BY JAIRUS.

CHARITY. Such is the perfect relation, the normal needs of men never clash, but support each other. Such is the perfect provision, what I rightly do for myself I do for all others. So is it true that Charity may begin at home. One cannot give of poverty of soul. Charity flows only from wealth. Who can escape the beneficence and power of your personal wealth? How shall a Man conceal himself or be lost? All ages after inherit your wealth. Your greatest Charity is your bequest of SOUL.

COMPANY. - A great traveller said to Socrates, "I have travelled much, but never with much enjoyment." "Would you know the reason?" asked Socrates. "You have always travelled with yourself." There is more than appears on the surface, in this reply. It is the hint of a universal fact. A man draws about him such company as he is able to entertain. Neither Nature nor Men have anything to say, when there is no response. It is impossible to gain recognition from one whose eyes see not, whose ears hear not. A principle of reciprocity determines our society, the character of it. Deep answereth unto deep. The soul finds the Christ not outside itself. "God's presence chamber is the human heart." God, Nature, Man, all things on Earth, or in Heaven, shall be as thou art able to translate them. Fathom thy soul. ENJOYMENT AND COMPANY ARE FROM WITHIN.

PROVIDENCE. There was a poor man whose potato crop was nipped by the frost. Having no more seed to plant, he sat down and mourned. In the night-time some neighbors went and replanted for him. Presently new vines were starting up through the ground. With joy and surprise he declared the mercy and goodness of Providence. The power of the frost had been overruled. He was lost in mystery and gratitude, and told all his neighbors what the Lord would do for a man who put his trust in Him.

The next year he deemed it safe and prudent to trust the Lord from the beginning, thus saving all expenditure of money for seed. So he ploughed, and then watched his little field only to see it, day by day, run to weeds. Weary at last of the experiment, he concluded that, to trust Providence now and then might answer, but taking one year with another, it did n't pay. I am disposed to think that this little story, which has in some forgotten way come to my knowledge, illustrates that trust of Providence which is everywhere wise, and that which is everywhere not wise. This potato-raising man was evidently not in the secret. It always pays to trust Providence. We cannot at all times escape this consideration of "pay." The thing to be looked after, is, that you square yourself with this providence; that you trust it, and not your own penurious, lazy, or worldly speculating whim. Providence is with you in all appointed ways. When you have done your all, then, "Wait on the Lord and be still." God has created us as his work

ers. He will do for us nothing which we are able to do for ourselves; able, not only at this present moment, but at any future moment, through our capacity for growth. The Gods do nothing when men are idle. The mountains stand unmoved, and no faith can start them. When this potato-man had done his all in his first planting, then Providence came to his succor. Providence was dwelling in the good hearts of his neighbors. They had seen his honest efforts to help himself, and when the frost had baffled him, they were happy to baffle the frost. Thus the frost was likewise a Providence for them. It helped confirm the presence of God in their own hearts.

Providence is omnipresent, compelling from every thing some revelation of its own perfection; of its adequate powers for its own purposes of destiny. Your wit shall be sharpened with each new trial, and radiate from you in all manner of inventions. Necessity is a fruitful mother. She leads her children ever forth unto their Day of Achievement. Man does not know what vast possibilities slumber within him. He cannot be tempted beyond what he is able. Every aspiration is a pledge of his power.

But I must say, and then close, that Providence does not reside in individual men, but in humanity. When one is sick, another is well;, when one is weak, another is strong; when one is ignorant another is wise; when one is asleep, another is awake: so Health, Strength, Wisdom and Watchfulness, sufficient unto the emergency, are ever present, and potent throughout the world, and God is praised, who hath marvelously created Mankind, -embracing all people and all ages, past, present, and to come, into the perfect stature of his own power and goodness!

T

THE DENIAL OF CHRIST.

