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man, D.D., spoke. Dr. Pullman, who is a Universalist, made a most telling address, in which he declared Unitarians and Universalists were growing so much alike that pretty soon their dear old nursing mother, the truth, would not know them apart.

Another Universalist, Dr. W. S. Crowe, gave an exceedingly eloquent paper on Wednesday morning on "The Old Theology and the New in Relation to Biblical Criticism"; and a great deal of joyous satisfaction was expressed that the action of the Conference three years ago, in adopting the platform which it then did, paved the way for such men to feel one with us. This satisfaction was accentuated on Thursday, when the evangelist Rev. B. Fay Mills also spoke with hearty appreciation of our faith. Great addresses were given by Rev. John W. Chadwick and Rev. Charles F. Dole at the Wednesday morning session. Mr. Chadwick reviewed the historical development of the idea of the unique divinity of Jesus, and declared the whole argument involved an atheistic element,-that, to complete the divinity of Jesus, God had been eliminated. Mr. Dole pointed out existing points of difference between even the newest Orthodoxy and Unitarianism. The idea of the Bible, the conception of Jesus, the place of sin in human life,-are all matters of the gravest importance, and yet upon which Orthodoxy cannot yet take the modern liberal views.

The Temperance Society's meeting on Wednesday afternoon brought forward a speaker new to most Unitarians in Mrs. Leonora M. Lake, the vice-president of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. Her address was one of the most telling and powerful appeals that our society has ever heard, and great enthusiasm was shown by the audience. Rev. George Hosmer presided in a most graceful and winning way at this meeting, and Rev. J. T. Sunderland spoke eloquently.

At the evening meeting two very keen addresses, both provoking thought, were by Francis C. Lowell and William D. Foulke on citizenship and public life.

The last day, Thursday, opened as each preceding day of the Conference with clear sky, bracing air, and sparkling sunshine, every temptation to tired delegates to fly to the fairyland of Lake George or

the nearer charms of Saratoga Lake or McGregor Mount. The attendance, however, was just as large and as steady as though every outside physical attraction were far removed. The first papers were very careful studies in social conditions, Prof. Edward Cummings treating of "False Hindrances to Social Betterment," and Prof. Nicholas P. Gilman, "Animated Moderation," after which Rev. B. Fay Mills gave an earnest and forcible popular address on "The Mission to the Multitude." His plea was for more devotion, blood-earnestness, spiritual power. True religion needs a great thought, a great personality, a great occasion. All these the liberal faith can claim to-day. Mr. Mills was a good living illustration of his own demand for power; and we note from his address the following amplification of a good old motto:

RELIGION IS ABSOLUTE FAITH, BOUNDLESS HOPE, UNLIMITED LOVE.

On Thursday afternoon papers were read by Rev. George C. Cressey, Ph.D., on Immortality, Rev. Samuel C. Beane on "The Testimony of Literature to the Spiritual Life," and Rev. Clay MacCauley on "Christianity in Japan."

The closing session of the Conference was occupied by a rousing platform meeting, in which the speakers were all so eager and so fully equipped that the twenty-minute limit proved a galling yoke. Rev. John Synder, Dr. E. E. Hale, Rev. Eli Fay, Rev. Minot J. Savage, each received an enthusiastic reception as he rose to speak upon "Denominational Loyalty."

The following are the principal resolutions adopted by the Conference, those relating to the appointment of State Superintendents being laid on the table: :

The independent churches and societies represented in this National Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches are earnestly recommended to consult with the respective Committees of Fellowship in their sections of the Union concerning the settlement or resignation of their ministers.

Whereas the need is urgent for some serious and

direct expression of our liberal thought as touching all the more important aspects of men's moral and religious life; and

Whereas we cannot feel that our liberal thinkers and scholars are doing all they should in furtherance of this end and all that is required of them by the exigencies of the present time,

Resolved, That a committee be appointed by this Conference that shall, if possible, devise some plan whereby those among us who are most competent for the handling, of great questions may be encouraged to prepare a series of books setting forth clearly and persuasively the most reasonable and satis

factory solutions of these questions which have yet been discovered.

That the Fellowship Committee of the Conference be instructed to confer annually with the officers of the American Unitarian Association in regard to the list of ministers as published in the Year Book, and recommend the addition or dropping of names, so as to make it as nearly as possible a list of those who are entitled to such recognition.

