of his own great nature, the path of duty and of longing. Ceremonialism, even moderate pride of organization, found him unresponsive to its summons, and yet, if you should ask what was the one grand principle around which in his mind all others revolved, I should say it was the recognition in thought, and word, and life of the dignity of man as a spiritual force. There was a young man in Boston, in 1833, who wrote to a friend who had been troubled about his spiritual welfare,

"I do not think I have a basis for faith to build upon. I am without religious feeling. I seldom refer my happiness or acquisitions to the Great Father from whose mercy they are derived. Of the first great commandment, then, upon which so much hangs, I live in perpetual unconsciousness. I believe, though, that my love to my neighbor—namely, my anxiety that my fellow-creatures should be happy, and disposition to serve them in their honest endeavors-is pure and strong. Certainly I do feel an affection for everything that God created; and this feeling is my religion." Thus Charles Sumner wrote with the old conventional requirements of so-called religion in his mind. What was popularly called faith, he had no basis for that to build upon; but what real faith in the best was his! A few years later it publicly identified him with the cause of good morals. It enabled him, still a young man, to plead for peace in the presence of the armed soldiers of his native commonwealth and country; it sent him, without any conscious effort of his own, to the nation's capital to be, for twenty-three long and arduous years, the tribune of the people; it compelled him to grapple with chattel slavery in America as no man before him had done; it brought him the assault of the assassin; and when, after these years of faithful service, in which

"He never sold the truth to serve the hour,"

but was faithful to her, with his party and against his party, with his friends and against them, the news was wafted along the wires, "The great Senator is dead," it brought a sense of

personal loss to all. Nobody asked about his religious belief in the stress of the common sorrow. The pathway from the capital to the grave was moistened with manly and womanly tears, and strewn with flowers. And why? Not because he attended church, for he rarely did; not because he had changed the essential doctrines of his youthful letter, for he never had; but because his whole life had been a constant exhibition of natural and practical religion. It was for this that he lived, for this that he died. It was because of this that the politician hated him and the oppressor assaulted him. His learning was great, his oratory of no mean order; but it was his sense of justice, his broad and generous sympathy for the suffering and sinning, his aspiration for the highest for himself and his fellow-men,-in a word, it was his religion,which made him the mighty man he was, and will keep his memory sacred as the incorruptible statesman with the white soul.

Well, it is always so. The men of real faith, of real religion, are heroic men, men ready to do and to dare, men who are called of God to stand in their places as Luther did, as Cromwell did, as John Brown did, as every one in the counting-room, in the home, on the street, in the ward-room may, for some needed principle of equity and love. They get their religion by service, devotion, sacrifice. What they profess is of secondary consequence. Indeed, they are often too busy about God's business and their own to profess anything.

How well we know this, how well thinking people know it everywhere, when they stop for a moment to contemplate the facts all about them! Religion is tendency towards the higher life, towards good and God. It comes to us through experience, shaping our minds, touching our hearts, firing our souls; comes as the spirit comes, whithersoever it will, with such imperceptible steps, with such subtle fragrance, that you can scarcely tell when and how. It is not in answer to the placing of the body in a church pew; it is not in answer to the placing of the name at the bottom of a church creed.

The real self falls in love with it; wooes it to come and bless its life and make it worthy. Be mine, it pleads; lift my standards of right and duty, anoint my eyes to see realities; teach me justice, mercy, order, chastity, love; and, unable to resist such outputting, such yearning of a struggling soul, Religion extends her hand, smiles a sacred benediction, touches the lips with her consecrating kiss.

"'Tis not the wide phylactery,

Nor stubborn fasts, or stated prayers,
That make us saints; we judge the tree
By what it bears.

"And when a man can live apart

From work, on theologic trust,

We know the blood about his heart

Is dry as dust.

"We hold that saving grace abounds

Where charity is seen; that when

We climb to heaven, 'tis on the rounds
Of love to men."

How gloriously, if sometimes slowly, men in all denominations, and outside of all denominations, are learning that to-day!

Religion, the tendency of the life towards the better; the way to get it, the culture of all that strengthens this tendency, -this, it seems to me, is all there is of it. Easily grasped, is it not? in theory; work enough for the best and longest careers to thoroughly grasp it, in fact.

Now, how shall we know when a man gets it? What will be the indications? for observe, please, you can never tell if a man has religion by asking him questions; you must watch him, come within his atmosphere, open yourself to the silent influences of his character. What are the indications that a man has experienced religion?

First. It seems to me he will be a reverent man. The element of respect, regard, reverence, differing degrees, really, of the same vital thing, will be strong in him. I do not mean the veneer of these things, but the real things.

What does a

man think of his own nature? What is his instinctive attitude towards mankind? How does he hold himself in regard to unseen and eternal things? Not what does he say about these, but what does he show he feels about them in the crucial moments of existence? Does he revere his own better nature? Does he revere the innate character of the women who in various ways come into the deeps of his life to bless it? Does he revere the power not himself, which he senses, but perhaps does not dare to define? If so, he is a religious man; wherever he is, whatever he says or does, he is a religious

man.

Second. He will be a broad, comprehensive man. His reverence for his own better self means reverence for human nature as such; his reverence for the women of his own heart means reverence for universal ideals for which, to the noblest men, noble women are always the most fitting symbols; his reverence for that power behind, beyond, within him, means reverence for untold spiritual possibilities. The narrow selfishness and dogmatism of mere denominationalism will be unknown to him. He will not be moved by the spirit of monopoly to build up barriers; he will be a taker-down of fences that he may find the fellowship of mankind. His country will be the world, his party all right-thinking people, his church humanity. Whoso, beneath all difference of exterior, whatever the color of the skin, whatever the inheritance, whatever the acceptance or non-acceptance of his own formulas, can see a human being and a brother, equal in right with himself to opportunity for the development of the faculties which are his, he, whether Christian, Jew, Hindoo, or Chinese, is a religious man.

Third. He will be public-spirited. He will get outside the pint-measure of his own material interests. He will be interested in what concerns his community, his state, his nation. He will want to take part in the great onward movements which make this a progressive world. Not for the reward of it; not for the distinction of it; but for the work's own sake.

It will be of concern to him how other people fare; how the streets look; how opportunities of education are multiplied; how all the appointments of the town contribute to the upbuilding of a man. It will be of concern to him how the politics of his time are conducted. What kind of laws are made; what kind of men elected to execute them. He will have a vivid sense of the benefits he and his are hourly receiving from the commonwealth, a vivid sense of his reciprocal obligation to contribute something towards the common weal. If there are two blades of grass where but for him only one would grow; if social conditions are more healthy and helpful, industrial conditions more just, educational conditions more comprehensive, because of him; if he is so thinking, loving, aspiring, as to leave the world a little. better for his sojourn in it, then he is a religious man.

Fourth. He will be a bright and hopeful man. His relations with the world of external nature, in which he always feels himself at home, his relations with the hearts that love him and which are given him to love, will inevitably make him so. Not because David sang, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork," but because he has seen that glory for himself and heard that declaration in his own ear. Not because Jesus said so many fine things about love, but because he himself has dreamed and realized so many fine things about it. All the beauty of the spring-time, from arbutus to violets and apple-blossoms; all the beauty of the summer when the rare and perfect days come; all the beauty of the autumn, with its rich glow of coloring; all the wonders of the winter, with its snowy carpet and handiwork of the frost-king,

"The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue, ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,"

proclaim—what, if not beauty, order, law, love, which must have evolved in some way from that which is more beautiful,