would die, and drawn a lesson from it; and the supposed devils in the herd of swine were probably only the panic and fright in them, caused by the violent movements of the insane man.

But there are great scenes in the life of Jesus which the world has looked upon with awe and admiration, as contrasted with his usual gentle, calm demeanor. And yet the writer of a very valuable and able article in the October number of this magazine, on the doctrine of the "Deity of Jesus Christ," has written one paragraph which I wish were not there. I agree with the writer in his clear and reasonable statements in regard to the human nature of Jesus, and his liability to error in the sight of God; but in the sight of man we must be very careful how we convict him of sin without good grounds, if we wish to keep one great ideal.

The writer says, "We know from his terrible invectives on several occasions that he was capable of being carried away with passionate anger." Now, this is a painful picture to set before the young. If it is true, let it come, and let our ideal go. But there is no proof that it is true. The denunciation of the Pharisees has always been looked upon, by sceptics and Christians alike, as a magnificent outburst of moral indignation against rank hypocrisy, from a man who bore all kinds of insults to himself on the way to the cross and never uttered a word!

A writer in the New World, who has furnished another very able article also on the nature of Christ, carries this criticism sometimes to an extreme point, which would be untenable if aimed at a great man to-day. I do not believe that Jesus was under any illusion in regard to his second coming. He declares that his coming is like the lightning in every part of the world,-evanescent and powerful, but not tangible. He was a seer, and saw in picture the destruction of Jerusalem. Must we never be able to make allowance for the Oriental speech of this descendant of a line of fiery prophets? Our writer even criticises the scene before Pilate, that great masterpiece of the ages, -and asks if "the conduct of Jesus in the court of Pilate was that of the broadest beneficence?" "Did he take the clear course to bring out the best in the brutish men

who surrounded him, or rather drive them to do their worst?"

Both these articles are of the finest order. I agree substantially with the ground taken in both; but a few extreme utterances often do harm. A writer cannot help having his opinions; but, in such instances as these, in the judgment of character, he has no proof that he is right. And, when dealing with a great world-wide personality, he should stop and think before he disparages a sublime ideal in the literal mind of another, an ideal which he still cherishes himself. To come down to the plain truth, we, as Unitarian children, were taught to imitate Jesus of Nazareth, and I trust the day will never come when he is not the model and guide for the children in our churches.

MARTHA PERRY LOWE.

FOSSILS AND FAILURES.

BY JOHN VAN SCHAICK, JR.

The old-fashioned brick church at Arietta was crowded to the doors with an enthusiastic assemblage of delegates, preachers, and laymen, who had come to the fifth annual convention of the Young People's Societies of the Adirondack District. Gray-haired veterans were scattered among the freshfaced, fair-haired young men and women. They had driven twenty and thirty miles through the autumn mud to attend the convention, and "keep the young folks straight."

A sympathetic outsider, seated in the long gallery where he could overlook the scene, might, if he were of a reflective temperament, have indulged in some pleasant anticipations concerning the good to come out of it all.

Here were a hundred impressionable young people, representing isolated churches, who had come together to get new ideas, better methods of work, and the enthusiasm that should always come from such gatherings. Some, of course, were dull, stupid, and narrow; but among their number were many anxious to be taught, ready to do some kindly deed, capable of accomplishing much good in the world if their energies were turned into the right channel.

Those who directed the affairs of the convention were, however, practically dead to

this world and its opportunities. They had lived so long in the past among the musty tomes of their theology that they had become true fossils, as unchangeable in their views as the petrified trilobite in its form. The afternoon exercises would have been laughable if they had not been so tedious. After the ordinary opening services, the pastor loci stepped forward and began his address of welcome. As a speaker, he was the best of the day; but he took his hearers back to the Middle Ages, dwelt upon the founder of their particular Zion, and urged adherence to every "jot and tittle" of the law as he had expounded it. As an exposition upon ecclesiastical history it was a tolerable success, but as an address of welcome, it fell flat.

It devolved upon the president of the convention to respond. He was a layman from a neighboring city, and he performed his duty by reading an elaborate article calculated to show that the true apostolic succession was in their Church, and that the socalled ministers of all other denominations were working without divine sanction or approval.

He evidently wished to impress upon the learned doctors of divinity present that he was a past-master in the art of using theological verbiage, and in this he was eminently successful.

Half of the afternoon had passed when he finished. As the clergymen who were to fill the first two periods were happily absent, the convention turned its attention to a discussion of the question, "How can we Promote more Effective League Work?" No one had been assigned to the topic,-no young people, in fact, had been put upon the programme at all,-but there was no delay. "The spirit moved powerfully." An old gray-bearded doctor took the floor, and discussed all the subjects in his repertoire from "Infant Damnation" to "The Late Unpleasantness between John Calvin and Martin Luther." A younger brother, not to be outdone, traced the origin of all the denominations, and set forth the especial peculiarities of their own doctrine. Number three was a tall, spectacled divine, with a grievance against the American Bible Society. When he finished berating that organization for its liberality every one was very weary, but was destined to become still more so.

