work their own destruction. But Jesus could say, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall inherit the earth;" for peace unites mankind, peace works good will, and hence conserves and grows by its own life. Wicked men have fear, but they have not faith; they know they are wrong, and wrong-doing does not give confidence; it cannot, for it is at cross purposes with the moral order of the universe; but when one comes into harmony with this order, then is he in the line of insight and faith and power. H. W. THOMAS, D. D. Chicago.

THE MAN WITHOUT A GOD.

Most men will admit a superior Power of some sort. A first cause, a creator, an immutable, eternal energy, they do not utterly deny; that description of a God is a convenient hook for them whereon to hang the tangled skeins of their philosophic yarn, even in cases where they reject as unreasonable or unnecessary the God of Israel, the God of his people, the benign Father of Christian believers.

faculties, he mounts the lofty pedestal of his acquired knowledge and proclaims to the world, that the fool of old said in his heart, "there is no God." He thinks that the world will marvel at such wisdom, and that men will admire and praise in him beliefs (or disbeliefs) which they cannot, while gentle conscience stands with warning finger raised to chide the extravagancies of reason, bring themselves to avow.

But he goes further; not satisfied with having abolished the Deity, he ventures to assume the extreme prerogative of the Almighty he creates a God - he sublimates himself. Having thus established himself on the throne of supreme wisdom, he sets about to deliver mankind from the bonds and shackles under which they have been groaning for ages. With the righteous indignation of the iconoclast, does he attack with potent argument the graven image of Christianity which a misled people have for centuries worshiped and fallen down tɔ. What will he erect in place of this popular idol which he has cast down and destroyed? Why, he will

The man without a God, while deluding himself with the idea that he ought to be the happiest of men, is, in reality, the most abject, the most unfortunate of animals.

He ought to be happy, for if there is no God there is no final judgment to bring him to account for his misdeeds. If there is no God there is no Divine wrath to stand in awe of, no retribution to fear. If there is no God there is no hell to torment him after death and the judgment, for what sin so great, as to condemn him to lasting punishment can man commit when there is no God to sin against?

He is a brave man, this atheist. The hardihood of Ajax when he defied the lightnings of Jove sinks into insignificance when compared with the boldness of the man who scorns the mercy of Jehovah.

Yes, he is a brave man, when, in the full power of his bodily strength, and the unenthralled freedom of his mental

or, if men are not satisfied with that, let them worship him.

He is a man of wonderful fearlessness and consummate self-reliance, but there comes a time in his history when his courage seems at fault. He falls sick and the lamp of life burns very low. In the cheerful hours of day he comforts himself with his philosophy. He does not fear while day lasts - the light of reason will triumph over and put to flight the dark forebodings of death, as the sun at morning disperses the sullen, hanging gloom of night. He is told that he cannot survive; he smiles, and argues that such is the way with all flesh.

He is very calm; he marvels at himself in being able to contemplate with composure the act of a mind, and that mind his own, approaching death, oblivion, annihilation, without tremor, without dread; his very indifference seems indubitably to establish the supremacy of reason over doubt and fear, those terrors that so often stand grimly about the death-bed of believers in a

hereafter. He is now ready to die; the consummation of his greatness is realized, the pinnacle of his glory is at tained; he is ready to enter into the original elements of his being, the chaotic mass of indistinguishable atoms whence he sprung. But death comes not just then -death waits. At night when the household is hushed in slumber, and the pavement no longer echoes the tread of the belated pedestrian; when the measured breathing of the one watcher by the bed-side tells that the sleep of weariness has for a few moments closed those eyes; when he knows there is no active life about him, then does the man without a God give way to fear; then does he cower forsaken and alone in the dark and solitary cavern of his ignorance, and whispers in a voice so faint that none but the listening ear of Deity can hear, "Would that God would send a ray from Heaven to enlighten me."

He recovers and forgets.

