therefore they are very zealous in this cause of temperance. The real feeling that is manifested in this reform, is in direct ratio to the thought that is given to it.

There is much talk in these days about head religion, and heart religion; a drawing of fine distinctions between that power which thinks and that which feels. In reality, is there any such thing as a religion exclusively of the head, or exclusively of the heart — understanding these terms to symbolize the intellectual and emotional in man? Does not religion have to do with both? How can we separate the one entirely from the other, and have any religious life remaining? Genuine religious feeling is largely the result of deep religious thought; and no earnest thought concerning religion can result otherwise than in feeling and action. Mere speculation will not produce feeling; neither will cold, abstract reasoning about this or that theory cause the fire of enthusiasm to kindle. But that kind of thinking which brings God to us as an object of worship, love and obedience, will cause the right feeling to go out toward him; and it will also beget within us a right feeling toward our fellowmen- resulting at length in right actions toward them. Says Dr. Chapin :

"Many people seem to think that is a revival of religion in which a great deal of feeling about religion appears. I think that is a revival of religion in which a great deal of thought about religion appears. And sometimes when men are outwardly very calm and very collected, and make no extravagant demonstrations, they may be really having an income of religious life, more than when they are simply occupied in expressing the sense of great spiritual realities by a display of feeling. We must have, as the basis of any noble, consistent and steady religious life, clear, profound, and steady thought."

In looking over a community where a great religious awakening has occurred, it is interesting and profitable to watch the course of events after the wave of excitement has entirely receded. Very distinctly can we trace the transient and permanent elements that entered into the revival. It requires but a brief season of quiet, sober, every day life to test the genuine

ness of the religious work that has been done. Many who claimed to have passed through a religious "experience" in the twinkling of an eye; who supposed that they had passed completely from "nature to grace," within the space of a few moments of excitement, found to their chagrin and sorrow that "religious experience" is not to be measured by a few hours or days of prayer and exultation. They find that all the emotion and feeling attendant upon the revival meeting are not sufficient to stand by them when they are again brought into contact with the stern realities of life. Only as their expressions of penitence and joy have sprung from profound convic tions regarding sin, and salvation from it, do these expressions. prove to be among the permanent elements of their religious. experience. The feeling and emotion that are born of correct thoughts and solid convictions concerning God, man and duty, will not pass away like the cloud after a storm; but they will enter into the very life, and will become the controlling force in a man's conduct. Enthusiasm thus generated will not depend on special seasons or great occasions for demonstrating its power; but it will flow onward, with an ever increasing volume and force; day by day stimulating a reverential and obedient spirit toward God, and a kind, generous, helpful spirit toward man. Thus will thought and feeling unite in man's religious development, forming a combination of forces. that will make his life abound in the richest fruits of the spirit.

ARTICLE VII.

Expediency in Religion.

PHILLIPS BROOKS says in one of his Lectures on preaching, delivered before the Divinity School of Yale College,

"The tendency to estimate and treat ideas according to what appear their probable effects on human character has

been, no doubt, a great besetting sin of spiritual teachers always. This is the way in which a great deal of half-believed doctrine comes to be clinging to and cumbering the church. Men insist on believing and on having other people believe certain doctrines not because they are reasonably demonstrated to be true, but because, in the present state of things, it would be dangerous to give them up.'

Lecky declares with evident justice, that there is as much evidence to prove the reality of witchcraft to-day as at any period in the past. But the enlightened spirit of the present age does not condescend to notice the evidence. It disbelieves without even entertaining the possibility of belief. The fate of witchcraft is the fate which, sooner or later, awaits all superstitions rooted in human ignorance. The future will not even entertain the possibility of believing in the crude, material notions of hell that have held, and still continue to hold such a prominent place in the Orthodox confessions of Christendom. The comprehensive drift of human thought and sentiment is against them. Their doom is sealed. Nothing compels more profound and just indignation, than to see men trying to believe in them, or pretending to believe in them, for fear that without them evil will gain the mastery, and the world go on to moral destruction.

