MR. HINCKLEY then extended the usual word of welcome, after which the following business was transacted:

On motion of SAMUEL PENNOCK, it was voted that MR. HINCKLEY serve the meeting as Presiding Clerk.

It was moved that a committee of three be appointed to audit the Treasurer's account and bring forward names of persons to serve as Recording Clerk and Treasurer.

The Chair appointed the following committee: PATIENCE W. KENT, MRS. LIZZIE HANNUM, and JOSIAH W. PYLE.

The following Business Committee was then elected by nominations from the floor:

CHARLES D. B. MILLS, HENRY S. KENT, MARY T. IVINS, REV. F. E. MASON, GERTRUDE MAGILL, EDITH PENNOCK, ELIZABETH C. HINCKLEY, ABBIE MORTON DIAZ, JENKIN LLOYD JONES, and the Clerks.

SAMUEL PENNOCK stated that it had formerly been the custom for this committee to do part of its work before the meeting, so as to have the programme mapped out, and asked if it would not be well to have the testimonies and resolutions prepared, ready for discussion.

HENRY S. KENT: If any one here wishes to offer any resolutions or testimonies, it is always in order to present them to this committee, and to have them thus brought before the meeting. Years ago there used to be many of these resolutions, nearly every one seeming to have a concern for the welfare of something or some class of people; so we will be very glad to have any testimonies you may see proper to present.

By motion of HENRY S. KENT, the ten-minute rule was adopted for all other than invited guests.

It was decided, through the motion of MARY T. IVINS, that the sessions be held from ten till twelve in the morning, and from two till four in the afternoon.

SAMUEL PENNOCK: Some one in the house, whose pocket is burning with money, has suggested the appointment of a Financial Committee at this time.

On motion, the following were elected a Financial Committee to solicit contributions during the meeting: SARAH C. TAYLOR, SARA CHAMBERS, PATIENCE W. KENT, LILLIAN HANNUM, WILLIAM W. KENT.

PATIENCE W. KENT, of the Auditing Committee, reported the following: For Recording Clerk, ELIZABETH B. PASSMORE; Treasurer, AARON MENDENHALL. This report was adopted. This ending the business part of the programme, FREDERIC A. HINCKLEY delivered the following address:

HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN A MAN GETS RELIGION?

How do we know when a man gets religion? In the first place, what is it he is to get? In the second place, how is he to get it? In the third place, how do we know when he gets it? What is religion? I mean, what is its very substance and self? There have been a great many definitions of it, and the character of these definitions has been constantly undergoing change. When men believed (and they did once so believe) that religion could be monopolized by a little company of people so insignificant in numbers, as compared with the whole world of humanity, that it would take a microscope to see them, when men believed this, religion consisted of possessing something which they and only they possessed. Not so now. There is no denomination to-day, not excepting the Roman Catholic, which does not recognize and respond to the common chord in religion. So that now he who undertakes to define the name and the thing pression of them which shall be universal. infinite variety in matters of detail, he seeks the underlying and fundamental principle. proverb, "Scratch a Russian and you will catch a Tartar." I think when you get within the letter, which often kills, to the spirit, which always giveth life, you find in all modern definitions of religion the same essentials. The choice of phraseology is governed by heredity and environment; it is inevitable and perhaps not undesirable that it should be so. Often, doubt

