will be apparent.—William Denton.

TRUE PRAYER.

In its essence, prayer is something deeper than words. Words are but one of many forms in which true prayer may find expression; nor has everything that passes for prayer a right to bear the name. Volubility of tongue is commonly in the inverse ratio to prayerfulness of spirit. When the soul prays best, the lips are sealed. A torrent of words poured forth with pious whine, shouted or screamed, perhaps, at the top of the voice, is too often the soul's ostentatious proclamation of its own prayerlessness. Deep feeling is no master of rhetoric. I would rather listen to the rumbling of cartwheels over stone pavements than to a rhetorical prayer. The one is honest, the other is dishonest, noise.

True prayer is the soul's deep homage to goodness and beauty and truth,-the profound thirst for divine life, its thrill of reverential worship before infinite and eternal Being, its deep self-identification with the One and All. It is the unutterable repose of the tired spirit in the boundless and living Whole, the ending of ignorant struggle against the omnipresent Power that fills infinitude with itself and holds us all in the bosom of changeless law. It is not extinction of the private will, in hopeless submission to a Fate whose right is its might, but rather the glad identification of the private will with the deepest currents of the universe, its conscious and active trust in the "higher thoughts and higher ways" of the universal Mind. It is the mighty gravitation of the soul to its Source,

the strong attraction of its love for the Supreme Loveliness, its joyous flight above the clouds into the serenest radiance of the empyrean. What is it not, that is deep, real, vital, in man's experience? It is earnestness, it is courage, it is truthfulness, it is purity, it is principle, it is love, it is the uplifting of the heart to God and self-dedication to all that is God-like. It is the outflashing of the inner light into the outward life. It is the supreme experience that makes an oasis in the desert of desolate years.

The spirit of prayer is thus the Soul of Nature breathing through the soul of man. Wherever it lives and moves, it as inevitably creates some form of self-expression as a gushing spring creates for itself a channel. But its forms of expression are as diverse as the faces and the characters of men. It would be as idle as presumptuous to prescribe one and the same form for all. Let each heart utter its own life in its own way. Everything is a prayer, a true and genuine prayer, that expresses an inward endeavor and longing for diviner character. It may utter itself without words in the heightened color of the cheek, the quick suffusing of the eye, in the unconscious bowing of the head, in the swifter throbbing of the heart, in the escape of a contrite sigh, in the electric thrill of the nerves at the sight of beauty or goodness; all these, and countless others, may be prayers more full, more complete, than the blended supplications of a mighty multitude.

However it may utter itself, whether with or without voice, this uplifting of the heart to the Absolute Best is the fountain of noble living and high character; and prayer, truly conceived, means each and every expression of this inward self-consecration. Truly to pray is to be conscious of a deep devotion to the ideal and perfect Good, and to put this inward devotion into some sincere expression. The one prayer incumbent upon all is to live nobly; beyond this, there is no obligation. Yet I count it a mark of spiritual misdevelopment, or at least undevelopment, when no outgush of heart-worship ever clothes itself in words,—when no inward jubilee or profound yearning ever

seeks relief in direct speech to the omnipresent and indwelling One. Whether I were commanded or forbidden to pray in words, the two grievances would be equal; the vocal prayer is mockery if it be not spontaneous and free, and if it be spontaneous and free, it will not be repressed.

True prayer, therefore, is neither an attempt to enlist Omnipotence in the service of our little private jobs, nor an attempt to undermine the foundations of the universe by overthrowing the changelessness of its laws. Were it either of these, it would be infinitely childish and ridiculous, as pulpit prayers too often are. But true prayer, gushing spontaneously from a full heart, is the simple outbreathing of a peaceful and reverential spirit. Even the joy of Nature is a prayer. The sea prays in the splendid sparkle and everlasting dash of its waters. The earth prays in the uplifting of its mountain peaks like worshipping hands. The stars of night pray with radiant eyelids forever trembling as if to repress tears of adoring joy. The universe is everywhere at prayer, laying on the altar the thank-offering of its own beauty and peace. Shall the soul of man alone be mute, and pour forth no song of thanksgiving and delight? Like the birds in spring, it must utter itself in music.-F. E. Abbott.

FIFTY AFFIRMATIONS.

[The following outlines are offered as a purely individual interpretation of the free religious movement, it being proper to state that few, if any, of its other friends will wholly agree with it.]

RELIGION.

1. Religion is the effort of man to perfect himself.

2. The root of religion is universal human nature.

3. Historical religions are all one, in virtue of this one

common root.

4. Historical religions are all different, in virtue of their different historical origin and development.

5. Every historical religion has thus two distinct elements, -one universal or spiritual, and the other special or historical.

6. The universal element is the same in all historical religions; the special element is peculiar in each of them.

7. The universal and special elements are equally essential to the existence of an historical religion.

8. The unity of all religions must be sought in their universal element.

9. The peculiar character of each religion must be sought in its special element.

RELATION OF JUDAISM TO CHRISTIANITY.

10. The idea of a coming "kingdom of heaven” arose naturally in the Hebrew mind after the decay of the Davidic monarchy, and ripened under foreign oppression into a passionate longing and expectation.

11. The "kingdom of heaven" was to be a world-wide empire on this earth, both temporal and spiritual, to be established on the ruins of the great empires of antiquity by the miraculous intervention of Jehovah.

12. The Messiah or Christ was to reign over the "kingdom of heaven" as the visible deputy of Jehovah, who was considered the true sovereign of the Hebrew nation. He was to be Priest-King, the supreme pontiff or high-priest of the Hebrew church, and absolute monarch of the Hebrew state.

13. The "apocalyptical literature" of the Jews exhibits the gradual formation and growth of the idea of the Messianic "kingdom of heaven."

14. All the leading features of the gospel doctrine concerning the "kingdom of heaven," the "end of the world," the "great day of judgment," the "coming of the Christ in the clouds of heaven," the "resurrection of the dead," the condemnation of the wicked and the exaltation of the righteous, the "passing away of the heavens and earth," and the appear

ance of a “new heaven and a new earth," were definitely formed and fixed in the Hebrew mind, in the century before Jesus was born.

15. John the Baptist came preaching that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But he declared himself merely the forerunner of the Messiah.

16. Jesus also came preaching that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and announced himself as the Messiah or Christ.

17. Jesus emphasized the spiritual aspect of the Messianic kingdom; but, although he expected his throne to be established by the miraculous intervention of God, and therefore refused to employ human means in establishing it, he nevertheless expected to discharge the political functions of his office, as King and Judge, when the fulness of time should arrive.

18. As a preacher of purely spiritual truth, Jesus probably stands at the head of all the great religious teachers of the past.

19. As claimant of the Messianic crown, and founder of Christianity as a distinct historical religion, Jesus shared the spirit of an unenlightened age, and stands on the same level with Gautama or Mohammed.

20. In the belief of his disciples, the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus would not prevent the establishment of the kingdom of heaven." His throne was conceived to be already established in the heavens; and the early church impatiently awaited its establishment on earth at the "second coming of the Christ."

21. Christianity thus appears as simply the complete development of Judaism,—the highest possible fulfilment of the Messianic dreams based on the Hebrew conception of a "chosen people."

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