Dark Tower came," one does not care to interpret every word and allusion in the measurable terms of prose. Thus with this vision from the far-off time. Passing lightly and swiftly over the minute details, the mind soon reaches its highest point and finds its larger meaning. Dismissing the critical and curious understanding, and

Resolved, That the National Conference heartily asking the imaginative and poetic senti

renews its recommendation first made in 1894, that an endowment fund of $50,000 be raised to insure the continued publication of the New World quarterly; and it emphatically urges upon all Unitarians the duty of giving to this highly important enterprise a solid financial foundation. The chairman of the Conference is hereby authorized to name a new committee on the current support and endowment of the New World, to contínue and complete the work so well begun by the committee appointed by the last Saratoga Conference.

THE UNMEASURED LIFE.

Sermon preached by Rev. Reed Stuart at the Opening Session.

"Afterward he brought me to the gate that looketh toward the East."-Hebrew Prophet.

Those worthy but often literal students of the Bible, whose labors resulted in the now almost unused volumes called Commentaries, always encountered great perplexity when they reached the scene partially described in the words just quoted. They made a commendable effort to reduce all its strange imagery to terms of the understanding, but they were never quite sure that they had succeeded. They were in some doubt as to whether the mountain to which the prophet was carried was real or imaginary, whether the form seen measuring the temple was a man of earth, an angel from the sky, or a mere creation of the writer's fancy. Some of them thought the temple was an actual historic structure. Others found less difficulty in thinking that it belonged to the future, and was outlined as yet only in the air.

Two reasons at this time are present for not attempting to scatter the cloud of uncertainty which still hangs over the scene. One of these is inability, the other indifference. Like those who wrote the Commentaries, we do not know the meaning of all the details of the vision: unlike them, we do not regard it as of much importance what they may mean. When reading "The Vision of Mirza," or "The Serpent Bridge, or Childe Roland to the

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ment to become his guide, the reader is led to the mountain upon which a temple stands. Wandering through its courts without halting to measure them, admiring its snow-white columns without caring to count them, looking at the windows with. out estimating their cost, then mounting its stairway, he reaches the gate which opens toward the east. Looking through it, at once he sees that for which the temple exists. Through it the splendor of God was seen. A voice like that of many waters was heard, many waters,-sublime, like the waves breaking upon the shore, musical as the rain falling upon summer leaves, gentle as a brook gliding through a meadow between flower-fringed banks. Looking toward the east, the whole visible earth was sparkling in a light more refulgent than the sun pours down in June. The glory came from a Sun behind the sun.

Having asked this vision to yield its larger meaning, we may thank it for what it has done, and then dismiss it. What was sought has been found. Having been found, it seems to possess more than a local significance. It can be carried away from old Palestine, and applied to new America. The temple is the world. The open gate is the soul, through which the greatness and beauty and glory of the world may stream.

Let it be confessed that one of the needs of our era is that we take larger views of all things than we are accustomed to do. The larger meaning and use of science, of literature, of art, of government, and of religion, are essentially their truest use and meaning. To fail in finding these is to be ignorant of that for which they exist. Unfortunate, indeed, would that age be whose science had become mere fact-collecting, the observation of phenomena, and the drawing of inferences therefrom relating only to the material world, -the life of to-day and perhaps to-morrow; whose literature had become the multiplication of books without regard to their quality, phrase - making, and babbling echoes of

former ages; whose art had become the reproduction of form and color, imitation without inspiration, realism with the true Real omitted; whose government, national and international, had become a game of politics, measuring each principle by its commercial value, mistaking national selfishness for patriotism and brag for bravery; whose religion had become a criticism as touching the past, indifferentism and dilettanteism as touching the present, and scepticism as touching the future. It would doubtless be a libel against our era to say that, in all respects, or perhaps in any respect, it could be thus described. We may join with the cheerful optimists in praising our times. Perhaps, all in all, our age is the best the world has ever possessed. But it is not perfect. In each of its great departments it might be much better than it is. Especially is there need to guard against satisfaction with what has been attained. Material triumph is not enough to make an age glorious. If we must reach limitations, we should not be content with the inferior boundaries. Things are known truly only when their highest meaning is known.

To be able to weigh a mountain is worth something, but it is not worth more than the ability to fill the mind with thoughts which far surpass the mountain in magnitude and sublimity. To survey an orchard and drive stakes at its boundaries does not proclaim the greatness of the soul, any more than looking at it for a moment when in full bloom, and then permitting thought to fly away far beyond its boundaries and its blossoms, and roam at will in the vast, unhorizoned realm of beauty. To love a flower announces the fine quality of the heart as much as does the power to analyze and classify it. The constant love of a friend is much more valuable than a scientific demonstration of friendship. A mother is much more precious than an essay on motherhood.

