is a diviner life, a serener consciousness, a more golden condition, than that of the body and its relations to the world.

-Spiritualism is the only resort of all Christian progressives, who hold on to the idea of God, and to the possibility of a natural divine life; and Atheism is the only resort of all those who cannot so hold on. Just where Spiritualism differs from Theology it agrees with the religion of Jesus. It is alive, fresh, spontaneous, progressive. But what is the genius, spirit, scope of the great Spiritual Movement? What are its ideas, methods, sources of power, and aims? Is it all confined to the fact of intercourse between the two worlds? Nay, far from it. He who accepts the fact of spiritual intercourse, must take all that goes logically with that fact as part of the truth of the whole move

ment.

career of a soul in this life Is it not proper, then, for it

Spiritualism shows how the affects its condition in the next. to deal with the conditions of this life? We felt that the ministering angels of the spiritual world inspired and pushed us on to the work, as well as the deep voice of our inmost spiritual nature. Our aim is the attainment of that "perfection and truthfulness of mind which is the secret intention of Nature." Verily, our aim is too large to admit a creed or sect. We hold that the "chief end of man" is the highest and most harmonious development of all the powers of life to a complete and consistent whole.

-The gospel of this epoch is for progress-for the enfranchisement of woman, and her admission, on terms of equality with man, to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of life. It demands justice to all classes of citizens. It calls on government to make all equal before the law. It opens itself to science and philosophy, and all truth, from every quarter of the globe. While in religion the advent of the Spiritual Dis. pensation, emancipating millions in our own land as well as in Europe, the decay of the Papal hierarchy, and the revival of the spirit of Art, and its consecration to Nature, attests the immense

activity and spiritual energy of this century. All these facts are the sure signs of coming benefits.

Supernaturalism is now rapidly sinking into hopeless decrepitude and remediless decay. Under the influence of liberal scholarship, free thought, fearless criticism, and the great Spiritual Movement, joined with the late discoveries in science, popular theology is being actually destroyed.

Behold, the seventh great religious revolution of the world is upon us. Brahminism, Buddhism, Judaism, Classicalism, Mohammedanism, and even modern Christianity, are, regarding their claims, only failures. All have failed to save man from ignorance, crime, war, slavery and woe. Now the race advances, either to Atheism or to a universal Spiritualism.-Selden F. Finney.

THE "FREE RELIGIOUS" MOVEMENT.

Let us not be misunderstood. We are not brought to affirm the indifference of religions: still less are we tempted to assert their equality in dignity or worth. That some are nobler than others is a fact too evident to be overlooked. One is leaf, another blossom, another fruit. Indeed, to compare them is less easy than to contrast them. Strung along in a line from the world's infancy to its maturity, they represent the stages of the world's growth. The sentiment of the Infinite is the creative source of them all. But that sentiment, how variably is it blended! It may be found somewhere to exist as pure sentiment, unmixed with intellect. The religions of India combine sentiment with fancy. The religions of the Semitic race are a combination of sentiment with moral sense. In China the sentiment has a large infusion of the filial, domestic, and ancestral'spirit. We need not hesitate to say, that Christianity is the crowning glory of religions thus far; but we must not turn a deaf ear to eulogiums which other faiths receive from their adherents. The Christian claims that his religion is the religion of the highest races, and the most developed civilizations. He declares that it associates the religious sentiment

with the greatest number of regal powers, with the most sympathy, conscience, intelligence and imagination; that its theology is the grandest piece of speculative construction yet achieved; its churches the noblest monuments of organized feeling and purpose yet erected; its cultus the most complete expression of the heart's desire, the most comprehensive ministration to its need yet devised; that its sacred books are, as a whole, so much richer than those of any other faith, that they are not altogether unworthy to be called "The Bible." In the purity of its moral standard; the sublimity of its moral ideal; the spendor of its cardinal virtues; the sweetness of its spiritual graces; the strength of its upward-soaring wing; the tenderness of its human regards; its skilful blending of judgment and grace; the awfulness of its abysses; the transcendency of its heights; the vastness of its pictorial representations; the magnificence of the frescoes with which it has covered the adamantine walls of the world; the softness of its angels; the terror of its fiends; the domestic qualities of its Godhead, Father, Mother, and Child; the stateliness of its drama of redemption, whose stage is the heaven-canopied universe, whose scenes are the epochs of history, whose dramatis personæ are all created beings, nay, the uncreated Being himself,—in these, and in a hundred respects besides, Christianity, in the view of its disciples, is the queen of faiths.