At one of the dinner tables that day a

genial, sunny-tempered host had broached the subject of church unity. A professor from the one theological seminary of the district had been present. He explained the time-worn creed of the denomination, and after denouncing bitterly the heresies of other sects said that church unity would come when all the world would come to them and accept every dogma that he then enunciated. Until that time, work done with these others was sinful, because the "Almighty had hidden his face from them." The climax of the ridiculous was reached when, in search of an illustration, he went back to the Arian-Athanasian Controversy of the fourth century, dragged forth the ancient dispute concerning "homo-ousia" and "homoi-ousia," and learnedly vindicated the position of the great Athanasius.

Night spread her kindly mantle over the scene when he ended. Inasmuch as the evening lecturer had not reached town, the convention adjourned, and the delegates sought their several homes, with weary brains, chilled hearts and starving souls.

Not one word had been said about religion. It was all theology. Nothing had been brought before the convention calculated to stimulate the religious life of a single soul,-nothing to lead to unselfish living, to a kindly love of fellowman, to increased devotion to the cause of Christ. That a score of social and political questions are waiting for settlement, that hundreds of reform enterprises are longing for Christian helpers, that thousands of wrecked homes need visitation and millions of perishing souls the outstretching of a friendly hand,—all these facts were ignored. The grandest gospel of the age, that of love to God and love for fellow-man, was swallowed up by the hydra-headed monster of extinct theology.

Fossils have their place. Locked in a glass-case in museums, they are objects of interest and instruction. So with our "theological fossils." To the antiquarian, they are sources of pleasure, equal almost to that derived from some relic of the antediluvian world; but in young people's associations, in all enterprises requiring skill and courage, and especially in the great nineteenth century conflicts with the forces of sin and wickedness, "fossils" are "failures."

THE FINEST OF THE WHEAT.

"He maketh peace in all thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat."-PSALM cxlvii. 14.

Beautiful is the peace of thy holiness, O God, when it holds the heart in the stillness of its dear and fruitful life! In the thought of thy loving holiness, ever eager to bless us with fulness of life, how divinely glad the soul grows! The entire being blossoms to thy praises as flowers open in noble fields to the fulness of the sun shining warm in their hearts.

What a harvest of nourishing truth springs to its full, when, in the fields of the soul, the warrings of sin are stilled in thy peace coming to possess thine own! The victories appear in the finest of the wheat, and throughout all my borders thy holy quiet broods.

May thy peace abide in the possession of my soul! Then would thy beauty take me in its divineness, thy truth would golden in all my fields, and love have never a hunger unsatisfied.

In thee, who art the Life of all life, is the conquest of every peace. In thy holy quiet upon the soul beats the pulse of all that prospers, of all that increases to bless. When I am alone my foes have an easy victory. They revel in triumph; they waste the land and leave it desolate. But when thou comest, truth wins its victories of peace, and goodness redeems the waste places, making them fair and fruitful.

So it is, O tender One, true One, that I turn to thee for a new creation, for deliverance from the power of falsehood, from the wastings of evil. Here is the truth which thou hast given me! Give it an increase of life in thine own holy love, until falsehoods shall flee it as the night flees the morning. Here are the holy loves which thou hast given me! Give them an increase of truth, that they fulfil thine inmost tender intent in my outmost roughest life! May thy truth and thy love realize in me a holy marriage until the waste places of my earth are bepeopled with children possessing the land. in righteousness.

That this may be, may I cherish all that thou art and hast done in me, in that noble gratitude always sure to find thee in a diviner measure of helpfulness. In all these

things of the earth may I recognize thy loving kindness and tender mercies, thinking upon thy children, caring for them. In the daily bread thou makest to grow I would worship thee, happy to give back to thee some love for love. When water quenches my thirst, my gratitude would reach its spiritual hand deep enough to touch the hand of thy love holding the cup to my lips. I would worship thee in the joy of the grape, that the wine of the eternal life may nourish even as these purple clusters so graciously feed the body's hunger. In all these beauties of the earth, I would love thee tenderly enough, true enough, to have revealed in my soul the beauty of holiness, out of which all other beauty comes. In the dear human friends thou givest, I would so realize a loving thought of thee, as, through them, to enter into the divine human friendliness in which every loving heart beats. In these thoughts that fly my brain like happy birds the sky, I would think deep enough to be touched with the glory of thy truth in which thou hast thought out thy creation, making its glory appear in the midst of the years. In these loves that are the very sweetness of my life, I would feel deep enough to enter into the conscious keeping of thy great heart, whose beating is the life of thy universe and the love by which human friends keep alive.

In all my thoughts I would acknowledge thee, that the truth that is eternal clear its heavens in my brain! In all my loves I would acknowledge thee, so that the love that is eternal may make its heavenly summers in my soul. In all my ways I would acknowledge thee, that the perfect way may clear about my feet, shining more and more unto the perfect day! In the quiet of my holiness I would acknowledge thee, that the holiness that is eternal may possess my being, my lips rejoicing in the psalm, "He maketh peace in all my borders, and filleth me with the finest of the wheat!"