Let us look at him in another light. He is a man of family; a husband, a father. He has a home, a stray bit of heaven not denied even him by that Mercy that causeth the rain to fall upon the just and upon the unjust. His home is comfortable, cheerful, pleasant. Roses bloom in the garden and jessamine and honeysuckle clamber over the trellis. Within is comfort, even luxury. Music delights his ear - he has sweettoned instruments in his home that the touches of certain fingers can rouse into living harmony. He is fond of reading; he has a library replete with wellselected and instructive volumes. Animals please him; a dog greets him with a welcoming bark at his gate, and the house cat rubs against his chair purring its delight at the caresses he bestows upon it.

He loves his family. His wife, standing in the doorway there to welcome him, her face a little careworn, perhaps, but pensively, restfully beautiful in the in the soft lingering glow of the setting sun, loves him. His son, a manly, intelligent boy of seven or eight years of age, runs with light step to meet him and gain the first kiss, while his daugh

ter, a sunny-haired blue-eyed child of four years, waits by her mother's side to greet him.

His foot presses his own threshold, on which he pauses for a moment to compliment his wife on her appearance, admire the rose in her hair, and chatter playfully with the children before entering to his evening meal.

He is at home, in the bosom of his family. When the playful clamor of the boy and girl is hushed in sleep and his wife sits by his side engaged in some trifling duty, his thoughts, diverted by the calm of the evening from the turbid channels of business, begin to center on himself and his prosperous condition. He honors and respects himself for founding and maintaining so reputable and comfortable an household. Not like some foolish men does he give thanks and glory unto God for temporal blessing, but rather to his own abstinence, patience and foresight does he attribute his present felicity. There is one thorn in his bed of roses, however, that he cannot wholly avoid pricking his infidel sensibilities upon: his wife is a devout Christian, and she is inculcating Christian principles and doctrines in the minds and hearts of his children. That frets his pride a little, but he lets her pursue her hobby, as he terms it, confident that the world, when they become old enough to receive instruction from its severe teachings, will show his children the fallacy and utter worthlessness of such a belief as Christianity. He will pay no attention to his wife's whim, but live on in the enjoyment of possessions he has accumulated for his happiness. But the fates are busy. This atheist, this man of family, this loving and generous husband and father will not escape some harsh decrees.

An accident, and his son is snatched suddenly from him. He is surprised; he had not foreseen it; philosophy made no provision for the sundering of a heartstring. Ere the echo of the boy's joyous laughter has ceased to vibrate in his memory, his little daughter is taken ill and passes away,-where? He startles himself with the question, and presses his hand to his forehead as if he would

press out a dark cloud that had settled on his brain. It is only another cord snapped. He resents this last calamity as an unkindness on the part of-whom? Poor creature he has not even a God to blame. Does the man without a God now contemplate death, oblivion, annihilation, composedly? Does the thought that his daughter, that golden-haired image of his household, that blue-eyed soul of his tenderer thoughts, will be reduced to the unknowable first principles of existence, that she will be resolved into an atom indistinguishable in the incomprehensible vastness of primordial elements, heal the open wound in his heart? The sweet tongued utterances of finite philosophy seem to run in strange discord now.

Meantime the fates are not idle. His loved wife, that sweet companion who has borne with him the burden of his double affliction, she falls sick and no longer waits on the threshold to greet his home-coming. She lies yonder in the darkened chamber very pale and feeble, but very patient. He is at home most of the time now with his family! He moves about his house absently, and ill at ease. He dares not question the physician for fear his answer will predict a calamity he fears to name. He enters his library and picks up a book, but he cannot read; a mist seems to gather before his eyes. He goes into the parlor, a very luxurious parlor, but to him barren of all comfort; the cold marble busts seem more cold and pallid than ever before; the musical instruments that were wont to discourse such rapturous melody, are soulless pieces of furniture; their white ivory keys grin at him like a row of mocking skeletons; or again they appear unto his troubled fancy like a mute procession of sheeted ghosts, saddened into silence at the thought that the hand that touched them into life would soon be as pulseless as themselves. That hand is even now reaching for an angel's harp!