For the same rea

son, religion as an age-long, world-wide sentiment, stirring the spiritual nature to its depths, becoming duty as touching the actual, aspiration as touching the ideal, and thrilling every hour of the present with a boundless expectation, is much more valuable than whole libraries of theology, old or new, essays on criticism, lower or higher, semi-scientific lectures to prove the truth or falsity of miracles, the trinity or unity of Deity, and arguments more inge

nious than ingenuous to show the harmony between Genesis and geology.

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The period in which those of us who have passed middle life have lived their years has had a passion for exact measure-ment. It has been an era of weighing, surveying, analyzing, demonstrating. has tried to reduce the universe to a formula. It has resembled that conceited but cowardly officer who boasted that he carried the whole theory of war in the knot of his scarf. In the fable the squirrel thought the mountain was made only for a convenient squirrel-track; and some have acted as if the universe had been made merely for them to analyze and lecture about. If they were not here, there would be no use for it.

As a result, affirmations have been weak and hesitating. Great in many ways, no one will pretend that the middle fifty years of our century have been great in their spiritual belief. Materialism never became a science; and we are informed that, of all theories, it is at this date the most unscientific. Nevertheless, for a time it became, at least, a half-philosophy of life. Becoming a half-philosophy, it became a three-fourths' practice; and its results were painfully apparent. Literature descended to meet the new conditions. The commercial standard was applied to every department of life. The old question, "What is he?" gave way to the new question, "What is he worth?" Temporary success has been made of more account than character and the method of success. Meanwhile the wings of the spiritual life have been furled. There have been many critics, but few prophets. What not to believe has been made very apparent: what to believe has been half under a cloud. Faith seemed to have reached its winter solstice, and the halt threatened to become permanent: oblique and frost-laden its beams fell upon life. Those who were indifferent found it an easy thing to give up faith, expectation, and a high sanction for duty. Those who were anxious to retain these fine qualities had much to overcome. Some trembled every time a new book was announced by a student of nature or history, lest they might find religion wholly archaic, and soon to be marked in the dictionaries as obsolete. Others suspended all judgment until the final facts were brought in. They would not decide whether they have a soul or the universe a God until the scientific societies had made their last report.

Not here or elsewhere would it be anything but ungracious to speak lightly of what science has done and is still doing and will yet do for the world. In it is fulfilled the twofold fable. Here is Argus, with the hundred eyes to see, here Briareus, with the hundred hands to do. Ever since Edipus answered the riddle of the Theban Sphinx and Alexander cut the famous knot, -symbols, it may be, of the inquiring and conquering spirit of humanity, -science has been busy solving problems and multiplying a thousand-fold man's power over nature. Shall, then, any mortal play the part of the ill-tempered Thersites, and rail at this hero? Let him, rather, weave a garland for his brow. And yet let us not forget that its domain is not universal. Not conceit over what it has done, but reverent humility in presence of what remains to be done, and much of which transcends its methods, is more becoming.

The world is much vaster than one mind or than all minds can measure. The chemist can analyze a part of it, and write down the laws which govern it. The geographers can survey the surface of the earth, and make an accurate map of its continents and oceans. Geology can give the plan of its construction, and describe the action of those forces which, working through almost illimitable stretches of time, gave its present shape and structure. With its immense measuring chain, astronomy surveys the night sky, and, returning to earth, overpowers the mind with report of the great space sweeping orbits along which roll worlds and systems of worlds. It eloquently describes flaming suns equal to a thousand like the one which pours its light and heat upon our home, which yet, because of their millions of millions miles of distance, seem no larger than the candle in a cottage seen across a field: they are as powerless to illuminate all space as a single lantern, swinging at the mast-head of a rising and falling ship, is to illuminate an uneasy midnight ocean. Thus, along with the measurable and describable, there is always suggested the indescribable and measureless.

Our age has fallen deeply in love with facts. But it must be remembered that facts are nothing more than the material which the mind uses to build a bridge by which it passes from the material over into the realm of the limitless and spiritual. This solid, concrete shore of earth upon

