other use of the name is abuse of it. Under some interpretation or other, the Christian Confession is the boundary line of Christianity. FREE RELIGION. 32. The Protestant Reformation was the birth of Free Religion, the beginning of the religious protest against authority within the confines of the Christian church. 33. The history of Protestantism is the history of the growth of Free Religion at the expense of the Christian Religion. As love of freedom increases, reverence for authority decreases. 34. The completion of the religious protest against authority must be the extinction of faith in the Christian Confession. 35. Free Religion is emancipation from the outward law, and voluntary obedience to the inward law. 36. The great faith or moving power of Free Religion is faith in man as a progressive being. 37. The great ideal end of Free Religion is the perfection or complete development of man, the race serving the individual, the individual serving the race. 38. The great practical means of Free Religion is the integral, continuous and universal education of man. 39. The great law of Free Religion is the still small voice of the private soul. 40. The great peace of Free Religion is spiritual oneness with the infinite One. 41. Free Religion is the natural outcome of every historical religion, the final unity, therefore, towards which all historical religions slowly tend. RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO FREE Religion. 42. Christianity is identical with Free Religion so far as its universal element is concerned,-antagonistic to it so far as its special element is concerned. 43. The corner-stone of Christianity is faith in the Christ. The corner-stone of Free Religion is faith in Human Nature. 44. The great institution of Christianity is the Christian Church, the will of the Christ being its supreme law. The great institution of Free Religion is the coming Republic of the World, the universal conscience and reason of mankind being its supreme organic law or constitution. 45. The fellowship of Christianity is limited by the Christian Confession; its brotherhood includes all subjects of the Christ, and excludes all others. The fellowship of Free Religion is universal and free; it proclaims the great brotherhood of man, without limit or bound. 46. The practical work of Christianity is to Christianize the world, to convert all souls to the Christ, and ensure their salvation from the wrath of God. The practical work of Free Religion is to humanize the world,—to make the individual nobler here and now, and to convert the human race into a vast Co-operative Union devoted to universal ends. 47. The spiritual ideal of Christianity is the suppression of self and perfect imitation of Jesus the Christ. The spiritual ideal of Free Religion is the development of self, and the harmonious education of all its powers to the highest possible degree. 48. The essential spirit of Christianity is that of self-humiliation at the feet of Jesus, and passionate devotion to his person. The essential spirit of Free Religion is that of selfrespect and free self-devotion to great ideas. Christianity is prostrate on its face; Free Religion is erect on its feet. 49. The noblest fruit of Christianity is a self-sacrificing love of man for Jesus' sake. The noblest fruit of Free Religion is a self-sacrificing love of man for man's own sake. 50. Christianity is the faith of the soul's childhood; Free Religion is the faith of the soul's manhood. In the gradual growth of mankind out of Christianity into Free Religion, lies the only hope of the spiritual perfection of the individual and the spiritual unity of the race.-F. E. Abbott. PHYSICAL CONDITION OF HUMANITY. I think there is hope when a religion is presented to the people which is not only in favor of free thought and free speech, but which endeavors also to benefit the physical condition of humanity. There never was, there never can be, such a thing as true pleasure in vice or crime; and yet the land is full of them, because, as I think, the social condition of the people is not cared for as it ought to be at the present moment. I agree with the sentiment of that great social reformer, Robert Owen, that the characters of men are formed for them, instead of by them; and, consequently, I think the influence of circumstances in this country, rather than any natural or inherent depravity in mankind, accounts for the degradation and vice and crime that prevail in every section of the country. Let us not then suppose that it is owing to any natural or inherent depravity that this state of things exists, but only in the fact that the true remedy for social evils has not yet been put into practice; but, when the remedy is applied the reform will be complete. And it is a great sign of the times, my friends, that Radicals and Liberals and free-thinking men are doing what nes in their power for the promotion of this great reform. Let men, if they can do no better, dream of a hereafter, to which I have no kind of objection; but the hereafter must be according to the present, and, if people live well in the present, they have the best preparation for the future. But to go into the future unprepared by the present may, perhaps, for anything I know to the contrary, be the same routine over again. But be that as it may, I am getting beyond my depth: I do not know anything about these matters; I do not pretend to know. Being finite, frail, and imperfect, I do not presume to understand the infinite, and therefore I confine my thoughts here; for I think there is enough to do in this world, and more than enough, to occupy all our time in improving the condition of the people here. And those who believe in the hereafter, should not object to the doctrine, because he who is right to-day will probably be right to-morrow. That there are those in the community who entertain these aspirations, and are endeavoring, by the aid of social science, to improve society and even religion itself, is one of the hopeful signs of the times. "Raising their voices in a chant sublime, They sing the glory of the coming time, And right shall reign supreme, and vanquish wrong." Horace Seaver. THEODORE PARKER. TEACHINGS. With Protestant ministers the Bible is a Fetish; it is with Catholic priests, only to them the Roman Church is the Master Fetish, the "Big Thunder," while the Bible is but an inferior and subordinate idol. For ultimate authority the minister does not appeal to God manifesting himself in the world of matter and the world of man, but only to the Bible; to that he prostitutes mind and conscience, heart and soul. Ministers take the Bible in a lump as divine; all between its lids as the "Word of God," infallible and miraculous; he that believeth not shall be damned; and no amount of piety or morality can make up for not believing this. No doctor is ever so subordinate to his drug, no lawyer lies so prone before statute and custom, as the mass of ministers before the Bible. -The whole universe of matter is a great mundane psalm to celebrate the reign of Power, Law and Mind. Fly through the solar system from remotest Neptune to the Sun, study each planet, it is the same. Ask every little orange leaf, ask the aphis that feeds thereon, ask the insect corpses lying by millions in the dead ashes of the farmer's peat-fire, the remains of mollusks that gave up the ghost millions of years before man trod the globe,--they all, with united voice, answer still the same,-power, law, mind. In all the space from Neptune to the sun, in all the time from silicious shell to the orange leaf of to-day, there is no failure of that power, no break of that law, no cessation in its constant mode of operation, no error of that mind, whereof all space is here, all time is now. So the world is witness continually to power, to never-failing law, to mind that is everywhere; is witness to that ever-present Power which men call God. Look up and reverence; look down and trust. —One of the most remarkable things in this world is the abundance of beauty, feeding and comforting man's finer and nicer faculties. God, after setting before us what we turn to bread, and garments, and houses, and musical instruments, and books, gives us the benediction of beauty as an unexpected grace after meat. In all this, I see the loveliness of the Infinite Father and Infinite Mother. Not a lichen scars the rock, not a star flames in the sky, but it tells of the infinite loveliness of the infinitely loving God. -Industry is the business of men. It is a dignity, and only idleness a disgrace, a wrong, a curse. If you earn nothing by head or hand, by heart or soul, then you are, and must be, a beggar or a thief, and neither pay for your board or lodging. —Let amusement fill up the chinks of your existence, but not the great spaces thereof. Let your pleasures be taken as Daniel took his prayer, with his windows open-pleasures which need not cause a blush on an ingenuous cheek. -Think of a young man growing up, conquered by his appetites the soul veiled by the body, the smutch of shame on all the white raiment of God's youthful son, who can stoop the pride of his youth so low, and be a trifler, a drunkard, a debauchee! The mind of man despises it, and woman's holy soul casts it aside with scorn. Stern as you may think me, and as I am, I can only weep at such decay as this,-flowers trod down by swine, the rainbow broken by the storm, the soul pros、 trate and trodden by the body's cruel hoof. -The whole sum and substance of human history may be |