He cannot pray, for he is a man without a God. He must wait. Not long!

The end comes. She dies with a smile and arms outstretched towards heaven. She is borne away from the

-no need of into her

house and lowered awaygentleness, she cannot feel narrow resting place. Dust to dust; Death, Oblivion, Annihilation! Another cord! The grave is a stern philosopher.

The day after she is buried a man is seen stealing into the church yard. It is late in the afternoon and the sun hangs low in the west. The solitary wanderer approaches a fresh turned mound and kneels beside it-it is the man without a God. He has yet to perform one last labor of love, a duty so sacred that he wishes no eye to behold him while he acts. It was her wish that the little blue forget-me-not that grew in the garden should be planted over her grave; she wished that he would plant it there. With bowed head and dimmed eye he goes about his task; on his knees he fulfills her last request, and, as with trembling hand he presses the earth of the new made grave about the roots of the little plant, whose quaint blue flowers-her eyes were blue he remembers-seem to look up at him in sad sympathy, a something rises in his throat, and his face is set and white and stern in the dying sunlight as he turns his gaze to heaven, and utters in a tone that breaks from him like the moan of an anguished spirit, O GOD!

mighty force pervading all parts of the wide universe. What this power is I do not know and no man knows, but we are sure it is, and that it is greater far than we.

Again, I mark constant change in the world; change in the skies by night, change in the seasons, slow changes in the earth's surface, growth in plants and animals, changes of heat and cold, health and disease. I know there is a cause for every change, and little by little man discovers a few of these causes, and learns to predict what will inevitably follow on their occurrence. Whenever I see a change, I suspect a hidden cause, some unseen force making its presence felt before my eyes. Somewhere there must be an original power which has set these forces in motion. But this is not all. More and more I find that this power works uniformly, that it does not come and go by chance, but is guided by fixed laws which are invariable. Men do not understand these laws at once. They often make mistakes in deciphering them, but they are there, plainly printed on the world's face, and he who disregards them does so at his own peril. I know, as surely as I know anything, that these laws are real things, -limits set to the action of the great powers of nature. The world is not, then, the product of chance; it is a cosmos, kept in order, regulated and gov. erned. It is moving, progressing, constantly changing, but preserving a fixed and unchanging path. The laws of nature and human life which men discover are, the ways in which the world. power moves, and by understanding these, and obeying them, men provide for their convenience and comfort, and bend the forces of nature to their service.

I have said that men discover these laws. That means they do not invent them. They do not make, and cannot change them. The stars do not stop in their course for our shouting, neither will a comet pay regard to the smoke of sacrifice on a thousand altars. Words will not stop the pestilence, nor the beating of drums frighten away disease. The laws of health, the laws of astron

omy were here long before man learned to know them. Some other than man's will must have ordained them, must have set bounds to the sea, and appointed the moon for seasons. Far as I penetrate the secrets of nature, still there is a deeper mystery, a source and a presence which my thought cannot fathom. I do not know what is hidden there, I only know it is something; some Being,

some Almighty and Eternal Being of beings. But because the world is full of order and beauty and harmony, because that order and beauty increase and grow upon my mind the more I study them, I know there is some purpose in the government of the Creation. Those laws and that purpose spring from One Will, all-powerful, all knowing, behind all, and in all.

Still farther. When I read the pages of history, I learn another lesson. I find that some power has led man in the way of a continual growth. His power of mind and heart has been developing. He has not merely increased his personal comfort, widened his capacity for enjoyment, learned to know and do a thousand things impossible to him at the first, but he has found a conscience. He has discovered a moral power within and above him which commands his obedience. Guided by its precepts, he has preferred others' interest before his own. He has ministered to the suffering, the sick, the poor, the oppressed. Against his lower instincts, he has done this. Again and again he has sacrificed his best, even his life, not merely for friends, but for those he has not known, for the welfare of his kind. Such has been the course of human progress, reaching its highest moral ideal in the life of Jesus.

