We think Religion belongs in the legislative hall and the executive mansion; in the counting-room and the work-shop; in all the every day relations of men and women. To such Religion we would summon the Nation, and pledge anew our own unceasing loyalty. MRS. CARRIE L. COGGINS, of Philadelphia, then read the following paper, entitled: THE GROUND OF AN OPTIMIST'S FAITH. The pessimist's creed, if he have one, must run, I take it, something like this: "This is a bad world it couldn't be much worse. It is growing no better, probably is growing worse. There is no certainty of any future life,and it is just as well. there isn't, if it is no better than this one," or to this effect,but I think this will be acknowledged to be about the substance of it, At first glance this may seem a comparatively harmless sort of a belief, but in truth it is doubtful if there is to be found among the accepted creeds-false and harmful as many of them are any one quite as bad as is this unwritten and unauthorized one of the pessimist. It is generally claimed that it is deduced from certain external and acknowledged facts, such as the existence of evil in the world, sickness and pain, want and crime, hate-breeding inequalities, injustice and oppression. But, in fact, it can usually be traced to the aimlessness, or the faithlessness of the pessimist himself. A person, with an aim in life, even if it be not a distinctly lofty one, cannot work on a creed like this. Optimism is the energizing power that underlies all our activities. Indeed it is had to believe in the out and out pessimist, because all life and action, and energy are essentially optimistic. We can scarcely conceive of action. based on despair. Even in an extremity, such as suicide, we cannot but see that back of the action must have been some hope unfathomable by us. The natural association between Optimism and action is shown by Goethe when he says: "Work and despair not." We cannot work and despair at the same time. Again, by Longfellow, when he says: "Act, act in the living present, Heart within and God o'erhead," Did not Longfellow know that we must take heart and feel God o'erhead, before we could act? Right action then may be the cure for pessimism, as it undoubtedly is the natural, happy outcome of Optimism. But that the unexplained existence of the facts referred to, namely: the presence of evil in its many manifestations, does furnish a pretext for the pessimist and his belief we cannot deny. Perhaps this is the reason that a line of optimists, down through the ages, from the Hebrew religious poets to the scientific and religious John Fiske of to-day, have struggled with the mystery of good and evil, seeking a solution that shall be at once creditable to God and hopeful and comforting to man. At any rate, so great is the value of the optimistic outlook over the universe that we do well to keep pace with those who are seeking to remove for us the stumbling blocks which lie in the way of Faith. Beginning with the negative side of our subject we may find a lesson concerning doubt in Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia." Prince Guatama the Sidartha of the poem-bearing in his own breast the woes of the world it is his mission to save, being now warned that the hour is come, for which the "ages have waited," is led unto the "Tree of Wisdom" beneath whose leaves "it was ordained" that that "Light" should come to him, the promulgation of which by him, is so fully celebrat ed in the poem. Here he was to battle and to overcome; and the Prince of Darkness, we are told, gave command unto all his evil powers, who trooped from every deepest pit-the fiends who war with wisdom and with "Light." Second only to the sin of self,came Doubt-"he that denies," he that teaches that "all is mockery and vanity" and that "there is no help for man." Vanquishing him, the Buddha names him as "the subtlest of man's foes." And have we not found him so? Because from the combat with him we have come forth, stronger and better is he any the less a foe? Evil is still evil and as such to be fought, even though good makes it ever a means to greater good. Right here, however, we must make a notable exception. Doubt, the intellectual weapon without which the world would stand still, is surely no foe to man. It combats not goodness, not belief in the integrity of the universe and God, but seeks only to destroy the false, the error that blocks our pathway; the doubt that tests and proves, that detects and rejects error and prepares for the incoming of newer, larger constructive faith. Doubt is a destroyer, yet let him not destroy for us the good and the happiness that are onr inheritance and for which we strive. "The only heresy we know anything about," says a modern writer, "is the heresy of standing still." And truly we have need of the weapon Doubt that we may clear a pathway and not stand still; but we dare not doubt that good to which we tend To doubt God, to doubt man, to doubt our better selves: these are the fatal sins. Nor have we any reason to doubt, though the human mind is so constituted that it requires arguments and proofs, even when presumptive evidence is strong on the side to which our hopes cling. And arguments we have, plenty of them; proofs they may be or may not be, according as this mind or that judges of what is proof. The many who claim the pre-eminence of John Fiske as a man, exact and conscientious in science as he is faithful to religion as the highest study to which we are called, will think with him when he says: "Modern Science justifies us in believing in the ever-living, unchangeable and allwise Heavenly Father in whom we may declare our trust without the faintest trace of mental reservation." His argument supporting this view, though very much abbreviated here is as follows: "All consciousness is based upon change and contrast. If there were no color but red it would be the same as if there were no color at all. If we knew but one sound we would know no sound. If we had never felt physical pain we could not recognize physical pleasure; and it follows, that without knowing that which is morally evil we could not recognize that which is morally good In a sinless and painless world the moral element would be lacking. Therefore we are brought to the conclusion that in a happy world there must be sorrow and pain and in a moral world the knowledge of evil is indispensable. Evil has not been interpolated into the universe from without, but is a necessary part of the whole. God is the creator of evil and character could not have been possible without it. Through some all-wise purpose sin was permitted to come into the world, but the fulfilment of that purpose demands that sin be not cherished but suppressed." An evolutionary process is here discovered: the moral evil being shown as the lower state of living as looked at from the higher State, and as man comes nearer God. Mr. Fiske concludes that evil will lapse into a mere memory. Against the dark background of struggle with sin, will be set the eternal joys of Heaven. This epitome of Mr. Fiske's latest contribution to the optimistic thought of the day, shows the grounds for his optimism, and in view of his admiration of the old cry: "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him," we may trace his descent through a long line of glorious optimistic ancestors. Another line of optimistic heredity we may trace from Plato to the Christian Scientists. Says Plato : * * * "God is not the author of all things, as the many assert, but of the good alone'; of the evils. the cause is to be sought elsewhere, not in Him." For a sharp contrast of high authorities we can ask nothing more than these two views, and they are both with us to-day; for John Fiske and Science to the contrary it is yet being taught by many the world over, and being believed, also, that God knows no evil. Both are phases of optimistic belief, and if there were scores of others, backed with arguments fitted to appeal to the various minds of men, I for one should be glad to know of them, for they are all based on belief in God's goodness and teach us trust in Him. The optimism of our poets is something not to be passed by in this connection. Brown ing's optimism appeals especially to many. So with. Tennyson, Wordsworth and Whittier. But any list of names only invites the addition of others. Robert Louis Stevenson will have it that pain and sin, as well as joy, are instruments in the hand of the surgeon. In his little poem, "The Celestial Surgeon," he says: "If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness, Choose thou, before that spirit die, And to my dead heart run them in." To quote Fiske again, “ever since human intelligence became enlightened enough to grope for a meaning and a purpose in life, this problem of the existence of Evil has been the burden of man." So we need not wonder that the poets and philosophers of to-day bring their solutions, hoping that in some new view we may find the explanation we seek. But so many and so various are these views that we are forced to conclude with Professor C. C. Everett that "The use of an argument is that it leads our thought to something that is accepted without argument." We are so much a part of God and of life that in the nature of things we have certain convictions, and these constitute a reason which judges argument if it be right or wrong. Upon such convictions rests our optimistic faith. At any rate the bases of faith are inherent. The fundamental principles of being are always inherent. No amount of earth or water or sunshine can make a plant or a tree. These can only nurture. To use another, and I think a great thougnt of Mr. Everett's: "The judgment in re |