vidualize the person who adopts it; this is to throw a man off from society as a scrap is thrown off a wheel by its rapid revolution. I am confident of two things, (1) That there is a need of more individuality and independence. But (2) that really independent individuals are better able than any others to co-operate for good ends. There is a vast deal of individualism that leads only to isolation; it is selfish and envious. Free individuals have a free power to work co-ordinately that others do not possess. I mean this, that

slavish minds are to be set in place where the teachers want them or as they term it, where God wants them; but individualized people can place themselves where they know they are needed by society.

THE DOING CREED.

To visit the fatherless and the widow, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

I have a good friend, a busy-body, that cannot let alone any sick person, and who meddles with the poor people's larders for a mile around. He has a kind of way of churning sunshine in dismal places, and making your heart grow warm. He is a very good man in his way, and has morality of the highest type. I do not know that it has ever been impeached. He is quick to quarrel, but always in behalf of the oppressed. The bad hate him and the good love him; you would say that if you must have a heaven made up of human beings, you could think of no better sort of saints to live with forever than such as he. Is there any noble and manly deed or thought? he esteems it; anything base? he despises it. As a friend, I know he will not desert you in a trial; and that he always shares his joys with others. If I were to picture an ideal I could scarcely conceive any more perfect than this one fur

nished to hand. It is impossible to meet him without being the better for it. There is an atmosphere about him that gives health to the soul. In fact, I love him like a brother.

Yet I am a good deal concerned about this man's future salvation. Every effort to induce him to join a church has failed. I know that he does not believe in the ordinary Christian doctrine. He has doubts about the fundamentals of orthodoxy. He is at least a skeptic in reference to the most sacred views of the church. I have heard him say that he did not concern himself about the Trinity, or indeed the nature of God at all; and that there could be no doctrine more offensive that that involved in an expiatory death.

Properly classified, he would be considered as a moral man, and not religious. By the church standard, he makes a capital man for this earth; but by the same standard, God will reject him from heaven. He is very valuable to help pay church debts and support a minister, but the brethren will not eat the holy supper with him. Morality, says the preacher, is damnable; there is no salvation but in the blood of Christ. But this blood my friend will have none of. "I will not sail under false colors.' "If I can have no righteousness of my own, I will not have that of Jesus attributed to me. No tricks of salvation," he says.

I have consulted with many good Christians about this case, and they give me little comfort. "Has he been converted?" I am afraid not. "Does he believe in the Atonement?" I think not. "Does he hold to the divinity of Jesus?" I am sure not. "Then he rejects the offer of salvation, and the consequences are upon his own head.” But what if he be saved now? I urge. "He cannot be saved except he believe and be baptized." Still, if to be saved be to have every moral power in action, every faculty of body and mind enlisted for righteousness, this man is now saved, and it would be

hard work to damn him. I cannot see why God should try to do it. He would be an honor to any heaven. If such as he are to be left out, it will be difficult to make up Paradise on any plan.

I have asked a clerical brother what will be done about this case. He is pastor of a large city church, and thinks he knows a few such cases in his pews. But, by his own account, he has on his church rolls a great many very different men. I ask him if it be these latter to whom he often refers as saints; and is it such as my friend whom he calls sinners. My clerical brother consistently replies: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." What, then, must be done with Emerson, the high soul; Whittier, whose song is angels' love in human speech; with Longfellow, than whom "the icicle carved by the frost and hung on Dian's temple" is no more pure? I do not like to give you the answer which I have got to this question.

So you see that by the current theory of salvation, there is no hope for my friend. The scheme is cast iron, and demands absolute faith. Out of it there is only judgment. His life is very lovely and very unselfish; but he unfortunately sinned in Adam, and his pre-natal record is a bad one. Since birth, however, his record is unusually good.

He is of that stubborn texture that is quite unconvertible; so that, if saved at all, it must be out of Christ. He constantly quotes me the following lines:

"I-deem his faith the best

Who daily puts it into loving deeds,

Done for the poor, the sorrowing and the oppressed.
For these are more than creeds,

And though a blinded reason oft may err,
The heart that loves is faith's interpreter.

"The schoolman's subtle skill

Wearies itself with vain philosophies,
That leave the world to grope in darkness still,
Haply from lies to lies.

But whoso doeth good with heart and might
Dwells evermore within the light.

"One hand outstretched to man

In helpfulness, the other clings to God,

And thus upheld he walks through time's brief span,
In ways that Jesus trod.

Taught by his spirit, and sustained and led,
That life like his by love is perfected."

"There is," says he, "a creed of words, and there is a creed of deeds;" and then he quotes from the book of the nations, that "actions speak louder than words." Men come to us saying, "Do you believe?" But Jesus came with this question: "Wilt thou?" And then my friend urges most persistently, that he is a Christian, a follower of Jesus. "You shall not cast me out," he says. "I do not know a single creed question propounded by Jesus that I cannot subscribe to. Look through the gospels," he says, "and find me a word that I will deny. There is the 'Love God with all your heart.' I subscribe to that. The affection of a loyal son is my joyful tribute to God." But mark you, there is nothing said about the atonement here. Love is a saving principle, at least that kind of love intended by Jesus. It is given as a simple law of nature that a man shall love his father. And we are assured by the same teacher, that the father as naturally loves his son, even a prodigal son. There is heredity that runs back of Adam even; we inherit a good deal from God himself. Affection runs in the blood as far back as our divine parent.

It

The doing creed involves also love of neighbor. is possible to get a stout creed of belief confounded with a very selfish life. But the doing creed never built an inquisition; never kindled an auto-da-fé; never hated a soul for its theories. It has no martyrs. The only reasonable view of Jesus' death is a very human desire on the part of the priests to stop bad believing, although it ended a life eminent for noble achievement.

When Jesus was questioned as to his nature he did not begin with "Go tell John I believe," but "Go tell John," he says, "what ye see and hear. The deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the gospel is preached to the poor. Whosoever giveth a cup of cold water shall get his reward.” The sum of all possible orders of God is love God and love your neighbor. The believing creed has tried for 1800 years to obtain uniformity and unity; the result having been only to divide and subdivide. But men have never yet divided on the doing creed. The more it is preached and practiced the more closely men are bound together.

A good friend said to me the other day: "Well, what do you people up there believe anyway." And I said "We believe in doing right." "In doing right; is that all?" "Why, no; we believe good things about our neighbors." "No, no; but what do you believe?" "We believe in honesty, and sincerity, and truth and justice." "You don't understand," she urged. "I want to know what you believe." "We believe in letting every one think for himself, and be himself, and we hold it a sin to make men avow uniformity of belief." "Then you don't believe anything, or else you are trying to dodge me. I want to know what you believe about Jesus, you know, and immortality, future punishment and such things." "Bless me, madam, we don't think a great deal about those things. But tell me, my friend, I said, what you think about them?" "Why, I think, I think they are true." "Why?" "Why, because the church does." "Wont

you tell me which one in your church you would select as being most likely to know about these things. I am anxious to find some one who can settle all of these puzzles." "Oh, I don't mean my church, but the church-everywhere and always, you know. They all believe in Jesus, and heaven and such things-don't you?" "Madam," I said, "a great many people believe