Do these men have no faith in God? Do they have no faith in the eternal power of virtue to take care of itself, to justify itself and firmly stand on its own foundation? If God is infinitely great and good, perfect loyalty to truth is the only omnipotent saving force. If virtue cannot triumph unless bolstered up by lies, it does not deserve to triumph. Every man should seek to know and live the truth, because such knowing and living is the highest conceivable good. The best type of individual life, the noblest society, cannot be built upon error. Why should man be afraid to investigate any subject - why should he be afraid of any truth? If it be true that God is weak or malignant, man ought to know it that he may train himself to bear the hardness of his fate. Joseph Cook says many good things; but we remember nothing better than the

following: Truth is truth, even though it scars our eye-balls. Be sure that you hold to clear ideas. Revere the orthodoxy of straightforwardness. I want no philosophy, no platform, no pulpit, no dying pillow, that does not rest on rendered

reasons."

All men who speak with anything like authority should do their thinking and teaching as under oath. The age needs more of such thinking and teaching and living. Charles Kingsley was once asked the question, "Do you consider Darwin's explanation of the universe orthodox?" "My friend," answered Kingsley, "God's orthodoxy is truth; if Darwin speaks the truth, he is orthodox."

The old opinions concerning hell are not truth. It is not the purpose of this article to prove this statement. We shall take so much for granted in this present writing. They have hindered, not helped the moral progress of mankind. They have veiled the Father's face. They have made men spiritually blind, and have held them in great mental darkness. They have kept them under the influence of lowest motives; and lowest motives can never be the condition of highest accomplishment, of noblest character. But to-day they exercise little or no restraining influence, even on the lowest planes of human life. Jonathan Edwards is now in heaven, and his spirit inspires none of the pulpits of our generation. Hell is not preached in the village churches, nor in the fashionable churches of the great social centres, with the awful fervor and mighty power that can only spring from profound and terrible conviction. The most intelligent know that those stalwart passages in the preaching of our day, which hold the terrors of an eternal hell over the unrepentant sinner, are simply respectable and pious fictions. They are disgusted, and justly so, with the half unconscious hypocrisies of many representing the churches which claim to be the sole conservators of evangelical religion. Men of all conditions and degrees of culture are fast learning to realize the grotesque and infinitely cruel absurdity of the ideas that have shaped the accepted theologies of the church from the time of John Calvin, the practical spirit

of whose theology, according to Dr. Hedge, is more fitly imaged in Tertullian than Augustine, often denominated the Father of Calvinism. Thus these ideas are stripped of all power to inspire practical terror.

But it is asked, are not these sanguinary dogmas essential to the welfare and peace of society? Are they not necessary safeguards? If they are renounced, how shall the church reach the ear of sinners? How shall moral influences be brought to bear upon the more degraded and dangerous classes? As an answer to these questions, it is enough to say that in casting aside notions which degrade and dishonor God, the church is not casting God aside. So long as He is infinitely good, just, great, true and patient, and so long as those who are toiling for the good prove their confidence in Him, and their desire to honor Him by thinking well of human nature, which is His handiwork, by refusing to compromise with anything that He does not wholly approve, society will grow better, not worse; the work of salvation will not lag or falter. doubt this is to doubt God. He is most profanely dishonoring God, who denies, even by implication, that His Providence is immediate, universal, eternal; that this Providence will reward with the success of real progress all human efforts which are the fruit of sincere, unfaltering loyalty to truth.

To

How shall the church reach the ear of sinners? How shall moral influences be brought to bear upon the more degraded and dangerous classes? These are pressing questions, never more vital than at the present hour in America. No one man is wise enough to give an all-sufficient answer. But certain principles, which must be fundamental in any answer at all approaching the true one, are very plain and simple. They are eternal sincerity and truth, which Jesus made the foundation rock of all his teaching; and which he so grandly lived as he walked with men, during his brief earthly ministry.

Authority resides in truth, not in expediency. The end does not justify the means. No true word can innocently be kept back for fear of consequences. How noble the sentiment expressed by Tennyson