ences mainly made up of them, know something of what manner of persons they are, and have sought to get a fair and just view of their position.

Let me go back more than fifty years, to the days of the pioneer anti-slavery reform in my native Massachusetts. By far the larger part of the population were then regular church goers, trained in the ways of Puritanism and with that habit fixed by their training.

With the progress of the anti-slavery movement, some of the best and most conscientious people became dissatisfied with the church and clergy. They heard clerical defenses of slavery and saw the leading churches cling to their guilty church communion and fellow ship with slave owners.

Whittier voiced their indignation in his exclamation:

"Just God and holy! is that church which

lends

Strength to the spoiler, thine!

I once heard in a Massachusetts town the story of a young man, always a steady "hearer of the word," prized and beloved for his excellence and piety; who joined the little band of despised

abolitionists in the town and went to

church no more. A deacon who knew and greatly liked the young man, met him one day and asked him why he was not with them in the sanctuary. In reply he said: For the best answer, I refer you to the Psalm Book, and to the first lines of a certain Psalm, which he named. The deacon went home and

found the lines:

"Broad is the road that leads to death And thousands walk together there."

The young man had fairly captured the battery which had always been trained upon sinners, and turned its volley of hot shot on the saints! He was one of the " come-outers" from popular orthodoxy. Earnest and strongsouled Unitarians, and other Liberal Christians, turned from their church

They turned away from faults, not from virtues. This may lead us to see that among those who stay away to-day there may be good and true men and women, non-conformists, yet deeply religious in a high sense.

Let us look at our cities and towns first, then at our country population.

It is an approximation to the fact, near enough to save cumbrous statistics, to say that in towns and cities of five thousand people and upwards, not a third of those of church-going age attend church; in the country less than half. Both Catholics and Protestants are included in this statement. Why this large absence and who absent themselves?

In towns and cities are large numbers of people necessarily plain in dress, who are repelled by the style and splendor of the elegant churches and their wealthy attendants. These cannot buy seats in pews, and shrink from possible slights, imagine them often greater than they would be, and stay at home. For these, churches tasteful, but simple, free pews, a cultivation of a fraternal spirit by leading church supporters, an avoidance of garish display in church going, and preaching direct to heart and soul would turn many of them churchward. If the wealthy mem bers of any society wish to see and to have others see noble statuary and beaulet them put such artistic teachers in tiful pictures to uplift heart and mind, their fit place--in the simple churches of the people.

No missionary chapels in distant suburbs will do, where the poor are made to feel the condescending kindness of the aristocracy in a great rich church in the fashionable quarter which supports their plain service. If a wealthy church helps a poorer one in the suburbs, let that help be fraternal, but not condescending Christian, but not from the

There are the dissipated and degraded, the poor victims of the saloons. (those awful curses, ready to blight and ruin all whom they can entice), whose families are dragged down by their degradation. These are harder to reach

and uplift, but the open church door, the kindly spirit, and heart-preaching soul, not dogma in the pulpit-will do the work. Dogmas repel them, great truths of the soul penetrate their darkness like gleams of blessed sunshine.

There is also a skeptical element in the large foreign born city populations, those who have seen, in the old world, Church and State as allied robbers, and therefore hate both. These can only be reached by like methods in like spirit, the free church with open doors, and especially preaching which shall meet their reason as well as their hearts.

Besides all these, less numerous but more than many suppose, are well-to-do families of good character. Men absorbed in business, indifferent, with a half-concealed contempt for dogmatic theology and sometimes a tinge of materialism, but sound and true at heart, and honest in act, are among these. There are persons too of deep religious convictions, large thought, and spiritual insight, who are not fed by dogmatic talk from narrow and formal preachers. These are often turned away by the indifference of the churches to needed reforms. A thoughtful woman, for instance, sees and feels deeply the need of woman's equality in rights and in the free choice of her own field; she would have her sisters preach or vote if they wish, and sees that the world would be better for it. She finds the pillars of her church indifferent, and feels their half-concealed, pitying contempt, and goes away; and the poor blind souls fail to know that virtue has gone out from them and that they sustained a loss when she went her own free way. A church of the natural religion, a Liberal Christian church which never crucifies reason to gain piety, which is deeply in earnest, and which is up to the highest thought and the most earnest enthusiasm in practical reform, has its especial vantage ground for work among these outsiders. It can also best reach the rich in spirit, though poor in purse, of the struggling multitude.

Of the country less need be said; not that it is of less importance, but that

what has been already written largely covers its ground.

It should be kept in mind that the non-church-goers in the country aver age higher in character than in cities In country as in town, there is a vicious, poor, and ignorant element which keeps away from all churches, but it is less in proportion, and those of good character and conditions larger in proportionate numbers than in town.

I know neighborhoods covering miles of farms, where dwell good and intelligent people of habits quite up to the average, where the large majority seldom go near a church. Materialism or atheism does not preponderate, scoffing at religion is not common, but atheist and church member meet with like respect, if honest and well behaved.

A singular reply made by a respectable farmer to a friend of mine who asked him if there was any preaching in his neighborhood, reveals a feeling more prevalent than might be supposed. "No, there's no hell to be saved from, and why need we have preaching?" was the answer. This was a criticism on the old style of preaching which appealed to the fear of eternal fire, and also showed a lack of apprehension of the inspiring benefit of meeting together to hear good words that would help to make daily life full of light and strength, and thus fit us for a higher life beyond. There is a tinge of stingy laziness in this poor mood.

The people simply care little for the prevalent orthodox theology, and not deeply for any other. They have large sympathy with rational religion and would like to see all persecution or detraction for opinion's sake ended.

