"this

Again and again, with his divine Master does he say, people's ears are dull, their eyes are heavy, their hearts are gross," and, again and again, with him does he explain, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."

The author of this volume will here add that, though he believes there is nothing in these pages so obscurely stated that "a wayfaring man, though a fool, need err therein "-yet has he not prepared it for, nor does he offer it to, the unquestioning, unaspiring masses.

Only for those who are striving to become "men" and are not contented to remain "babes,"-those who are teachable, that is, willing to know, anxious to know, hungering and thirsting to know "the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth,"-only for these has this volume been prepared; and to these it is respectfully and humbly submitted.

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To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth. Every one that is of the Truth heareth my voice. If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free."

XXVII.-FREE CHURCHES AND THE GOSPEL WITHOUT PRICE."

(An Open Profession.)

By maternal ancestry the author is a "birth-right member" of the Society of (Progressive) Friends. From early teachings as well as from inheritance came a strong sense of the Anti-New Testament and hence Anti-Christian nature of a marketable Priesthood, called by the Society of Friends a hireling Ministry. Paternal influence, however, and education among the Orthodox Sects led to considerations of pecuniary advantage and a gradual suppression of the Inner Voice. "Woe is to me if I preach not the Gospel" was a conviction of even boyhood days, but mercenary motives warped it into conformity with the popular and prevailing methods. The result was an experiencc of nearly

fifteen years as Pastor of pew-renting Churches in which the salary was bargained for and the Gospel preached at marketable prices. During all these years, however, sympathetic relations were maintained with the Society of Friends and frequent participation in their reverent and spiritual worship. But the time at length came when maturely considered convictions made it impossible, in peace or in honor, to continue a professional Priest or a hireling Minister. By no means does the author undertake to say that all professional Priests are mercenary. There are, as there always have been, self-sacrificing and martyr-spirited men, noble and true, among the Priesthood of every form of Religion-Brahministic, Buddhistic, Moslem, or that of other Pagan names as well as of the Jews and Christians. But they are, or have been, noble and true in spite of the system and not as its product. The system, ever and everywhere, is debasing in its nature and degenerating in its results. As such Jesus and his Apostles opposed it; withdrew from it; and organized a Church in which every sanctified member might be both prophet and priest, preaching and ministering for the pure love of God and man, without bargain as to money or price. The Son of Man "I have coveted

came to minister and not to be ministered unto."
no man's silver or gold." "I seek not yours, but you."

Voluntary and "cheerful" contributions for the needful sustenance of those who devote their entire lives to the service of the Gospel is, indeed, a New Testament and Apostolic requirement. But any form of exaction or of stipulation, such as taxes or rentals of seats, admissions charged or solicited, the rich seated high and the poor seated low, or even formal collections as a part of public Worship-all these are utterly antagonistic to the teachings and spirit of the New Testament.

As the poor widow, commended by Jesus, quietly and gladly cast her mites into the treasury at the entrance of the Temple, so should every Christian-letting not the left hand know what the right is doing and permitting neither priest, nor minister, nor other official to ask How much will you give? Every man's own conscience is his own and only prompter and judge in all matters of Christian charity. And every Minister of the Gospel should uncomplainingly accept, as his means of livelihood, whatever those to whom he ministers, without bargaining or constraint, may cheerfully and quietly offer.

With this understanding of Christianity the author fully resolved some fifteen years ago, and as Rector has unceasingly kept the resolve, to minister to those willing to accept free Churches and the Gospel without price, as Jesus and his Apostles, according to the New Testament records, organized and ordained them. Such bodies of Christians best represent "the true Church" whether derisively called Quakers or whatever. And such is the Apostolic Ministry though it minister in a "meeting house," or (as in the early centuries) by the seaside, or on a mountain, or in an upper room, or in a private dwelling.

"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. . The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth."

"The church in the wilderness"-" the church that is in their house "" if the church be come together into one place ""salute the church that is in Nympha's house "—" Paul a prisoner to the church in thy house."

"I thought it necessary therefore to entreat the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up beforehand your bounty that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not of our covetousness.

"But this I say, He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth with blessings shall reap also with blessings. Let each man do according as he hath purposed in his heart not grudgingly, or of necessity for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work as it is written.

:

"He hath scattered abroad, he hath given to the poor; "His righteousness abideth for ever."

From the Romanists down, it is practically true of all the sects, to-day as ever, that the "liberty" they grant to those who question their dogmas is of the same kind as that which the Puritans of Massachusetts granted to Roger Williams and the Quakers; "We grant them entire liberty to keep as far away from us as possible, and if any of them are among us to be gone as quickly as they can." The main difference is that formerly this "liberty was backed with sword and fagot, but now with ecclesiastical stigma and social scorn.

History confirms what science proves, that in any living organism, an established order soon results in deterioration and decay. Whatever settles down upon a fixed and final basis, physically, intellectually, or spiritually, begins to die. No living thing can be to-day exactly as it was yesterday, or will be to-morrow, without stagnation—and stagnation is incipient death. Hence, whosoever with honesty, intelligence and love combined protests against the established order is a friend and not an enemy.

The protester has ever been the pioneer. Those whom the established order has ever mistaken and persecuted as dissenters and heretics have been the appointed prophets of God to lead the world not only out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the "wilderness of Sinaï," but also through it to the Promised Land. Unless the "trumpets of silver" be sounded and the order of march" followed the old and oft-repeated misery will result; "Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years."

No soft-toned priest or smooth-tongued prophet ever availed except to bring up "an evil report of the land" and to persuade the people to remain encamped in the wilderness; nay, even to urge them backward, saying, "Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt." They are the real enemies,-the real dissenters and infidels-not the Calebs and Joshuas who disquiet the people by saying, "It is an exceedingly good land: let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it."

Against the soft-toned priests and smooth-tongued prophets the Divine rebukes have ever sounded forth; and whosoever faithfully reiterates these rebukes does God's service-however much

True to the Gospel as well as to the Law, to the New Testament pictures as well as to the Old-however poetically incomplete is a poem written just one hundred years ago, from which a few lines may here be appropriately added.

"THE SMOOTH DIVINE."

(Lines by the President of Yale College, 1797.)

"Placed in some great town with lacquered shoes,
Trim wig, and trimmer gown, and glistening hose,
He bowed, talked politics, learned manners mild,
Most meekly questioned, and most smoothly smiled.
Most daintily on pampered turkeys dined,
Nor shrunk with fasting, nor with study pined.

No terrors on his gentle tongue attend,

No grating truths the nicest-ear offend.

'Twas best, he said, mankind should cease to sin :
Good fame required it; so did peace within.

Their honors, well he knew, would ne'er be driven :
But hoped they still would please to go to Heaven."

XXIX.-SCYLLA AND CHARY BDIS.

(Contributed by the author and here republished as illustrative of those extremes against which this volume is a warning. See especially pages 79-89.)

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1.-Scylla.

To the Editors of the Daily Eagle:

"Catholicism' means toleration and inclusiveness in religion. 'A Catholic' is one who tolerates all intelligently honest religious convictions, and includes rather than excludes them. For any one of the various Christian sects to name itself 'The Catholic Church,' and to presume to address all the other sects as 'NonCatholics is a piece of impudence which it is high time was resented with mingled pity and scorn-pity for the ignorance and scorn for the bigotry.

"With spoken and published appeals to 'Non-Catholics' for a week or more past, a representative of the Roman Catholic sect