seeks some exGladly admitting to voice unity in There is an old

less, some of this phraseology runs counter to our prejudices, rubs us, as they say, the wrong way, and so prevents our recognizing the merits of that which it is sought to express through it. Nevertheless, worship of God, search after the true, the beautiful, and the good, enthusiasm for the ideal, "the eternal tendency not ourselves which makes for righteousness," the sense of universal relation,-all these, and many more like them, indicate in the last analysis a common mood. "The something beyond ourselves," which all recognize, the something everywhere present, pervading all objects of all thought, and moving through all things, is the ideal, is the true, the beautiful, and the good, is God. Religion, within the meaning of them all, whatever else it may signify, is the progressive tendency of the whole man towards good and God,that is to say, on the side of action, it is profoundly ethical; on the side of contemplation, it is profoundly spiritual. It is not what a man believes, though this may have some bearing upon it, still less is it what he professes to believe, or deludes himself into thinking he believes (though half the time this is not what he believes at all), but it is what he does and is. It always seems a startling statement to many, but it is perfectly true, and is often enough demonstrated to be true, that church membership is not necessarily an indication of religion, any more than the special claim to the possession of a sound ethical philosophy is necessarily a guarantee of good conduct. Carlyle says, voicing what every person knows, that men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth, or worthlessness, under each or any of them. What a man really lays to heart, what comes to him as an impelling motive towards the better, what uplifts and strengthens and purifies him, what inspires him with a deeper sense of unity, and makes him tread life's ways more lovingly and more reverently, this is his religion.

How does he get it? Certainly not from the say so of somebody else, however great or good that somebody may be; however valuable as a help to it that somebody may be.

Certainly not through argument addressed to the mind, save as that leads to something far deeper than itself. Certainly not by any external process whatsoever, like joining an organization, listening to a sermon, taking part in a service. That old phrase "experiencing religion," divested of the false technicalities with which it has been surrounded, has a wonderful amount of truth in it. A man never gets anything wholly, absolutely, save as he experiences it. Surely he never gets religion, save as he experiences it. It must get into his blood, become a part of the bone and fibre of his being; then he can say, it is mine. Human experience,-not in the sense of a blank piece of paper on which external facts, as they pass us, make their impression, but in the sense of being led of the spirit along that way where we walk to joy that is real, and to sorrow that is real, to relations which are not formal and ceremonial, but have for us the inspiration of life; in a word, to that which becomes of us, and in time is us. Experiencing religion,-what significance those words may come to have! Not now, as the process of a moment, but as the process of a life; not now, through contortions of the body, but through the budding of a soul; not now, under the guidance of some priestly authority, but under the guidance of that which speaks within us, moulding us in irresistible ways, sometimes with gentle, sometimes with what seems harsh handling, but always with infinite wisdom, love, and

care.

Nothing could be more absurd than the claims made for profession as distinguished from life. The deepest experiences are the deepest teachers. A friend said to me the other day -and it seemed to me a beautiful thought-that to him the study of faces had an inexpressible charm. Because the older one grows, so the growth be normal, the more the face shows of mellowness, of the ripened fruitage of character. Such must be, I take it, the influence upon us of the flight of time with all it brings that touches us in the deeps of being. It puts us into tune; it sweetens us; it divinizes our mood. And

we get these results in no other way. Surprise is expressed when a member of some church in good standing does a dishonest or unjust thing, as if such membership were proof positive of a man's uprightness and fair dealing. It is in no sense a crucial test, as the facts warrant me in saying. See your man in some trying position; watch the working of his innermost motives, and learn of what stuff he is made. is to get his religion by developing character, by serving noble ends, by ceaseless effort to better himself and others.

I think the most religious men I have ever known have been singularly free from the bonds of formal statements and professions; their lives too intense to be anything but real. I recall easily John Weiss, a little man of tremendous personal power, whose eloquence struck you sometimes like the sunshine, sometimes like the lightning. Whenever he spoke his whole soul spoke. It was not simply a voice; it was not simply a thought; it was a complete man, fired for some great principle of liberty and love, that warmed us to the white heat of divine resolve. It was because he was an apostle of the religion of the heart, of the brotherhood of man, that he had such power with his fellows. But he did not meet any of the conventional standards. He did not go through any of the conventional processes. He simply felt the impulse which reaches out, and up, and on, and obeys the orders for the day. I recall easily Samuel Johnson, a true prophet of the soul, finely poised to the ideal; a man whose life's business it was to interpret the universal will to man; a man inspired to speak in the name of the ideal and to summon humanity to its service. He could have said with Jesus at any time, had not his own modesty forbidden it, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth,"-not a fraction of the truth, as exemplified in some one sectarian or reformatory movement, but the truth, exact and unqualified, in all its cosmic beauty and wholeness. But he could not answer the roll-call of any one of the creeds. He stood alone, walking at last, in the solitude