In some of these neighborhoods, spiritualism has taken strong hold. Personal experiences, which they earnestly feel were proofs of spirit-presence, have stirred the souls of good men and women, oftenest of the large liberal class, sometimes among the orthodox or the skeptics. They think and read and go out to public meetings, their thought widens and is richer. I have often spoken to audiences of thousands where the majority were of the best people

from such country neighborhoods. Sometimes they grow foolish, far oftener they grow wiser and better.

I have followed their young people in their future lives in cities, and find them often going to liberal churches, where their opinions are treated with growing respect, but seldom fraternizing with orthodox churches.

Occasionally a liberal church is found in the country districts, but not often. The people go to towns near, or are too much scattered to keep up a society, or are not earnest enough, to tell the plain fact, to "feel in the right place--in their pockets," as the shrewd Quaker said.

And thou can'st ask an answer to thy
And love and faith shall have their Easter
Day,
Now and alway.

St. Louis, Mo.

CHARLOTTE C. ELIOT.

The general scope and line of liberal religious thought, of whatever name, is the same. The intelligent Spiritualist reads Parker and Emerson with pleasure as well as profit. He may think he sees something they do not, but he feels that he gains something from them.

Orthodox theology will never regain its old power over this non church going host, in country or city.

With that host it is a larger and more rational, spiritual faith, broader knowledge and charity, or nothing. This conclusion a half century of careful and wide observation, from Maine to Nebraska and Alabama, has confirmed in my mind.

LOR AND HIS BETHEL IN
BOSTON.

Having been for three continuous years in earlier life a hearer of the preaching of the Rev. E. T. Taylor, I would contribute a few reminiscences of him, which may perhaps place him in a somewhat varied if not stronger light than that in which he is seen in articles heretofore published about him.

Not a "wit in jest and fool in earnest," as Pope charges upon some men, Mr. Taylor was a man of great observation and of intense practical sense; though in the pulpit he never followed the devious ways of logic, but came to his conclusions pointedly and directly. Justice cannot well be done to him, for none of his sermons have been fully reported. The common listener remembers some of his many witty and epigrammatic sayings, but forgets nearly all his more sober and logical utterances, some of which were not only orig. inal. but worthy of the most cultivated mind.

At the time I attended the Seamen's Bethel (1833-36), Mr. Taylor was about forty years of age, and supposed to be in his prime. The afternoon services were usually more interesting than the morning, as more strangers were there and the house was fuller. Frequently members of the Boston Port Society (which employed Mr. Taylor to preach to the many seamen of that locality)

were seated in pews at the right of the pulpit, and with them, not unfrequently, eminent strangers, some from foreign countries, who were attracted by the fame of the preacher. Quite a number of literary men apparently experienced a great treat by being present, if one may judge by their frequent visits, and the smiles and tears that often met on their faces. The venerable Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, the eminent mathematician and astronomer,-who had himself the spray of salt water upon him,accompanied by one of his sons to help him along, would often walk over a mile and back to hear a man who probably spake to him as no other man spake.

Mr. Taylor in his own pulpit subjected himself to but little restraint, especially previous to the commencement of services, being free and blunt in ordering and suggesting, as if commanding a ship. The occasion for this was in seating the seamen, who were entitled to the center of the floor, and in fact in seating all. One old whitehaired gentleman appeared very often, and when Mr. Taylor would see him passing up the aisle, he would rise and exclaim, "Brother Loring, brother Loring, come right up here. Room!" And so Mr. Loring would climb up into a high pulpit through a filled stairway, and when seated would frequently be observed stealthily to apply his handkerchief to his eyes.

The galleries were free to all, and were usually filled with a humble class of people, of whom there were many in the neighborhood; and not a few pitiable ruins of men and women were seen quite constantly in attendance, who undoubtedly felt the warm sympathy of Mr. Taylor for their suffering class. Quite a number of men who had no particular place of worship, would stroll in from the country towns, so much did the magnetism and words of the preacher attract them. One elderly man from Brighton, known to the writer, who had to travel five miles each way, was a very constant attendant.

Just after Mr. Taylor's return from his humane mission to starving Ireland, I took an opportunity to hear him. In

alluding to that mission he said: "I didn't trouble their [the natives] religious belief. If there is anything which I abominate it is boring people with empty stomachs with long lectures on theology. I would never trust my soul with a man who didn't respect my body. Respect what you see first, and then feel for more. The people of Ireland have degenerated and run out by living on potatoes. A few vegetables wouldn't hardly keep a sheep alive. May God grant that they may yet be a hearty, bread-eating and meat eating people." He spoke of the great revolutions which must take place in Ireland before her people can be prosperous, and uttered this philosophic, though rather common, sentiment, "The seeds of all great revolutions are steeped in blood."

Some few years later than my regular attendance at the Bethel, I visited his church, and took down a few of his original and pithy sayings. Though they were thrown off without much reflection, and here show no close connection, they well illustrate the speaker's mind. "God's law, our obedience to that law, and the bliss accompanying obedience to that law, are always an unbroken chain. The law is no more too severe than is a surgeon's knife ever too sharp; too dull, it would be butchery. The devil never called in question the truth of God's law. He told Eve she might; and she did. It is somewhat to the character and reputation of the devil that he believed and trembled whereas you believe and sleep." Speaking of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he said: "They could eat their own common fare, but they wouldn't even touch the king's cream-cakes." And in alluding to their subsequent treatment and miraculous impunity in the fiery furnace, he exclaimed, "Innocence has a claim upon earth and in heaven"; and, holding up his hands, opening his eyes wide and grating his teeth like a madman, added, "and asks no favors in hell!" "Faith," he said, "is more easily talked of than understood. Not one in ten thousand has so much as an Egyptian moonshine