Now, the Power that led mankind in this path already reveals its own nature. That Power is righteous and loving, as well as wise. It is not less but more than the best that is here. That I am sure of. Not because any one has told me so, but because my reason, the mind that is given me, irresistibly compels me to this conviction. I believe in this God, a Power that guides this world to some end of righteousness and love; a holy, merciful Father in whose

hands we all are safe. Yet I believe Him too wise, too loving that He should change any of His laws for my special pleading; too impartial to do to me what He would not do to all others in like need and circumstances, too great ever to be measured by these feeble human words. He is beyond all thought, yet I know that Wisdom and Power are in all and through all. That God I can worship. I can sometimes catch glimp ses of His presence; shadows that pass me by, still voices from out the infinite dark. In noble thoughts that have inspired brave deeds; in faithful lives that patiently bore their burdens of grief and pain; in strange beauty that floods the western gates with glory, or covers the dull earth with the fair robes of spring, and dances on the sparkling waves of the sea, I have seen the touch of His hand. Then has my heart been stirred to its depths, and warmth and power have entered into my thought of God. And, again, by the silent mystery of death, in the sharp hour of moral trial, in the earnest pleadings of them who have themselves stood face to face with the Eternal, has risen upon me the thought of God. I cannot fathom it. Enough to know what now I know. Enough for one lifetime to follow this high star of thought, clear, sweet, and steadfast in its shining upon the darkness here below.

St. Cloud, Minn.

CHARLES J. STAPLES.

THE LIVING FAITH.

(A STATEMENT OF BELIEF FOR A GUILD).
I believe in holy living,
I believe in generous giving,
Truth and honor, kindly deeds,
Loving help for others' needs;
I believe in strong endeavor,
Progress that shall be forever,
Patient waiting, self-denial,
Faith, the clearer for its trial;
I believe in firm endurance,
In the might of love's assurance,
In God's all-embracing care,
In the blessedness of prayer.

Thus the Lord Christ Jesus taught,
Thus through all his life he wrought;
Following him we do the same
As for him and in his name.

Winchester, Mass.

L. A. BRADBURY.

DR. MARTINEAU'S "STUDY OF

RELIGION."

III. WHAT CONSCIENCE CAN TELL US or GOD; OR, GOD AS HOLY. PART II.

In our last paper we reached the conclusion that the ends toward which moral and physical laws, alike, look and work, are ethical, and the Divine Causality places itself at the disposal of the Divine Perfection: Eternal Thought moves in the lines of eternal Holiness.

But is this conclusion verified when carried into the sphere of outward things? The scheme of things in which we live admits: (1) of suffering, pains from want, pains of decline, pains from the physical elements, pains from the predacious mode of life; it admits (2) of moral evil or sin, and (3) it is charged with exhibiting the at least seeming abandonment of human history to the conflicts of rude force; can these things be reconciled with our recognition of an infinite moral perfection in the constitution and administration of the world? To many readers no part of Dr. Martineau's exhaustive treatise will have so vital interest as the eighty pages in which these objections to the belief in a moral order in the universe are answered and the belief justified. We can do no more than hint at their contents.

I. The possibilities of pain inherent in the organism are of two kinds: those which as wants-hunger, thirst, fatigue,

work the organism, and those which set in at last when the organism can no Of the former all longer be worked. can see the reason and value. The uneasiness of appetite and passion trains the animal to mastery over the world, and enriches the earth with higher forms of life developed through the struggle for existence. Is it charged as a cruel feature in the competition for existence, that the halt and feeble lose their footing on the world and are exiled from life? This judgment is itself a vindication of the Creator. The life given, with all its pains, is a good which it is a hardship to lose.

The sufferings which set in when the organism can be no longer worked is a harder problem. Had nature provided