HERE was once a bishop who spent all his time in building costly churches and performing gorgeous ceremonies, and assured all who gave him money for these things, of full forgiveness for all their sins. Thus the poor and ignorant were left unfed, except by one of the humblest of the clergy, who gave himself wholly to teaching and relieving them. His sympathy for them forced him to preach against the rich men who oppressed them. Then there arose great indignation among the patrons of the bishop, and the preacher was suspended from all his functions. But still he went on working for the poor and ignorant. Disregarding the discipline of the church, he soon came to disregard her doctrines also.

Neglected by his brethren in the ministry, he fell among heretics who taught him to deny the Divinity of Christ, but still he went on laboring for Christ's poor. At length the bishop summoned him before him and said, "They tell me that thou dost not worship Jesus Christ." He answered, "They tell thee the truth. I worship God our Father and him only." Then the bishop said, "Thou hast denied Christ." And he answered again,

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"Who is Jesus of Nazareth that I should honor him?" Then the bishop said to his attendants "He blasphemeth. Let him be imprisoned." And so the heretic was imprisoned, and soon died of the hardships of his confinement. Then the bishop rejoiced greatly and said in the pulpit of his cathedral, "Thus the Lord Jesus smiteth him that denieth him.” That night he dreamed a dream, and lo! he and the dead heretic stood together before the throne whereon sat the Son of Man in his glory. And the judge said, “He that speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him. Whatsoever ye have done unto the least of my brethren, I receive as done to me. Thou who hast fed the hungry and taught the ignorant, I account thee my disciple. Thou hast given thy life for what thou in thy blindness deemedst the truth, I, who am the Truth, receive thee as having died for me. Thou hast confessed me on earth, I confess thee in heaven. Enter Thou thou into the joy of thy Lord. But thou, who callest thyself my bishop, thou hast neglected to feed my sheep, and therein thou hast denied me. hast left the sins of the rich men unrebuked, and therein a second time, thou hast denied me. Thou hast persecuted even unto death, him who sought I deny to follow in my steps. Thrice hast thou denied me among men. thee before my Father and his angels. Go hence and learn what this meanNot every one that saith unto me, eth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Lord, Lord, shalt enter into my Kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my FRED MAY HOLLAND. Father."

"THE RADICAL" AND RELIGION.

LETTER OF CRITICISM FROM HENRY JAMES.

[THE following letter is one of a number, upon the same general We count it among topic, which we have been pleased to receive. the cheering signs of the time, that the subject of Religion is securing more and more a thoughtful attention. Mr. James's letter, unlike the others which have been sent us, takes exception to our brief statement concerning Religion, made in the September number. We are glad to offer our readers the benefit of Mr. James's opinion. The essay which he promises upon the True Philosophy of Religion, we shall publish in due time.

LETTER.

You asked me a little while since to contribMY DEAR MR. EDITOR :— ute to your periodical; will you accept a contribution slightly critical ? I like your new publication for its neatness of finish, and the atmosphere of intellectual freedom it carries with it; but it seems to me to be a little hazy upon the subject to which it is professedly devoted - Religion. I suppose indeed that Religion, dogmatically regarded, is fast losing all its old dis

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tinctness, and will erelong give place to a purely sentimental conception of the subject, which will make it cover the whole realm of man's social and æsthetic activity. But this is a totally modern use of the word, and is quite incongruous with what was originally meant by it. That the old Irish woman whom you describe as dozing on a bench in Boston Common on a hot Sunday morning, may present a more grateful picture in that position to eyes divine and human, than the same old woman pent up in a church among a steaming crowd of worshippers intent upon their ritual fandangoes, is quite conceivable; but it astonishes me to hear you call it also a more "religious" picture. So your friend Mr. Collyer has a good right to admire men of genius, men who help the world along; and even to defend them from injurious criticism when they prefer on occasion the claims of their vocation to those of public worship. But I don't see that he has any right to say in a general way that Religion means helpfulness. Helpfulness, as Mr. Collyer calls it, is an unquestionable good thing in itself, or he could n't have made it the text of so charming an Essay; but I deny that it ever entered into the original unsophisticated meaning of the word Religion, any more than the flavor of peaches did, or the law of gravitation; both of which are good things. No doubt Religion is a tree which bears very juicy succulent fruit; but any one who has seen a Rhode Island apple orchard can easily understand what capital fruit may grow upon the most gnarled, uncomely trunk and branches. And I insist that there is the same contrast between the peaceable fruits of religion in the world, and the grim, stormy, tempesttossed form of Religion herself, that there is between a barrel of beautiful Rhode Island pippins and the ugly, squat, contorted tree that bringeth them forth.