which rests one pier of the marvellous bridge is not to be despised. In many ways, it is a delightful place. With its plains and forests and oceans, its cities and industries, its harvests, its homes, its manifold forms of near beauty and use, its capacity to minister to life in so many ways,-truly, it is wonderful! It is not surprising that the mortal heart passionately loves it, and is most loath to leave it. But this shore is not a finality. It exists to suggest a much greater shore where whatsoever delights here is repeated to delight the advancing and enlarging mind. Facts, be they microscopic or telescopic, are not equal to the Soul which forms them nor to the soul which beholds them. When the rainbow is analyzed and described, its cause discovered, and it is found that there is not an urn of gold at each end of it, we have received some useful information. But the mind receiving this definite knowledge does not halt with that. It can admire the graceful band, woven out of sunshine and raindrops, and drawn over a cloud; but it can do more than that. Beyond definite knowledge, beyond admiration for the near and visible beauty, it can go far out into the remote and invisible, and adore the pre-existent and eternal Power from which all things proceed and by which all things are sustained. If the understanding says, "The phenomena are infinite," reason says, "Being is infinite." The poet among the mountains asks the cataract, the pines, the flowers, the eagle, the clouds, the avalanche, the lightning, who made them; and, with one impassioned voice, they all utter forth the name of God. But that eloquent poetry is also the statement of a high philosophy. When Tyndall stood on the summit of the Jungfrau, and, seeing the changes wrought from age to age, asked himself what had caused them, he could only answer, The sun. man of science, that was a sufficient answer. But man as philosopher and man as worshipper, who is equal to man as scientist, cannot stop with that answer. He will ask another question. The sunflowers on earth all turn toward the sun. "But whither," asks Jean Paul, do those flowers point which grow upon the sun itself?" Do they not lift their faces to be kissed by the light from a vaster Sun? The mind cannot avoid asking such questions. It seeks causes. It loves greatness. After laying its measuring-rod upon every

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part of the visible and tangible temple, it will finally go to that place which has an opening toward the Orient, and, forgetting all its measurements, will be filled with amazement and adoration as it beholds the uncreated splendor and hears the uncreated music of Almighty God.

The thought is as old as Plato and the Hebrew prophets, and as new as Goethe and Carlyle, that the world is Deity externalized. It is a revelation made to each prepared and expectant soul. This word of God is not bound. Earth is only one of its pages, the solar system one of its chapters. Science is the study of it, ethics the translation of its commandments into life. Worship is the natural awe and wonder welling up in the soul, when read with reference to its author. Praise is the voice of gladness when the heart sees its goodness. Prayer is the spirit's recognition of the unyielding but beneficent laws pervading and penetrating all things, and the high resolve to range life on their side, and with them conspire to hasten the coming of the Perfect. Faith is the soul's loyalty to the best it sees and the unwavering conviction that, in spite of all delay and each recurring defeat, through the moments and through the millenniums, the divine Providence is advancing to victory.

We are not unaware of the standing objection to this way of thinking. The vagueness of the spiritual, its lack of lucidity, its refusal to be packed in a convenient formula, is so glaring a defect that some regard its claim upon them as an impertinence. What do you know about the Infinite, you dreaming philosopher? What do you know about God, you adoring mystic? The answer must be, Not very much, indeed, not enough to boast of. Then let us hear no more about it. Give your mind to near and concrete things. I have a fine specimen of butterfly through which I have stuck a pin, which I would like to show you. Have you seen a microbe under the glass? How is wheat quoted this morning? This drought will cut down the corn crop forty per cent.

Against this temper of mind not much can be said. One does not like to become the champion of the vague, nor shout his views in the market place or across a

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chasm to those who, if they hear, will answer in half ridicule. So all one can do is to go away in silence, and maintain to him

self that the little he knows, or thinks he knows, about the spiritual life is more precious to him than all the knowledge he may possess concerning the material world which lies around his feet. Better to know a little about the whole earth than to know all about a grain of sand. One flashing moment of intimation that life is immortal is worth more to a soul than threescore years spent in learning all that may be known about dollars. Not much is known of that star called Sirius; yet, when we recall that it is one hundred and twenty-three billions of miles away, and still across that immensity can fling its friendly rays down into our eyes, we bow in humility and wonder. We do not know much about God, but the little we do know compels us to bow in adoration. Our knowledge is not great in quantity, but its quality makes it very impressive.

sea.

It may be further written that the value of art and literature and religion consists in their power to awaken this sentiment in the soul. Art must suggest the ideal. Through the eye it must appeal to the mind. In each picture there must be something more than exactness of detail. Ruskin thinks it must have a place through which the mind can escape into the infinite. The road on the canvas halts, but it must leave suggestions that it leads much farther. The river carries the mind far away from the canvas, down and still down among scenes that are not painted, until it reaches its destiny in the great, solemn The horizon which limits the eye must be not like a stone-wall, but vast, vague, waving, as if blown by the wind that sweeps amid the worlds, not hindering, but inviting the mind to pass into the boundless. The same is true of sculpture; the statue must lead the mind to what it signifies. It is true of poetry; its mission is not to instruct, but to inspire. Of music, also, it is not the exact reproduction of tones that avails; it must interpret meanings to the soul which otherwise could have forever remained unrevealed. Thus the arts are all more than ministers to sense. Their true mission is to lead life upward, and point out the open gate to those realms lying eastward of the sunrise.

One of the mistakes of some who are friendly to religion is to neglect this evident law. They build doctrinal and verbal barriers around, and leave no escape for

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