Life is of Thee,

Tender One, true One! Life here in me,

In the bird there, the blue one!

My heart beats Thee out

In all of its graces.

I find Thee about

In my friends' smiling faces.

A VILLAGE PRIEST.

[Translated from the French.] There was a terrible fight going on a mile or two from the village of Hooties. The air resounded with the noise of the rifles: cannon awakened the echoes, and in the distance could be seen dark, heavy columns of smoke and powder.

The curé knelt before the altar, praying for his people. Around him, pale with fright, the villagers were begging God to protect them.

Two young lads, stealing from bush to bush and softly approaching the ranks, fired on the Prussians. "Fire two loads in pursuit!" said the officer.

Then a detachment of German soldiers galloped toward the village. There they arrested six of the inhabitants, the first they met, and took them before the mayor. "You are the highest in authority," said the commanding officer to this official. "I come, then, to tell you that some one has fired on his majesty's troops near your village. Being nearest to the scene of the crime, you are held responsible. You must hand over the guilty ones, or else six of the inhabitants of the village will be shot as an example. I will wait until to-morrow at eleven o'clock. The execution must take place at noon. the meanwhile your village is under martial law, and I will guard the prisoners." It would be impossible to describe the feelings of the poor village people. The women uttered the most lamentable cries. The

In

people met together, and it was resolved with sighs and tears to let fate decide who should be the victims by drawing lots. Those who had fired on the Germans did not belong to the community. They came from a distance, following the Prussian column.

The day was spent in discussion, lamentation, and sorrow. The mayor, the curé, and two old men, bent with the weight of more than eighty years, vainly begged the Prussian officer for mercy. The women came weeping. All was in vain.

The six unhappy men designated were delivered to him at five o'clock that evening, and confined in the hall of the school-room on the ground floor of the mayor's house. The Prussian officer authorized the curé to carry to the men the consolations of religion. Their hands were tied behind their backs, and the same rope tied their legs to gether. They were so prostrated that they could scarcely understand what the curé said. Two of them had fainted. At one end of the line, with his head raised and his brow apparently unruffled, stood a man of about forty years of age, the father of five motherless children, whose only support he was. He wept over his children whom he was to leave to poverty, perhaps to starvation.

All the efforts of the curé were unable to bring peace to this crushed spirit. Finally, he went out, and walked slowly to the guardhouse where the officer was quartered. The latter was smoking a large porcelain pipe. He continued to smoke, and listened to the curé without interrupting him.

"Captain," said the curé, "six hostages are in your hands who within a few hours are to be shot down. Not one of them has fired upon your troops. The guilty ones have escaped, and your intention is to give an example that will serve as a warning to the inhabitants of other localities. It makes little difference to you whether you shoot one or another. I would say, though, the better known the victim, the stronger would be the warning. So I come to ask you as a favor to let me take the place of a father whose death would leave five little children in misery. He and I are both innocent, but my death will be less regretted than his."

"Just as you please," said the officer. Four soldiers led the curé to prison. He

was tied hand and foot with the other victims. The peasant whose place he took, the father of the five children, embraced his benefactor.

We will not try to paint the anguish of that night. When daybreak came, the curé had revived the courage of his companions in misery.

The poor fellows, at first stupefied by fear, had now become at the voice of the priest glorious martyrs, who were supported by Christian faith and the hope of a better life. At eleven o'clock a military escort halted at the door, and the prisoners were marched out. The curé at their head recited aloud the Office of the Dead. Along the road knelt the villagers, waiting to get a last look at their pastor. They had come to the place of execution, when a major in the Prussian army, who happened to be passing with an order, stopped.

The sight of the priest attracted his attention. The captain explained. The major ordered the execution delayed, and reported to the general-in-chief. The general ordered the curé to be brought before him. The explanation was short.

The general was a noble-hearted man. He said to the curé: "Sir, I do not wish your death. Go, and tell your parishioners that for your sake I show mercy to them all."

When the curé was gone, the Prussian general said to the officers who had witnessed the scene,

"If every Frenchman had a heart like this simple priest, we would not stay long on this side of the Rhine."

And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

With all the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring:
Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

And ye, beneath life's crushing load
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,—
Look now; for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh, rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!

-Edmund Hamilton Sears.

Monday.

The Light of Bethlehem.

'Tis Christmas night, the snow
A flock unnumbered lies;
The old Judean stars aglow
Keep watch within the skies.

An icy stillness holds

The pulses of the night:
A deeper mystery infolds
The wondering Hosts of Light.

Till, lo! with reverence pale
That dims each diadem,

The lordliest, earthward bending, hail
The Light of Bethlehem.

-John B. Tabb.

Tuesday.

A merry Christmas! How the old words waken

A thrill and throb for many a Christmas fled,

For hopes fulfilled not that the years have taken

Into their keeping, like the tears ye shed!

A merry Christmas! Let the happy chorus Bring a new thrill, new freedom, new de

light;

Past pain makes present joy but sweeter for

us,

E'en as the dawn of morning after night.