But the older faiths of India, Persia, China, Judea, speak of their glories and superiorities, too, as rapturously as this faith does. And if we look forward, measuring by the rule of present intelligence, we see those who regard Christianity as very imperfect.

Is Christianity the full and final faith? Does it satisfy philosophy? Does it exhaust feeling? Is it synonymous with reason? It is a gorgeous romance. Is it a complete story of the heart's life? Is it even poetry for the modern imagination? Does it satisfy the dreams of the mature world? Is it our Tennyson, or our Browning? Our George Eliot, or even our Charles Dickens? Is it open to no criticism? What state

ment will you make of it that commands general assent? When Mr. Abbott says Christianity culminates in Romanism, every Protestant nostril dilates with scorn. When Protestantism unfolds its scheme, the Liberals shake their heads. The Liberals produce their interpretation, and an audible smile ripples over the countenance of the by-standers. India is ready to welcome Christ, Keshub Chunder Sen declares; but it can make nothing of the system of dogmas that bears his name. Philosophy looks on Christianity, and says: "Yes, it is very impressive as a fact in history, very imposing as an institution, very beautiful as a demonstration of sentiment, very sonorous as an example of rhetoric, very superb as a piece of art, a master-work of architecture, painting, and song; but before an advanced intelligence can accept it, there must be important modifications. The dogmas must be restated, the definitions revised, the histories rewritten, the traditions recast. All its theories must be reconsidered, its views of human nature, human life, human destiny. Its Bible must be expurgated, its worship spiritualized, its cultus adapted to actual needs. Nay, its standard of virtue is open to objection its graces do not sit altogether gracefully on modern men." In fact, this highest form of religion is less supreme in its domain than the lower forms are in theirs. It does not answer social or intellectual calls.

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How much more natural is it to say that the soul grows its beliefs; that they answer to the stages of its development, correspond to its moods of feeling, conform to the soil and atmosphere which it supplies. The Bibles are the soul uttering its deepest convictions; the worships are the soul aspiring; the creeds are the soul believing; the churches are the soul associating its powers of sympathy; the prophets are the preaching soul; the priests are the sanctifying soul; the saints are the soul consecrated; inspiration is a deep breath of spiritual air; revelation is the uncovering of the world's meaning, the dropping of scales from the eye, the look behind the veil,

Regarded thus, religion is not an impression made by God on the heart of his child, but rather an expression of the child's heart towards God; and the religions of the world are less truly regarded as voices out of the eternal silence, than as voices sent into the eternal silence.

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The Free Religionist affirms the supremacy of the religious sentiment, and its inexhaustible vitality. The splendor of its past performances justifies the hope of other performances equally timely and noble in the times before us. He does not propose to make a muddle of religions, to reduce them to a minimum, and accept a residuum of carbonic in place of the diamond. It is not his plan to strike an average among the world's faiths. He makes the highest pledge of a higher. He does what the liberal believers in all the sects are doing; but he does it in obedience to a larger law.

Let me venture to state a few of the first principles which are suggested by our position in the general religious world.

It is the traditional view that religion, belonging to the supernatural sphere, comes down upon the human mind to control it.

It is the rational view that, the sphere of the supernatural being included in the compass of the mind, religion is one of the mind's expressions.

It is usually taught that the founders of religions were either divine beings, or human beings miraculously taught.

We teach that the founders of religions were exalted types of human nature.

The common belief is, that religion necessarily comes with miracle.

Our belief implies that religion comes by due process of spiritual preparation and unfolding.

The elders said, the Sovereign Wisdom broods over men, disclosing itself from time to time, and demanding obedience to its dictations.

We say, the Sovereign Wisdom is disclosed within men in proportion as they enlarge their intelligence.