Religion, in its primitive, undefiled sense, by no means implied on the part of its votary a positive attitude towards good, but rather a negative attitude towards evil. That is to say, the distinctively religious man was not the man who was primarily intent upon doing good, but rather upon combatting evil. According to all the great primitive creeds, a man may have a perfectly sweet, natural disposition, and be inclined by temperament to every innocent and orderly delight, and yet if he have not, typically at least, undergone a change of nature or become a partaker of a new Divine birth, he is no better than a castaway. This was the invariable use of the word before religion had sunk into a sentimental moralism; and all the good done by men previous to this indispensable divine lustration of their nature, was held to be inwardly corrupt and only outwardly fair. In other words, Religion originally postulated no harmonious, but only a contrarious relation between God and man. It alleged a natural disqualification on man's part for God's favor, and therefore suspended his vital sanctity upon his being redeemed from that taint. We may, if we please, amuse ourselves with this deliverance of the early religious conscience. We may vote the early religious mind of the race to have been a false witness of the truth, or borne a perverse testimony to the characteristic tendencies of human nature. But we cannot deny that Religion then uniformly pictured her votary as naturally

exposed to the divine clemency summarily comprehended in what was called the Church. You may, I repeat, consider this pretension of the early religious conscience to have been wholly unfounded; may persuade yourself, in fact, that it was sheer nonsense from top to bottom; but there the pretension stands, never to be explained by our modern pulpit poltroonery, which seeks to drown out of mind all the deeper problems of life and destiny, by representing the relations of God to man, and man to God, as purely sentimental; that is, personal and egotistic on both sides alike, and therefore perilous to every instinct of true manhood in the soul.

This, then, is my criticism of your periodical: that in professing to be devoted to Religion, it yet looks at Religion from a wholly private point of view, and ignores its immense public or historic significance. It is not of the smallest philosophical consequence how you, or I, or Mr. Collyer interprets Religion; but it is of the deepest philosophic interest to ascertain how all mankind have interpreted it. If your periodical will tell us this fairly and squarely, I think and I hope it will thrive; but if it contents itself with advertising Religion as a something, never understood until now, I think we must be content to see it born only to dwindle. New views of religious truth are inevitable and desirable; but Religion itself has a perfectly fixed or ascertained import in history, as implying, first, a hostile relation on man's part to God; and then a great scheme of propitiatory dealing on God's part with man, by which He gradually cheats the latter out of his enmity, and reconciles him in immortal friendship; and any views of it, consequently, which ignore it in this grand historic aspect are too superficial to be interesting, except to persons who are wholly disinterested in the subject.

But I am afraid I shall exhaust my welcome, if I go on to protract my letter. But if you should like me at any time to state what, in my view, is the true philosophy of religion, apprehended as I report it, I will do my best to comply with your request. Yours truly, H. J.

[The following Book Notice was prepared for the September Number of the Atlantic, but in the process of publication brevity was consulted with such success, that the whole criticism disappeared. Hardly more than a column of general approbation remains to show how the Atlantic cherishes the office of critic and its own subscription list. Such a shining example of American independence must certainly extort something from the human mind. And we are authorized to say that whenever heretofore the Atlantic has published criticisms of a safe and orthodox nature, it was entirely by accident that brevity was not consulted. We commence by quoting the few introductory lines which the Atlantic did not deem disastrous to its subscribers and disagreeable to Mr. Hedge and Christianity. If the reader chooses, he can afterwards qualify the candor with the candy, as he admires